Dick Smith to outlay $1m for England-Australia air race

Dick Smith is planning an air race from England to Australia to spur innovation in electric-powered aeroplanes.

Crews from the 1919 England-Australia air race.

Dick Smith is looking to draw government support for an air race from England to Australia designed to spur innovation in electric-powered aeroplanes.

The colourful businessman is willing to put up $1 million to fund the contest, which could be timed to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the first ­England to Australia Air Race.

In 1919, Australian prime min­ister Billy Hughes and his defence minister George Pearce concocted the idea to offer £10,000 for the first Australian to fly from England to Australia using a plane constructed within the British Empire.

The event drew six competitors but only one — headed by captain Ross Smith and his brother Keith as navigator — finished within the allotted 30-day time limit. The only other plane to complete the journey took 206 days, but the event was deemed a success because the 27-day, 20-hour effort by the Smiths was extraordinary at the time.

Fifteen years later the MacRobertson air race saw the journey completed in just three days. It is that kind of progress Dick Smith appears desperate to achieve with electric air travel.

“I have this idea to repeat the race 100 years later — but this time put a different angle on it, that it’s the fastest plane that can get from England to Australia that is electrically powered,” Smith wrote in a letter to Innovation Minister Christopher Pyne and Major Projects Minister Paul Fletcher. “At the present time this just can’t be done, as the greatest range aeroplane is about 300 nautical miles and the pilot would need at least 400 to fly from Timor to Australia.”

He declared a willingness to stump up as much as $1m in prizemoney or sponsorship. Unlike the original race it would not be limited to Aust­ralians.

Smith’s push for the race comes as the high-profile Solar Impulse 2 aircraft prepares to ­resume its interrupted around-the-world voyage.

The solar-powered plane has been out of operation for nine months after a record-breaking flight from Japan to Hawaii, which took ­almost five days and caused ­significant damage to the plane’s battery.