Come Fly With Me
In this year of turmoil and tragedy, Australia has missed out on Qantas’ 100th birthday party. A three-part SBS documentary series promises to put wrongs to right.
In this year of turmoil and tragedy, Australia has missed out on a 100th birthday party, celebrating the founding of the world’s safest airline, Qantas. But a three-part SBS documentary series, Australia Come Fly With Me, promises to put wrongs to right.
Much more than a history of one airline, the show sweeps across the century of civil aviation. Piloting the series is actress-singer-TV host Justine Clarke (Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Home and Away, The Time of Our Lives and Play School), who says making the program was exhilarating.
“I loved learning about the daredevils and dreamers who made flying possible — pilots who risked their lives, women who refused to accept the status quo and migrants who were making this country home.”
Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services was registered on November 16, 1920, but moved its base from Winton to Longreach (pictured), in Queensland’s west, the following year. It offered its first mail and passenger service from there to Cloncurry in 1922.
There were other great pioneers of aviation. Charles Kingsford Smith made the first flight across the Pacific from the US to Australia. “Hello Aussies, my kingdom for a smoke,” Smithy greeted an adoring crowd after one epic adventure.
The series recounts victories such as that of Deborah Wardley (now Lawrie), who won a landmark sex discrimination case in the 1970s to become the first woman pilot of a major Australian airline. Aviation boss Reg Ansett had determined females weren’t fit to fly planes. The High Court found otherwise.
The program also captures the anecdotes of many who found freedom in the glamorous lifestyle of the skies, including the hosties and stewards (many of whom were gay men), affectionately known as trolley dollies.
Flying liberated Australia from the tyranny of distance, but COVID brought it to a full stop. The series explores what the lasting effect might be.
Graham Erbacher
