Bert Hinkler Incidents of my flight.
I hate making speeches or addresses and it is not an easy job to describe my flight from England to Australia because the papers have told you practically everything there is to be told about it. You know all about my great little bus and how I managed to make good time and get through with everything in tip-top order and condition.
Now that the job is done I can best bring to mind the highlights of the trip. What appeared to me to be the big things.
There was the start. It was one of those grey murky mornings when I hopped off from Croydon Aerodrome in England, but the warmth of my fellow flyers’ good wishes and the knowledge that I had the most trustworthy bus and engine in the world, dispelled any qualms I may have had. Then, to make Rome in a day’s non-stop flying was a jolly good augury. I felt that everything was going to turn out all right.
It was a dreary job flying over the 400-odd miles of practically unbroken desert to Basra. It was anything but comfortable when I struck the big jungle fire on the way to Rangoon. And I don’t mind admitting that the storms I ran into over the Malay Peninsula and the Dutch East Indies were not the best companions in the air.
These were the bad times, but they were in the minority. All things considered, the going was mighty good. I can assure those unacquainted with flying that to sit in the snug little cockpit, to see the world rolling away below, and hear the sweet even note of the engine – well, to me, flying, this is the salt of life. You have every faith in your bus, the compass points the way. And you know that at every landing place along the route, there are friends to meet you. There is a wonderful bond of friendship amongst flyers, a kind of fellowship of the air. And that is one reason why flying is such a wonderful thing.
But I’m getting off the track a bit. At dawn on February the 22nd, I took off from Bima on my last hop of 900 miles to Darwin. I had had a rotten night. Those mosquitos at Bima are the world’s worst. I can sleep in most places and at most times, but those ‘squitos were just too much for me.
Anyway, the Avian was unaffected, the Cirrus ran perfectly the whole way and the job was a most enjoyable success. Of course, I was pleased. It was good to be able to do something for one’s country. I tried, I succeeded. That my fellow Australians appreciated my effort makes me the happier.
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