Transatlantic | England to Australia | London to Cape Town
 

England to Australia

Articles

Part I: The Vimy Flies Again

Part II: Building an Authentic Vimy

Part III: The Trip Begins

Part IV: Weather

Part V: Trouble in Egypt

Part VI: The Desert

Part VII: Problems and More Problems

Part VIII: Crash Landing!

Part IX: New Engine

Part X: Australia



 

England to Australia

All of Sumatra appeared to be on fire. From one end of the Indonesian island to the other, farmers were burning the jungle and rice fields for planting.

So much smoke filled the air we could hardly see the ground 2,000 feet below as we desperately searched for a place to land. Our twin-engine biplane, a replica of the open cockpit, World War I era Vickers Vimy bomber, was going down. - Peter McMillan

So begins Peter McMillan's book, The Greatest Flight, which chronicled his journey with Lang Kidby from England to Australia in a Vickers Vimy biplane in 1994. The book, with incredible photographs by National Geographic photographer Jim Stanfield, details every aspect of the flight, from preparation to landing, and provides an account of the original England to Australia flight in 1919.

The articles in this section summarize Peter's account of the trip with excerpts from his May 1995 National Geographic article.

©1999-2001 Vimy Restorations, Inc.

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