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England to Australia Flight
Part IV: Weather
by Peter McMillan
We could not guess that in the coming weeks we'd face
torrential downpours, blazing heat, dust storms, and an
outbreak of the plague. Our route would follow that of
the original flight — south-east across France, Italy,
and Greece to Egypt.
Then we'd go east across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar,
the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Pakistan to India,
before turning south through Bangladesh, Myanmar (formally
Burma), Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore to Indonesia
and, finally, eastward again to Australia. Shell had agreed
to make gasoline available at designated stops, just as
it had for the 1919 flight.
A dense fog had cloaked the snow-covered field at Hounslow,
England, on the wintry morning of 12 November, 1919, when
Ross Smith and his crew prepared to leave. The weather
had been declared Class V, or "totally unfit for
flying." But for 26-year old Ross Smith, a fearless
aviator who'd flown for Lawrence of Arabia during the
1918 campaign against the Turks in the Middle East, a
little bad weather was nothing to stand in his way.
We also ran into stormy weather over France, getting
thoroughly soaked in the Vimy's open cockpits. Fighting
a strong headwind, we could make only 43 knots, or 50
miles an hour. Then the big plane's nose began to dip
and rise like a sailboat in high seas, and bam, bam, bam,
our wings were slapped down by the wind, first on the
left then on the right. The wheel was practically snatched
out of Lang's hands. The sky darkened to an evil brown,
lightning flashed all around, and the rain slashed down.
We were already behind schedule by Day 3, when we arrived
in Pisa, Italy. When we tried to depart the next morning,
we ran into severe headwinds again along the coast. Our
ground speed at one point was down to 20mph. As we flew
above a road, we noticed a small red car pass us, then
stop at a kerbside fruit stand, where the driver hopped
out to make a purchase. I saw him return to his car, get
in, and drive off again, and we still hadn't caught up
with him.
"We'll never get anywhere at this rate," Lang
said, so we returned to Pisa's Galileo Airport. There
Dan Nelson and Mark Rebholz, the project's logistics manager,
tied the biplane down with a dozen ropes. Lang and I went
to consult with General Domenico Mazza of the Italian
Air Force, commander of the military side of the airport.
When we returned, the wind was blasting across the tarmac.
The Vimy, which lifts off at about 45 miles an hour, was
straining to leave the ground by herself.
"Find some sandbags to hold her down," shouted
Dan, who was hanging onto the outer strut on the starboard
wing.
"And put covers on the cockpits," Mark yelled.
"It's getting ready to pour."
As the gusts rose to 50 miles an hour, I grabbed onto
a strut on the port wing, while Mark and Major Mike Reynolds,
pilot of the Nomad, our camera plane — on loan from the
Australian Army — held fast to the starboard wing. Then
a black wall of water swept over us, the winds howled,
light posts swayed, and a few small trees were sucked
out of the ground.
"I don't know how much longer we can hold on,"
shouted Lang, clinging to the Vimy's tail with Joe Stancampiano,
the Geographic's photo technician. "If the gusts
get any stronger, something's going to break loose."
After 20 minutes, however, the winds eased up. We had
to make a decision. General Mazza had offered to let us
put the Vimy in a hangar a mile away on the other side
of the field. But that meant untying her and taking the
chance of getting caught in the open by a second, rapidly
approaching squall line.
"We'll be lucky if we get ten minutes," I said,
looking at the boiling black clouds in the distance.
"Let's make a dash for it," said Lang. He hopped
in to the cockpit and taxied the Vimy across the tarmac,
while Dan and I rode on her lower wings. As we pushed
the plane backward into the hangar, another wall of water
hit.
Within 15 minutes the winds were roaring at 75 miles
an hour, snapping in two a nearby construction crane and
tearing part of a roof from the cathedral next to the
Leaning Tower. The Vimy would never have stood a chance.
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