An Aussie pilot is recreating a century-old journey round Australia in a seaplane, with a map detailing his wild itinerary as he soars from city to city within the historic footsteps of air pressure pilots.
Michael Smith departed Melbourne final Saturday, on the primary leg of a 50-day journey to circumnavigate the nation.
The historic journey was first undertaken by pilots in 1924 by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
Following a two day relaxation cease in Townsville, Mr Smith departed for Cooktown on Saturday marking the tip of the primary week of his roughly 15,000 km journey.
He plans to achieve the Northern Territory by April 23, earlier than making 10 stops down alongside the Western Australian shoreline, three in South Australia, and ending up again in Melbourne on May 19.
Mr Smith joked he was trying ahead to seeing the nation’s iconic seashores at 500ft.
“It’s so important to recognise the mechanised apparatus that made Australian life possible,” he mentioned.
“Still today there are towns where their mail and milk are delivered by plane.”
Mr Smith is because of contact down on Thursday Island, in Far North Queensland, within the coming week.
He will make comparable scheduled stops throughout the coast, together with in Darwin on April 24, Broome in WA on April 28, then hug the shoreline via to South Australia in early May.
The aerial adventurer is because of end his journey in Melbourne – the very place he took off from – on May 19.
The journey bought off to a rocky begin, with Mr Smith sharing an replace on Tuesday from Myall Lake in NSW to say he hit some poor climate close to Yarram.
“After a couple of hours it looked like it was going to be pretty clear down the coast so I thought ‘OK we’ll give this a go’,” He mentioned.
“But after half an hour I could see it wasn’t looking good … So I could see that Bairnsdale was going to be the best place to go.
“Thank goodness I did because as I was taxiing towards the hanger and it just opened up and then it bucketed down all night.”
The journey marks a 100 12 months reflection of the RAAF’s first circumnavigation of the nation in 1924, which delivered the primary aerial survey of Australia’s shoreline.
The adventurer was named Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year in 2016 after solo circumnavigating the globe in a single-engine seaplane.
His journey is being monitored with live-streaming from the air on-line on the Southern Sun web site.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
