By PRATHAMESH DESHPANDE
Photos: Hayden McDonald/Supplied
Esperance locals may have noticed a silver seaplane land in the Esperance Bay yesterday afternoon.
It was pilot and adventurer Michael Smith in his modern seaplane “Southern Sun” stopping-off on his flight around the Australian coastline.
According to his flight schedule, he set out from Point Cook, Victoria on April 6 and was scheduled to end the trip there on Sunday, with Esperance being the 21st of 27 planned stops.
Mr Smith said he was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first circumnavigation of Australia by an aeroplane.
“It was done in 1924 by the Royal Australian Air Force in a seaplane because there weren’t enough runways to land it,” he said.
“They literally followed the coastline all the way around and to commemorate that I’m retracing the trip that they did 100 years later to the day.
“We’ve researched the trip and got a map of where they went; I’m going to all the towns and cities that they did — a hundred years later.”
Mr Smith said he had previously done several such “heritage trips” and explained it was the need to celebrate “what happened back then” that inspired his latest adventure.
He said he faced challenges similar to those people who had undertaken the trip 100 years earlier.
“The difficulties I faced are exactly the same two difficulties that they faced 100 years ago — weather and maintenance; that hasn’t changed,” he said.
“The planes are much more reliable now, but I still had a couple of maintenance issues to deal with along the way, but the big one’s weather.
“When you get low cloud, rain, and bad weather, small plans can’t fly; interestingly all the places they had problems, I had problems 100 years later since I’m doing it the same dates that they did it.
“In some ways, it’s amazing how consistently disappointing the weather is.”
Mr Smith said he had a key message in undertaking this adventure.
“They did the first flight to prove it could be done; they surveyed the countryside to see where we should build runways,” he explained.
“One of the great nation building projects of Australia was when we then built a network of runways all over this country.”
Mr Smith said he believed no other mechanical device had more impact on Australian lives than the aeroplane.
He cited the Royal Flying Doctor Service as a lifesaving resource and the importance of flights for mail deliveries in remote towns, providing other essential services to people living, and working in regional areas and facilitating holiday travel for everyone.
“All of these small airfields that started around the country are incredibly important,” Mr Smith said.
“It’s disappointing that 100 years later, we often hear about the pressures of government to sell them for land, close them down, or try to build shopping centres on the edges of them.
“We need to realise that these are incredibly valuable assets, and you can’t put a dollar figure on it; they are essential for life in this country when we face a tyranny of distance every day.” Mr Smith’s next scheduled stop was Israelite Bay in Esperance where he was expected to fly on Wednesday.
