Anzac and Aviator

Author: Michael Molkentin
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1742696457
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 571

Book Description
'He was courageous. He was ambitious. He was skilled. He was visionary. He could be ruthless. He was someone born of a new nation. But he was of a time now long past. And yet in the language of a later generation it could be said he had the "right stuff" . . . Michael Molkentin captures [Ross Smith] brilliantly.' - Andy Thomas, NASA Astronaut (Retired) In the smouldering aftermath of the First World War a young Australian pilot and his crew prepare to attempt the inconceivable: a flight, halfway around the globe, from England to Australia. The 18,000 kilometre odyssey will take 28 days and test these men and their twin-engine biplane to the limit. It is a trans-continental feat that will change the world and bring the air age to Australia. It will also prove to be the culminating act in the extraordinary and tragically brief life of its commander, Captain Sir Ross Smith. Raised on a remote sheep station in the dying days of Australia's colonial frontier, there was little in Ross Smith's childhood that suggested a future as one of the world's great pioneering aviators. He went to war in 1914, serving with the light horse at Gallipoli and in the Sinai before volunteering for the fledgling Australian Flying Corps. In a new dimension of warfare, Ross Smith survived two gruelling years of aerial combat over Palestine to emerge as one of the most skilled and highly decorated Australian pilots of the war. In 1919 he was a pilot on the first ever mission to survey an air route from Cairo to the East Indies, before gaining international fame as the winner of the government's £10,000 prize for leading the first aircrew to fly from England to Australia. His attempt to exceed this by circumnavigating the world by air in 1922 would end in disaster. Drawing on the rich and extensive collection of Ross Smith's private papers, Anzac & Aviator tells, for the first time, the gripping story of a remarkable aviator, the extraordinary times in which he lived and the air race that changed the world. 'Standing with Lindbergh, Earhart and Kingsford Smith as one of the greatest pioneers of the air, Sir Ross Smith's life is brilliantly captured in this compelling biography.' - Richard Champion de Crespigny AM, bestselling author and captain of QF32

Australian Perspectives on Global Air and Space Power

Author: Nicole Townsend
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000844803
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Book Description
This book surveys historical and emerging global air and space power issues and provides a multidisciplinary understanding of the application of air and space power in the past and present, while exploring potential future challenges that global air forces may face. Bringing together leading and emerging academics, professionals, and military personnel from Australia within the field of air and space power, this edited collection traces the evolution of technological innovations, as well as the ethical and cultural frameworks which have informed the development of air and space power in the 20th and 21st centuries, and contemplates the future. It covers topics such as the insurgents' use of drones, the ethics of air strikes, the privatisation of air power, the historical trajectory of air power strategy, and the sociological implications of an ‘air force’ identity. While many of the chapters use Australian-based case studies for their analysis, they have broader applicability to a global readership, and several chapters examine other nations’ experiences, including those of the United States and the United Kingdom. This accessible, illuminating book is an important addition to contemporary air and space power literature, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of air and space power, air warfare, military and international history, defence studies, and contemporary strategic studies, as well as military professionals.

Flying the Southern Cross

Author: Michael Molkentin
Publisher: National Library Australia
ISBN: 064227746X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
In 1928, Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm made the first trans-Pacific flight in the Southern Cross - an aircraft constructed largely of wood and fabric. They made the trip from Oakland, California, in nine days, during which they faced electrical storms, torrential rain, equipment failure, and fuel shortages. Navigational aids were primitive - contact with the outside world was by Morse code only - and safety measures were non-existent. After many close calls, they triumphantly landed in Brisbane, where a crowd of 15,000 welcomed them as heroes. Throughout this extraordinary journey, Ulm kept a logbook in which he recorded his raw impressions of the flight. Using Ulm's logbook, plus contemporary newspaper accounts and official documents, Flying the Southern Cross tells the gripping tale of this history-making flight, and the aviators who made it happen.

Antarctica's Lost Aviator

Author: Jeff Maynard
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 164313096X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 373

Book Description
By the 1930s, no one had yet crossed Antarctica, and its vast interior remained a mystery frozen in time. Hoping to write his name in the history books, wealthy American Lincoln Ellsworth announced he would fly across the unexplored continent. The main obstacles to Ellsworth’s ambition were numerous: he didn’t like the cold, he avoided physical work, and he couldn’t navigate. Consequently, he hired the experienced Australian explorer, Sir Hubert Wilkins, to organize the expedition on his behalf. While Ellsworth battled depression and struggled to conceal his homosexuality, Wilkins purchased a ship, hired a crew, and ordered a revolutionary new airplane constructed. The Ellsworth Trans-Antarctic Expeditions became epics of misadventure, as competitors plotted to beat Ellsworth, crews mutinied, and the ship was repeatedly trapped in the ice. A few hours after taking off in 1935, radio contact with Ellsworth was lost and the world gave him up for dead. Antarctica’s Lost Aviator brings alive one of the strangest episodes in polar history, using previously unpublished diaries, correspondence, photographs, and film to reveal the amazing true story of the first crossing of Antarctica and how, against all odds, it was achieved by the unlikeliest of heroes.

Aircraft of The Royal Australian Air Force

Author: Air Force History Branch
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1922488046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 644

Book Description
Aircraft of The Royal Australian Air Force tells the story of the RAAF’s first one hundred years by describing the acquisition, operation, and service record of the multitude of aircraft types flown by the RAAF. The 176 aircraft types include the flimsy wood and canvas aircraft typical of World War I, through the technological advances during and after World War II, to modern fifth-generation, complex aircraft like the F-35 Lightning II. Even before its formation Sir Richard Williams, the Father of the RAAF, had decided to employ an alpha-numeric numbering system to identify and account for each aircraft in service. This system started with A1, A2, A3 etc as each type of aircraft came into service. Each individual aircraft within each series was identified as A1-1, A1-2 and so on and the aircraft serial became known colloquially as the ‘A-number’. With some exceptions over the century since the A-number system started, aircraft entered RAAF service in broadly the sequence of the A-numbers, and so this book is intended to assist in charting the 100-year history of the RAAF by listing aircraft operated in A-number sequence, rather than by listing them by role (such as Fighter, Bomber, Maritime, Trainer, Transport etc) or alphabetically by name or by manufacturer. The inclusion of a comprehensive Index and the Quick Reference Guide to aircraft by role is intended to facilitate the location of the entry for any specific type of aircraft for those who may not already know its A-number. Aircraft of The Royal Australian Air Force is a must have for all those who have served in the RAAF, those with a passion for military aviation and aircraft in general, and the broader members of the public wishing to gain an appreciation of the Royal Australian Air Force in its centenary year.

Reconsidering Europeanization

Author: Florian Greiner
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110685477
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438

Book Description
This pertinent and highly original volume explores how ideas of Europe and processes of continental political, socio-economic, and cultural integration have been intertwined since the nineteenth century. Applying a wider definition of Europeanization in the sense of "becoming European", it will pay equal attention to counter-processes of disentanglement and disintegration that have accompanied, slowed down, or displaced such trends and developments. By focusing on the practices, agents, and experience of Europeanization, the volume strives to bring together the history of ideas and the history of human actions and conduct, two approaches that are usually treated separately in the field of European studies.

Aviators of the Charles Ulm and Kingsford Smith Era

Author: Bob Boulton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aeronautics
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description

Vera Deakin and the Red Cross

Author: Carole Woods
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781875173105
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This is a biography of Vera Deakin, daughter of the Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, focussing on her work with the Australian Red Cross. At the outbreak of war she gave up her musical studies to initiate the Wounded and Missing Inquiry Bureau of the Red Cross in Cairo and later in London. After the War she championed the needs of limbless veterans. During the Second World War Vera undertook similar work in Melbourne for the Red Cross. She was also involved in other Melbourne charities and welfare bodies, including the Children's hospital and Yooralla.

15 Minute Fillers

Author: Mary Serenc
Publisher: Ready-Ed Publications
ISBN: 1863975543
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 56

Book Description
15 Minute Fillers is an invaluable multi-purpose resource book of quick ideas for relief and general classroom teachers in middle to upper primary school. Its content is of high interest and integrates and covers many of the Key Learning Areas including English, Mathematics, Science, Humanities, The Arts and Technology. 15 Minute Fillers contains detailed teachers’ notes and ideas, many with accompanying worksheets. Little preparation is necessary to implement the activities.

A Dictionary of Military and Technological Abbreviations and Acronyms

Author: Bernhard Pretz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000370607
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 1115

Book Description
This book, first published in 1983, is a compilation of some 50,000 acronyms and abbreviations used by the British, American, German and Soviet military. It enables the researcher to understand the language of the Armed Forces, their armaments and the related technology, and to reach a greater understanding of the capabilities and duties of the Armed Forces at the end of the Cold War. The Dictionary covers all the services and their technology, and is an indispensable reference work.