A Qantas 747 Jumbo had made an experimental flight without a break to Sydney in 1999, but QF9 from Perth to London was the first flight of a regular non-stop service between Australia and England. Alan Joyce was right: for Australians at least, the new 14,498km route was a major step forward in global interconnectedness.
Stepping back almost 100 years to the dawn of long-distance aviation, the first aircraft to fly between the two countries took roughly 40 times longer than QF9 to complete a comparable journey from London to Darwin. But rather than being a mere game-changer for 1919, that first flight was a monumental groundbreaker, arguably one of the greatest single advances in aviation history. Andy Thomas, Australian astronaut and veteran of four space missions for NASA, describes the 1919 feat as the “moon landing of its day”. Yet the Australians who first flew halfway around the planet are today unjustly absent from the pantheon of national heroes, and, beyond the ken of aviation historians, their daring deeds are often overlooked.
PRIME MINISTER Billy Hughes claimed to speak for “60,000 dead” Australians at the end of World War I in 1918. Through that battlefield blood sacrifice, Australia was, at Hughes’s insistence, entitled to its own seat at the diplomatic table, a seat he himself would occupy. While peace negotiations proceeded through early 1919 at Versailles, the pugnacious and energetic Hughes was flown back and forth from London to Paris in a converted Handley Page bomber.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November - December 2019 من Australian Geographic Magazine.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November - December 2019 من Australian Geographic Magazine.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Loveday Internment Camp, SA A
DURING WORLD WAR II, civilians n Australia deemed \"enemy aliens\" - mostly those of German, Italian and Japanese descent were housed in internment camps.
THE STORYTELLERS OF THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
More than 100 dedicated Master Reef Guides are sharing the GBR's most important stories with visitors in a bid to inspire its greater protection.
A BEAUTIFUL DISASTER
Does last summer's mass coral bleaching event sound a death knell for Australia's beloved Great Barrier Reef? \"Not on my watch!\" is the message coming from he army of heartbroken, but resolute, marine scientists who've responded to the crisis by doubling down on their research.
AROUND AUSTRALIA IN 44 DAYS
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first aerial circumnavigation of Australia. Aviator Michael Smith retraces the flight in his unique amphibious flying boat, Southern Sun, starting and finishing at RAAF Base Point Cook, on Melbourne's Port Phillip, taking in 15,000km of vast, diverse and stunning coastline in between.
CLEAR-CUTTING KOALA COUNTRY
More than 3000sq.km of forests on NSW's Mid North Coast have been earmarked for the Great Koala National Park. But there's still work to be done before this proposed reserve becomes the safe haven koalas desperately need.
MORE THAN QUOKKAS
Sure, you can't avoid those cute little marsupials that made Rottnest Island world-famous, but there's so much more to life on this ocean-ringed jewel off the Western Australian coast.
A WILD POLO TUSSLE
It's an event reminiscent of a Banjo Paterson poem. For 35 years, in the High Country 200km east of Melbourne, city polo players have gathered annually at Cobungra, Victoria's largest cattle station, to vie with a rural team for the Dinner Plain Polo Cup.
Ancient know-how meets a modern challenge
Contemporary marine park management is infused with traditional knowledge to tackle new threats on the Great Barrier Reef.
LOOKING FOR TJAKURA
The search is on across Australia's deserts for a culturally important vulnerable lizard.
RESCUING THE CHUDITCH
After intensive planning, recovery for this endangered marsupial species is being stepped up to secure its future.
