Welcome to the Dick Smith adventure site

Electric Air Race Trophy

In 1919, the Australian Government offered a prize for the first Australians in a British aircraft to fly from England to Australia.  The race was won by brothers Ross and Keith Smith in their Vickers Vimy, who completed the flight in 29 days.  The only other aircraft to finish the race was a DH9 flown by Ray Parer and John McIntosh. Their epic flight in a single engine aircraft took 206 days.

Dick Smith is now offering a trophy for the first electrically powered aircraft to complete the flight from England to Australia. 

Dick Smith said, “The rules are simple – fly an electrically powered aircraft from England to Darwin in the spirit of the 1919 Vickers Vimy flight.”

“The first one to do it gets the beautiful trophy, which is an original sculpture by Linda Klarfeld worth $22,000.”

Linda is one of the best known figurative sculptures in Australia, having made over 40 bronze monuments around Australia, and being the first female sculptor in Australian history to be commissioned to make sculptures for the Prime Ministers Avenue.

The Lightning Woman trophy depicts a stylised woman on the tip of her toe above a representation of the glove, with her fingertips reaching towards Darwin. A neon green lightning bolt beside her lights up across the globe.

Here are links to a couple of articles about the race and the trophy.

The Australian – “Dick Smith’s reward for the first person to fly an electric plane from England to Australia”

Australian Flying – “Dick Smith puts up Trophy for UK-Darwin Electric Flight”

Dick Smith – My Adventurous Life

Dick Smith’s autobiography is available through book sellers such as Booktopia and Amazon.  It has been produced as a hard cover, paperback, Kindle and audio book.  The book won the prestigious Australian Book Industry of Awards “Biography of the Year” on 9 June 2022!

For those who purchased the audio book, click here to see the map and click on the following two links to see Photos Part 1 and Photos Part 2 from the book.

On page 24 of my biography “My Adventurous Life” I talk about the Cadets, including the comment that we had to “stab a chaff-filled bag with our bayonets and imagine it was the enemy.”  It has been pointed out to me by my friend Rick Landers of North Sydney Tech that in those days we didn’t have bayonets, so that couldn’t have happened.  It is clearly a case of false memory.

Dick Smith’s favourite documentary

Dick Smith’s favourite documentary is the Great Aussie Balloon Race. Watch it at this link! (46 minutes).