Bringing Home the Bear
In 1919 Prime Minister Billy Hughes, sensing the important role aviation may one day have for his young nation, put up a challenge, aimed squarely at the wiley Australia pilot service men waiting to return home from The Great War. He put up a £10,000 prize for the first to fly from the UK to Australia, open to land and seaplanes. Multiple parties set out and the Great Air Race turned out to be demanding, difficult and was finished by few.
Ultimately no seaplanes participated in 1919, yet with the new Southern Sun flying boat in Russia needing to be brought home, retracing the historic 1919 Vicker’s Vimy flight led by brothers Keith and Ross Smith, winners of the Great Air Race, from London to Darwin, was an exciting opportunity that played to my love of historic routes.
“It was the weirdest feeling as we descended through sea level on the altimeter”
The new plane is a SeaBear amphibian Southern Sun, an all composite modern flying boat built in Samara, Russia. Deploying Rotax 915 engines with Airmaster constant speed props, she has 4+2 seats, an empty weight of 1100 kg and max take off of 1800 kg and is quite the spirited performer. With a 120 KTAS cruise and a better power-to weight-ratio than my Searey, she leaps off the water in short
