Hinkler Hall of Aviation

Some famous names claim Bundaberg as their hometown, from the late singer Dame Gladys Moncrieff to Olympic swimmer Lorraine Crapp and Australian rugby league captain Mal Meninga.

And then there's Bert Hinkler.

Hinkler was one of Australia's most accomplished early aviation aces, an unassuming character who never reached the heady heights (or gained the honours) of his fellow Queenslander, Brisbane-born Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith - the first man to fly between the US and Australia, and in both directions.

Both fought with British air forces in World War I, Hinkler being awarded a Distinguised Service Medal as a bomber's aerial gunner and later pilot, while "Smithy", a pilot, earning a Military Cross after earlier AIF service in Gallipoli, Egypt and France as a dispatch rider.

In the 1930s, their peacetime flying feats ended when both died while attempting new England-Australia records - Hinkler crashing while flying solo over mountainous northern Italy in 1933, and "Smithy", with co-pilot Tommy Pethybridge, lost over India in 1935.

Opened in 2008, the modern Hinkler Hall of Aviation in Bundaberg has filled a gap in the story of the nation's pioneer flyers. Tours begin with a 15-minute biographical video, introducing school parties to a hometown hero of whom many had known little about beforehand.

Now operated by the Bundaberg Regional Council, the hall contains five of Bert's aircraft - restored or replicated - artefacts, memorabilia including photographs and newspaper clippings, a lecture hall and a flight simulator.

Right alongside the hall is Hinkler's two-storey, English-style house, dismantled brick by brick at its Hampshire site in 1983 and shipped to Bundaberg where it was rebuilt and opened to the public as forerunner of the Hinkler Hall of Aviation.

Hinkler had built the house not far from Southampton during his six years (1921-26) as chief test pilot for the nearby AV Roe experimental aircraft plant at Hamble.

It was also where he planned many of the long-distance flights for which he became world-famous.

The removal was organised by the Hinkler House Memorial Museum and Research Association, formed so that Hinkler's feats would not be forgotten.

Association president Lex Rowland tells how after a service with full military honours, Hinkler was buried in a Protestant ceremony near Florence on the orders of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

The grave was maintained by staff of the Duke of Aosta but later fell into disrepair and was eventually taken over by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Herbert John Louis Hinkler, born in 1892 to a German migrant father and his Australian wife, developed a passion for aviation as a boy, inspired to study the dynamics of flying by watching ibis birds in the sky over his home.

At 18 he built a glider which he flew the following year and landed on Bundaberg's nearby Mon Repos beach - a name he later borrowed for his English house.

By 1914 he had worked his passage by sea to England, where he worked for the Sopwith aircraft company before service in World War I.

Joining AV Roe in 1919, the following year he flew a 35hp Avro Baby the 918km to Turin in Italy nonstop, earning him the first of his three prestigious Britannia trophies.

Having shipped the Avro Baby to Australia, he set a distance record flying it 1010km from Sydney to Bundaberg nonstop.

He returned to England to become AV Roe's chief test pilot, then in 1927 he made an abortive attempt with a co-pilot to fly a single-engined Fokker to India before his greatest triumph a year later.

Departing London on February 7, 1928, in an Avro Avian, Hinkler made the first solo flight from England to Australia, arriving in Darwin 15.5 days later and shattering the previous record flight time of 22 days.

The media had shown little interest in the flight until he reached India, where he was suddenly making world headlines and later honoured with a clutch of major awards.

He was even the subject of a pop song, titled Hustling Hinkler Up in the Sky.

After returning to his English home, Hinkler visited Canada while looking at North American opportunities and while there acquired a de Havilland Puss Moth high-winged monoplane in which he shortly was to achieve another record-breaking feat.

In 1931 he flew it from Canada to New York and on to Jamaica, Venezuela, Guyana (then British Guiana) and Brazil before heading east across the Atlantic - in bad weather conditions - to West Africa.

This first solo aerial crossing of the South Atlantic was honoured with the coveted Segrave Memorial Trophy, awarded in Britain annually for achievements in land, sea or air transportation.

The following year he spent preparing his Puss Moth CF-AFK for an attempt on a new England-Australia solo flight record.

After taking off from London at 3.10 on January 7, 1933, he crashed on Mount Pratomagno in the Apennines of northern Italy after losing a propeller and attempting a forced landing, according to investigators.

His body and the plane were not found by searchers until late April - he had apparently been thrown clear or escaped from the wreckage but died of his injuries.

Hinkler was survived by his wife, the former Katherine Rome, whom he married in 1932; they had no children.

His name remains on monuments, streets and a motel in Bundaberg.


GETTING THERE: The Hinkler Hall of Aviation and Hinkler House, Bundaberg, 5 Mount Perry Rd, Ph: (07) 4130 4400. Open 9am to 4pm daily. Closed Christmas Day, Good Friday and Anzac Day. Tours of the hall take one to two hours, and of the house, one hour. Adults $15, children $10 (under four's free), family $40.