Novel based on true story marks centenary of first flight from England to Australia!
This year marks the centenary of the 1919 Great Air Race, the world’s first flight from England to Australia. As an achievement, it was akin to man landing on the moon.
Journalist Lainie Anderson calls Long Flight Home, her historical novel based on the flight, ‘a boys’ own adventure for girls’. Narrated by real-life crew member Wally Shiers, it’s a true story about Australians taking on the world and winning.
Sir Ross Smith and his four-man crew (co-pilot, navigator and brother Keith Smith, and co-mechanics Wally Shiers and Jim Bennett) flew an open-cockpit Vickers Vimy aircraft – made of wood, fabric and wire – nearly 18,000 kilometres across the world, smashing the previous record set by a long-distance flight of just over 5,000 kilometres (from Cairo to Calcutta, a year earlier). The achievement was the forerunner to the age of international air travel, and led to the founding of Qantas, Australia’s first airline (and the world’s third oldest) in 1920.
Long Flight Home uses war diaries, letters and Lainie Anderson’s Churchill Fellowship research conducted along the race route. A comprehensive notes section at the end of the book shows where fact and fiction have been interwoven.
RRP $29.95.
For this and other great titles: http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/home.php
This year marks the centenary of the 1919 Great Air Race, the world’s first flight from England to Australia. As an achievement, it was akin to man landing on the moon.
Journalist Lainie Anderson calls Long Flight Home, her historical novel based on the flight, ‘a boys’ own adventure for girls’. Narrated by real-life crew member Wally Shiers, it’s a true story about Australians taking on the world and winning.
Sir Ross Smith and his four-man crew (co-pilot, navigator and brother Keith Smith, and co-mechanics Wally Shiers and Jim Bennett) flew an open-cockpit Vickers Vimy aircraft – made of wood, fabric and wire – nearly 18,000 kilometres across the world, smashing the previous record set by a long-distance flight of just over 5,000 kilometres (from Cairo to Calcutta, a year earlier). The achievement was the forerunner to the age of international air travel, and led to the founding of Qantas, Australia’s first airline (and the world’s third oldest) in 1920.
Long Flight Home uses war diaries, letters and Lainie Anderson’s Churchill Fellowship research conducted along the race route. A comprehensive notes section at the end of the book shows where fact and fiction have been interwoven.
RRP $29.95.
For this and other great titles: http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/home.php
