Flights
Arriving at Benson's paddock Nesbitt climbed aboard and started the engine. Originally intending just to taxi around the field, Nesbitt was in the air within few seconds. After flying for 25 minutes Nesbitt landed, later remarking that it felt so right he decided to "give it the gun". Nesbitt then made series of 10 minute joyflights, first with Ford, then Shackles, followed by Ford's sisters Rita and then Elsie.
On 4 July Ford with Nesbitt at the controls flew to Northam to meet up with and escort Amy Johnson and de Havilland to Perth. Receiving the news that Johnson had been delayed in Kalgoorlie, Ford and Nesbitt flew onto Maylands Airport where West Australian airways made hangar space available for the Silver Centenary. When Johnson arrived she inspected the Silver Centenary and expressed disappointment that bad weather prevented her from flying the plane. On 14 July the Silver Centenary returned to Beverley, with the shire council congratulating Ford and offering to assist with any further events.
Captain Nesbitt died on 4 October 1930 while flying a Puss Moth to Beverley, where he had intended to demonstrate the Silver Centenary at the Beverley show grounds. The Silver Centenary wasn't flown again until April 1931. During these flights the pilot became concerned about the lack of a complete registration number and contacted the CAA. It was revealed that the Silver Centenary was designated as an experimental and had been restricted to flying only within 5 km of Beverley. Ford was unaware of the restriction until that time and then applied for permission to return the plane to Beverley, which occurred in September 1931.
Ford applied to have the aircraft licensed but without blue prints, stress charts and other design documents the CAA refused to grant an airworthy certificate. In December 1931, permission was granted for the plane to be flown to Narrogin for an air show conditional that it didn't carry any passengers during the flight and that it wasn't flown during the show. The return flight to Beverley on 6 December 1931 would become Silver Centenary's last flight for almost 76 years. The log books for the Silver Centenary show that it flew for a total of 9 hours 40 minutes across 21 flights, though many of its flights were not recorded. In 1932, permission was sought to use the plane for mining exploration in the goldfields around Kalgoorlie; this was declined. In 1933 Ford returned the plane to the powerhouse, where it hung from the roof until after his death in 1963.
Read more about this topic: Silver Centenary
Famous quotes containing the word flights:
“It is true that writers often owe their most inspired thoughts, their most extraordinary phrases, to their generous typesetters, who assist their flights of fancy with so-called typographical errors.”
—E.T.A.W. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Wilhelm)
“Franklin said once in one of his inspired flights of malignity—
Early to bed and early to rise
Make a man healthy and wealth and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)