Record Flight Attempts and Death
In the early 1960s the United Dominions Trust made plans to break the record for the time taken to fly from Sydney to London in order to gain publicity for its UDT Laystall racing team. A Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation-built Mustang World War Two fighter was purchased in Australia and Flockhart was engaged to make the attempt. Flockhart departed Sydney in the Mustang, registered G-ARKD, on 28 February 1961 and after several delays due to bad weather finally ended the attempt at Athens due to engine problems. Flockhart subsequently entered the London-Cardiff Air Race to be held in June that year but withdrew because G-ARKD was still in Athens. G-ARKD was abandoned and another CAC Mustang, registered VH-UWB, was bought in Australia for Flockhart to make a second attempt at the Sydney-London record. On 12 April 1962, while on a test flight in preparation for the record attempt, Flockhart crashed VH-UWB in poor weather near Kallista, Victoria and was killed.
Read more about this topic: Ron Flockhart (racing Driver)
Famous quotes containing the words record, flight, attempts and/or death:
“Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“One man’s observation is another man’s closed book or flight of fancy.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape as it issued from the androgynous chest of Johnny Weissmuller, to the accompaniment of thousands of arms and legs snapping during attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the Republic.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“My glass shall not persuade me I am old
So long as youth and thou are of one date,
But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)