ON THIS DAY - 22 JULY 1983

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July 22, 1983

First round the world helicopter flight

On this day in 1983, entrepreneur and founder of Australian Geographic, Dick Smith, completed his first solo around-the-world helicopter flight. It was also the first solo flight from the US to Australia by helicopter and the first solo helicopter flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

Smith flew the helicopter in which he usually took his family ‘helicamping’ around Australia and battled exhaustion, freezing temperatures, torrential rain, turbulence, extreme heat, dust and tropical storms. He was also shot at when he was over Alaska, with bullets hitting the helicopter’s reserve fuel tank.

The legs of his journey:

First leg:

Fort Worth, Texas to Europe, covering 11,752 km in just over 60 hours, spread over 11 days. He was met at the end of this leg in Scotland where he was met by Prince Charles and his royal family.

Second leg:

London to Rome then to Athens, Crete, Cairo, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. From there he flew through Jakarta and Bali and set down in Darwin, achieving his goal of matching Australian aviator Bert Hinkler’s time of 15 days from London to Darwin, which was completed in 1928. He completed his trip by flying under the Harbour Bridge and landing in Sydney’s Darling Harbour. By this stage he had covered 30,000 km.

Final leg:

The final leg of his journey took place in May 1983, when he flew from Sydney to Cape York then on to Manilla, Hong Kong and Japan. Not having been granted permission by the USSR to land on the Kuril Islands and needing to refuel. he organised to land on the deck of Norwegian cargo ship Hoegh Marlin between Japan and the Aleutian Islands. From there he flew to Alaska, Canada and finally back to Texas.

All up, he travelled a total of over 55,000 km in 260 hours of flying.

In 1990, after a number of trips resulting in over 1500 hours and 280,000 km, Dick Smith took his helicopter on its last flight from his home in Terrey Hills to the Powerhouse Museum. He presented the helicopter to the museum where it can still be seen today.

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