Great (electric) Air Race 2019

A Great Air Race for electric aircraft next year will celebrate 100 years since the first challenge to race aircraft from Britain to Australia.

Before 1919, no aircraft had crossed the world.

In that year the Australian Government invited leading aviators to fly from Britain to Australia in under 30 days for a 10,000-pound winner’s purse.

Six teams entered – three crashed, two of them fatally, while a fourth team was jailed in Yugoslavia.

Two teams made it.

The winning pilots were Ross and Keith Smith, plus mechanics Wally Shiers and Jim Bennett, in a Vickers Vimy G-EAOU which took off from West London and arrived at Fannie Bay in the Northern Territory on November 12, 1919, taking 29 days.

That helped spur the formation of Qantas by Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness in 1920.

Challenges for the 2019 Great Air Race will be similar in that the test will be whether electric aircraft can complete the same route in 30 days.
Most passenger aircraft can do the trip in 24 hours.

Another key aim is to showcase low emission, more environmentally friendly flight.

The electric aircraft will have their batteries charged using renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, or by hydrogen fuel cells – also produced by renewable energy.

University of NSW emeritus professor of physics John Storey hopes the race will encourage innovation in battery technology, Australian Aviation reports.

“The heart of the problem is to store enough energy in the batteries without making the aircraft weigh like an elephant,” Storey says.

Visit greatairrace.com.au

for more information.