Inside the Collection

colin defries

Souvenir Booklet titled The History of Aviation

First Powered Flight in Australia- Episode 4

December 9, 2009

Ian Debenham
Image courtesy of John Scott, 2009 Today marks the Centenary of Colin Defries's historic flight in his Wright Model A 'The Stella' at Victoria Park Racecourse on 9th December 1909. To recognise this, here is my fourth and final instalment of the saga...
Harry Houdini, 1910

First Powered Flight in Australia- Episode 3

December 2, 2009

Ian Debenham
Harry Houdini, Fred Custance and the "Aviation History Wars" Aviation journalist, Jack Percival, wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald of August 7th, 1960: No special celebration is planned to mark the 50th anniversary of the first flight in a powered aeroplane in Australia...the experts can't agree to whom the honour should be given for the first true flight.
Newspaper article featuring the Stella Wright Model A aircraft

First Powered Flight in Australia- Episode 2

November 25, 2009

Ian Debenham
Colin Defries and the first powered flight in Australia Just four days after George made the first free heavier-than-air flight in the glider at Narrabeen, a young Englishman, Colin Defries left the ground in a Wright Model A, that he had named The Stella after his new wife, at Victoria Park race course south of Sydney.