This Day in History: 1914-05-08

The French stunt pilot Maurice Guillaux made the first seaplane flight in Australia, test flying a Farman “hydro-aeroplane” imported into the country by Lebbeus Hordern. Guillaux and his team spent a week assembling Hordern’s seaplane, which had been shipped in four large crates, at a cost of £1600. The aircraft was reassembled in a shed on the beach at Double Bay, “just outside the Victor Motor Works” (a local company manufacturing marine and other small engines). Guillaux exercised an exacting personal supervision of the procedure, so that he was satisfied that everything had been correctly assembled “right to a millimetre”. The test flight of the completed seaplane took place on Friday, May 8, at around 4pm, in front of a crowd of some 200-300 people. The Farman was wheeled to the water’s edge, fuelled, and then Guillaux and an un-named mechanic climbed aboard. The mechanic, in the passenger seat behind the pilot, set the propeller whirring, which blew a cloud of sand into the construction shed and knocked small children among the spectators off their feet! Skimming across the waters of Double Bay, the seaplane rose “like a great bird” into the air, and Guillaux and his passenger set off on a 15-minute flight across the harbour to Mosman, Manly and then back towards the city, before landing in the waters of Double Bay and covering the distance to the shore “with the speed of an express train”. During the flight the plane was saluted by a Manly ferry, sounding its siren as it passed overhead. Source: Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (Powerhouse Museum) website