Good morning welcome to a beautiful morning here. This is Port Phillip Bay
behind me here in Melbourne. Now before we start today a very quick history
lesson. So back in the 1930s Qantas used to operate flights from Australia to the
UK just like they do now but back then they were called Qantas Empire Airways
and the flights used to take 10 days and they'd have to stop 30 times along the
way. And there's one man here in Australia who wanted to recreate that
epic era of aviation and started a trip flying a flying boat not just here to
the UK but around the whole world.
Now his name is Michael Smith he was voted
the Australian Geographic adventure of the year back in 2015 and that's who
we're gonna go meet today.
Yes so this is Port Phillip Bay just here in Melbourne you've got the city just
out of shot over to one side behind me is where the ferries go to Tasmania you
can see and just over the other side of the bay is a place called Williamstown
and that's where the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria is based and that's an
important thing to know for this story because that's where Michael set off
from on his epic adventure taking seven months in a flying boat that has no
autopilot and cruises it around 80 to 90 knots flying around 25 countries and
stopping 80 times on his own to fly around the world.
Man I thought my adventure flying around outback Australia for two weeks in the
series I thought that was epic but to meet someone who's flown around the
world I mean this is something I've always wanted to do I've got a bunch of
questions about the route he took and the aircraft he flew and I'd love to
hear some of these stories along the way so let's go meet Michael now.
Can you tell us a little bit about the aircraft and why did you choose that was
the plane that you wanted to fly. Well partly it's the plane I had, so it was
partly the convenience. Here's one I prepared earlier! So this is the Searey
she's a wonderful little single-engine flying boat of course it's
a flying boat because the hull of the plane lands on the water as opposed to
like a Cessna on floats. The wheels go up and down out of the way but look I
was really enamored by that old nineteen thirties period when Qantas first flew
from Sydney through London you know and it went from taking six
weeks by ship to only ten days by air. It kind of has that look and feel of those
old style planes that's why I have painted it silver so I look like an old plane.
And you know I used to often think I wish I could have been on those Qantas
flights back then so I actually did some research into how could we charter a
plane to retrace it couldn't make that work and so decided to just do it in the
plane I had which was the Searay.
You had modifications made to the aircraft as well.
Yeah quite a bit so it instead of four hours fuel it has 12 hours fuel
built into it as into the fixed tanks and then I had the ability to add a
couple of extra bags which we're getting up to 21 hours of fuel. Before we just
have a quick look at the route that you trace around the world the one question
that I want to know and I'm sure everyone does is - why? Ah that's a good
question. Look I'm must point out it didn't start as a circumnavigation I
mean since I was a 15 year old boy reading books about Joshua Slocum you
know either Robin Lee Graham and Chichester those amazing mariners of the
past that I've, I've always known that one day I wanted to sail around the
world. And and my plan here was actually just to tly to retrace that Qantas route.
I wanted to fly from Sydney to London in a flying boat and and I thought you know
it was going to be an eight week trip and what an amazing life experience that
would be. You know I've always loved traveling you know I say I enjoyed
flying but I love traveling. And then I got to London and
the trip had gone so well no my wife met me and she said you sure you don't want
to keep going yeah you've always talked about doing a circumnavigation are you
sure you don't want to keep going I have this sense that if you don't keep going
that no sooner we get home then you'll start planning another trip! And so I did
but that drew it out from being just a two-month trip it ended up taking me
seven months because as I you know I quickly learned actually going Sydney to London
or Melbourne to London was relatively easy year over land most of
the time plenty of airport options. But once I left London you know crossing the
Atlantic became typically 8 to 10-hour flights.
S o this is what I really want in
my office Michael you've got the actual route that you flew around here in the
office this is cool can you give us an overview of so where did you start where
did you go? Yeah like I do love a big map! Right so I started down here in
Williamstown which is where I live in Melbourne I flew down to first a place
called Raymond Ireland which is in the Gibson Lakes which is an island where my
Mum lives. I landed on the water and pulled up to see her because I hadn't
actually told her what I was doing and it's important to tell your mum if
you're going away. I'd landed at Rose Bay and I took off at 7 o'clock
in the morning from Rose Bay to begin the actual retracing of the route and
stopped at some of the places at Qantas used to land so they used to stop at
Karumba for a refueling and Groot Island and then this was the first time that I
had flown into Class Charlie airspace first time I've flown internationally
and and it's amazing how nervous I was about this first leg which was ended up
being about a four-hour flight to Dilli which was interesting because none of
the airports here had AVGAS so we'd always have to go off to petrol
stations and get petrol. Now luckily one of the great things about taking the Searey
was with that Rotax engine we could use AVGAS or petrol, and I
had eight flexible jerry cans with me you know these bags that you can go off
so, quite entertaining sometimes getting in a taxi and going
the petrol station and putting 160 litres of fuel in the boot and going
back to the airport. Then to Singapore and then through Malaysia, Thailand,
Chittagong this is where I started there are few places that I wanted to land
they used to land on the river in Calcutta but Indian authorities wouldn't
let me do that. And work my way across into Pakistan
Dubai. Now Dubai was really fun so I landed
it Dubai International Airport right, and can you imagine how intimidating it is?
I'm coming down to land and I work out there are eight aeroplanes
lined up waiting for me to land because they've had to make sure there's no wake
turbulence. And there's an A380 at the head of the queue and yeah I worked out
that there are about 3,000 people watching me land. So I worked my way
through I had to land in Saudi Arabia to find a find a place where I could get
fuel, into Akbar where Lawrence of Arabia was and Tel Aviv and work my way
up through Europe in to Crete, Italy. I did make a diversion from the
original route they used to land on a Lake Brindisi but I went to Lake Como
because the opportunity to land on Lake Como which has got the oldest flying
operational base there. Yeah. And meet those amazing people and
my wife flew in commercially and met me there and we had a lovely time before I
then you know went around to Marseille up through France, and in to Southampton.
And Qantas of course didn't land in London on the Thames they landed in
Southampton. So I landed outside of Hythe right on Southampton water where Qantas
used to land and which was pretty cool. Then headed off to London and that
was meant to be the end of the trip but as I said after chatting with Anne
for a bit I decided to keep going. So went over to Ireland up to Scotland
Iceland which was just gorgeous and then one of the most amazing parts of the
trip was flying from Iceland across to Greenland.
The most beautiful scenery because there was ice flow everywhere so I was
actually flying over the ocean at 500 feet and then
down to Canada a couple stops and then into Maine to clear customs and then I
went to the airport and was kind of thinking wow, jeez I've crossed the Atlantic
what do I do now? And I thought well I better fly the Hudson. I read up on the
FAA notes on how do you do that you have to transit down the length of Manhattan
and I flew down and you have to be flying right next to New York City and
looking down and you see the Statue of Liberty and you think I can't believe
I'm here and as as I was flying back I thought well I suppose the next thing is
I should land on the Hudson. So I made the call you know Searey
Northbound over intrepid 800 feet descending for to land on the Hudson and
I expected someone to get really excited like what the hell why someone landing
on the Hudson? But there was just radio silence. But I did it a splash ago on the
Hudson and just thought how cool is this. I mean obviously someone
else famously landed on the Hudson a couple of years before me. Yes. But he
left it there! I went to Florida and did the annual on the plane where it was
built at the Searey factory in Florida and then I must say this part of the
trip was magnificent. I flew into New Orleans and I decided that to get across
America I really wanted to fly the length of the Mississippi. It took me
about a week to get from New Orleans all the way up to the source so some nights
I'd just land on the river tie up to a tree on the bank there's lots of little
sand islands in the middle of the river so I've kind of felt like Huck Finn!
Anyway that was great fun all the way across to Seattle and then I
worked my way up into Alaska. Now most people when they think about crossing
the Pacific they think about lots of fuel bags going to Hawaii and then you
know island hopping but the Searey and I couldn't get that far so I had
to follow up north and you know work my way across the Aleutian Islands to Adak.
And here's where it got really interesting because from Adak I
actually thought the trip was going to be over. I was trying to get permission
to land in Russia but after several months of trying I finally accepted it wasn't
going to happen. So I'm sitting here in Adak and I
worked out it would take me about 22 hours to fly from here to Japan,
but I could only, the absolute maximum was 21 hours of fuel but just as I was
getting ready to give up I looked on Google Earth and I found that there was
this island called Attu which is an abandoned Island. It was occupied during
World War 2. It used to be in the Cold War, it had a naval base there. On Google Earth
it looked like the runway was still in reasonable condition and I
worked out that if I flew the five hours to Attu and if I knew I had fuel then it
would be about 19 hours to Japan. So I flew from Adak out to Attu and I left
some of my fuel bags on the side of the runway and then I flew back to Adak, I
waited a week for the weather to get better and then on this really big day I
filled up the plane I went and landed it Attu, topped up those extra five bags of
fuel and then took off an hour or two later I took off and I flew
what turned out to be an 18 hour flight down to Japan, 14 hours of that was in
the dark. Because I wanted to arrive in Japan when you know in sunlight.
So that was a very tough trip you know I'm not IFR I do have Night VFR but still
it was pitch-black dark out there over the ocean it was overcast I had 30 knot
tail winds so I did plan for a day when I had really good tail winds. I'd
thirty knot tail winds for about the first third of the trip and then they slowly
petered it out. But I ended up with down here where you can see that little curve
is I had to make a diversion as I got down here there were 50 knot headwinds. I
was doing 30 knots over the ground or over the water and turned out the
airport was fogged in so I had to divert to another part of Japan. I worked my way
back down through Australia and you know I've got home seven months later it was
an incredible trip I wasn't in a rush obviously because it took seven months,
but I made a real point of trying to at least have one day off between flying
and sometimes two. Now you've got a book as well Michael and a video so if you want
to find out more about Michael's adventures and what he got up to there's
a book and a DVD available? That's right so go to Southern Sun dot voyage
that's www.SouthernSun.voyage and there's details
there's story and photos on the web but you can also buy the book and a DVD.
Yeah brilliant it's a fascinating read it really is and the movie's well worth
watching as well. You think movie first then the book yeah?
Absolutely the movie's kind of that the happy beautiful way to see the trip and
then the book peels back the layers and explain some of what went right and what
went wrong along the way. It's awesome you'll love it. That was
really nice to meet you thanks Michael, thanks for your time. Fantastic thanks.