If you had to chose a
name for each of the 20 future Airbus A380 aircraft that Qantas was about to
put into service, what names would you chose and what criteria would you use
for choosing?
Qantas has just completed
its Qantas A380 naming program, where it asked members of the Australian public
and aviation experts to help with the naming for all 20 of its future A380
fleet.
As you can imagine its
no surprise that the list released today by Qantas chief executive officer Alan
Joyce contained and honoured Australian Aviation Pioneers:
- Nancy-Bird
Walton – the first woman to fly a commercial aviation service in Australia.
- Hudson
Fysh
– one of the founders of Qantas and the airline’s first Managing Director.
- Paul
McGinness – one of the founders of Qantas.
- Fergus McMaster – one of the founders of Qantas and the first
Chairman of the Company.
- Lawrence Hargrave – inventor of the box kite, linking four of
these together in 1894 to fly 16 feet.
- Charles Kingsford Smith – Australia’s most
famous aviator, who made the first trans-Pacific flight from the USA to Australia in 1928, and founded
Australian National Airways Limited.
- Charles Ulm – Co-pilot, on Kingsford Smith’s
record-breaking trans-Pacific flight between the USA and Australia in 1928 and co-founder of
Australian National Airways Limited.
- Reginald Ansett – Founder of Ansett Airways Pty Ltd.
- David Warren – Inventor of the Black Box Flight Recorder.
- Bert Hinkler – Pilot of first solo flight from Britain to
Australia in 1928.
- John and Reginald Duigan – First Australians
to design, construct and fly a powered aircraft, in 1910.
- Phyllis Arnott – First Australian woman to gain a commercial
pilot’s license.
- Keith McPherson Smith and Ross McPherson Smith – winners of the
famous ‘Air Race’ between London and Australia in 1919.
- Lester
Brain
– Piloted one of the first Qantas routes in 1925 and ferried the first wartime
Catalina Flying Boat delivered by Qantas Empire Airways
in 1941. Later appointed General Manager of Trans-Australia Airlines in 1946.
- Lores
Bonney – First woman to fly solo around Australia in 1932 and the first woman
to fly solo from Australia to England, in 1933.
- Norman Brearley – Founder of Western Australian Airways
Limited, which operated Australia’s first scheduled air service on 5 December 1921.
- P G
Taylor – Navigator and co-pilot alongside Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles
Ulm on many record-breaking flights between Australia and
the United States and England and Australia. Taylor was awarded the Empire Gallantry Medal in 1937
for one of the most revered acts of bravery in the history of aviation.
- Scotty Allan – Co-pilot alongside Charles Ulm and P G Taylor
on the 1933 record-breaking flight from England to Australia and later joined
Qantas and flew DH86 aircraft on the Brisbane-Singapore route.
- John
Flynn
– Founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
- Gaby Kennard – First Australian woman to fly solo around the world
in 1989.