Last Thursday 6th August, not only was it my brothers 29th birthday… it was also the 90th Anniversary since Captain Harry Butler flew the first Air Mail over Sea water in Australia (could be the southern Hemisphere… depends what story you read).

Harry was brought up on a farm at Koolywurtie, which is a tiny town north of Minlaton on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. So his maiden Air Mail flight was of course to his home town… well close… he flew into a paddock with around 6000 amazed onlookers. Remember people… this was 1919 he was flying in August… which is Winter here, and he flew in a Bristol Monoplane… big enough for one man, and a bag of mail… and did I mention it was open cabin? To say Harry was the Pride of the town, is a slight understatement!

(images clockwise from top left: Exterior of the Koolywurtie School where Harry got his education, The Interior shown with my Cousin Les and his two boys Oliver and Jesse, Plaque infront of the paddock he crashed in in 1922, Mural on the Council Building, Text on the Plaque, The fully Restored Red Devil Monoplane with reflection of kids playground opposite, Model Red Devil… read tag :) , The Memorial and final resting place (Hanger) of the Red Devil for all to see as you drive into Minlaton.)

Anyway enough of the history lesson… So Last thursday was 90yrs since that first flight over the St Vincent Gulf from Adelaide to Minlaton. My Dad grew up in Minlaton (and loves history), and my Nan still lives there… so when we got a call to see if we were interested in going to Minlaton on a charter flight to celebrate the occasion, My dad and I jumped at the opportunity. Of course things didn’t completely go to plan, the plane we were to fly on ended up in Maintenance with an engine down… a new plane was organised and we were off… well almost!

We farewelled the “Tiger Moth” with it’s Pilot Alistair Crawford (back) and Co-Pilot Richard “Dick” Hunt (front) carrying a bag of Mail… yes, it was real mail!  We took off a little after them and landed a short 35mins later at the small dirt runway of Minlaton. It was WINDY! Our pilot Tom told us there was 45knot headwind as we were approaching the runway… we didn’t have any problem coming in to land, but we did wonder how the Tiger Moth would cope.

The Pilots landed the Tiger Moth ok, all beit 90mins later than planned due to the wind speed… eg. Tiger Moth was flying at Full Throttle 75knots… into strong headwinds 45knots… so really only travelling 30knots or 55km/h (35m/h) which meant trucks on the roads below (while they were over land) were passing them!

They also required about 6 Men to hold the wings steady as they are fabric, coated with some form of plastic tape (i’m not sure of the proper name!!). They Handed over the bag of Mail to the local Australia Post Staff and the Tiger Moth then took off again to fly North to a location where there was a safe hanger for it to stay overnight.

We then Headed into town in old vintage cars for the formalities of the day, I spotted a few friends that i’d not seen in many years, and listened in to the speeches made. About 3hrs later we headed back out to the Airstrip to make our return flight home. I was a little bored so decided to see how long I could keep a phone signal live to run facebook on my phone… it worked until maybe half way across the Gulf… I was surprised it lasted that long… though i had time to post this facebook status update…

If you can’t read it… it says : “Kellie texting while flying feels naughty! But oh so cool, Over Pt Vincent almost over the gulf” I went on to view a few more pages before losing connection.

Thats it for this post… Have a Great Weekend!!!