Charles Kingsford Smith forged in the smithy of his soul a reality of experience few had lived before. The daring of he and other early 20th century pilots leaves one wide-eyed. Here are a couple items from Ian Mackersey’s biography of the Australian that help illustrate the breed.

Item 1:
During WWI, fighter pilot “casualties were running at over 25% a week…The life expectancy of a subaltern arriving at a front-line squadron ranged from ten days to three weeks.”
Amazingly, “both sides flew without parachutes…the RFC’s high command…believed that ‘possession of a parachute might impair a pilot’s nerves when in difficulties.’”
Impair a pilot’s nerve? As if a 25% casualty rate could not. As if a life expectancy of three weeks could not. Tough love there.

Item 2:
Smithy and “Bill” Taylor flew from Australia to Hawaii, arriving with what they thought was two hours fuel to spare. In fact, it was a few minutes to spare, as they discovered when Smithy took the mayor of Honolulu up for a spin without refueling. Three minutes after take-off the engine stopped at an altitude of 2000 feet. Smithy glided the plane back and reached the landing field with yards to spare.
What happened?
A “90-gal gravity tank…had sprung a large crack. Two hours of fuel had leaked out in flight. Highly dangerous as it seems today, in the absence of gauges, their practice was simply to fill all 11 tanks to the brim and hope there would be enough fuel to get them there. Once airborne, they had no means of measuring consumption or detecting leakage.”

You just gotta believe, apparently.

Kingsford Smith, popularly known as Smithy, could hardly get enough of this sort of thing and earned great fame for his flights, which included the first trans-Pacific flight just one year after Lindbergh’s Atlantic crossing. Quite a feat considering that Smithy had a terrible fear of flying over water, the author tells us. Over water his nerves may have been “impaired.” His love of flight could not be.

Ian Mackersey has written an interesting and it seems scrupulous biography of Smithy, one which aviation/adventure enthusiasts and their armchair brethren likely will enjoy. I did. And if you need more to become interested, Smithy had a way with the ladies too. ( )