Herbert John Louis Hinkler AFC, DSM (8 December 1892 – 7 January 1933), better known as Bert Hinkler, Pioneer Aviator

[John Werner]

Bert Hinkler is largely underrated as a pioneer Australian aviator.  Born in Bundaberg, Qld, Bert went to England in 1913 where he worked for the Sopwith Aviation Company, the beginning of his career in aviation.  In World War I, Hinkler served with the Royal Naval Air Service as a gunner/observer in Belgium and France, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In 1918 Hinkler was posted to No. 28 Squadron RAF with which he served as a pilot in Italy.  Hinkler was an "exceptional mathematician and inventor" and "made a lot of aviation instruments which were in use up until the Second World War".  In 1921, Hinkler shipped a tiny Avro Baby to Sydney, Australia. It was filled with fuel and flown non-stop to Bundaberg, a distance of 1,370 kilometres (850 mi).  Hinkler flew the first solo flight between England and Australia, departing England on 7 February 1928 and arriving in Darwin on 22 February; and back in his home town of Bundaberg in his Avro Avian a few days later on 27 February.  In 1931, Hinkler flew in a de Havilland Puss Moth from Canada to New York then non-stop to Jamaica 2,400 km (1,500 mi), then to Venezuela, Guyana, Brazil, and then across the South Atlantic to Africa.  From West Africa he flew to London.  On 7 January 1933, Hinkler left London Air Park, Hanworth, England, in the Puss Moth in an attempt to break the flying record to Australia held by C. W. A. Scott of 8 days 20 hours.  Nothing more was heard of him until his body was discovered in the mountains of Tuscany (Apuan Alps) in Italy on 27 April 1933.  He was buried – with full military honours on the orders of Italy's ruling dictator Benito Mussolini – in the Cimitero degli Allori in Florence.  A monument in his memory was erected at Prato Alle Vacche in the Pratomagno mountain by the Aretino Aero Club.

Hinkler received the following awards for his meritorious service to aviation:-

For his England-Latvia non-stop flight he was awarded the Oswald Watt Gold Medal for 1927.

He was a pilot of the British Schneider Trophy seaplane competitor

For the flights in 1920 and 1928, Hinkler won two Britannia trophies and the gold medal of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.  He was also awarded the 1928, 1931 and 1932 Oswald Watt Gold Medal which is awarded for "A most brilliant performance in the air or the most notable contribution to aviation by an Australian or in Australia" by the Royal Federation of Aero Clubs of Australia.

For his 1931 flights from Canada to Africa via the Caribbean and South America, then on to London via Africa, he was awarded the Royal Aero Club Gold Medal, the Segrave Trophy, the Johnston Memorial Prize and the Britannia Trophy for the most meritorious flying performance of the year.

My mother told me that she saw Bert Hinkler land on the main beach at Yeppon near Rockhampton in the 1920s as a yong girl but she was too afraid to go for a joy flight with him.

[onetrack]

The information regarding Bert Hinklers crash and death in that crash is a mix of guesses and misinformation. The official Australian report is that Hinklers Puss Moth lost a section of the propeller, thus forcing him to make an emergency landing and he hit a tree whilst trying to do so.

But this description is incorrect, and based on hearsay and unknown evidence - if any. The facts are that the Italian aviation authority of 1933 carried out an official crash investigation - but the results were not made available to Australian authorities, and it is believed this crash investigation report was destroyed during WW2 war actions.

 

A retired aviation engineer and air crash accident investigator, Clive Phillips, has carried out a thorough assessment of Hinklers fatal crash. He did his assessment based on a limited number of available photos of the crashed aircraft, and various other written sources of information that he gleaned from Italian and other sources.

 

In essence, he states that he believes Hinklers Puss Moth suffered a wing spar failure - which the Puss Moths were notorious for - and he crashed simply because of that loss of a wing. There is a report in the Australian Dictionary of Biography which states that Hinkler survived the crash and died outside the wreckage.

This appears to be at odds with the report from the Italian medical authorities at the time that Hinkler died instantly, after being ejected from the aircraft on impact, and he suffered severe cranial and thoracic injuries, which the Italian doctors deemed as causing immediate death. The investigators report is linked to, below. Interestingly, the investigator also owned a Puss Moth, the one on display in the Hinkler Museum.

 

https://aircentre.com.au/aircraft/pioneers/media/whalley-phillips.pdf

 

The very first of the Puss Moth accidents happened just East of Perth in Oct 1930, and it killed the famous and highly skilled aviator, Capt Charles H.F. Nesbit, as well as his two students, a young woman and a man. The Puss Moth crashes are famous for 4 reasons.

1. They killed a lot of famous, careful and skilled pilots.

2. They were international in occurrence.

3. The Puss Moth crashes led to the rapid application of scientific research and definitive causes to aircraft crashes.

4. The Puss Moth crashes largely contributed to the formation of the Aeronautical Research Laboratory of Australia.

 

Below is a fascinating and occasionally humorous outline (despite the grim subject) of the development of air crash investigation in Australia. It is a document produced in 1993, celebrating the first 50 years of aircraft crash investigation by the ARL and associated investigators, and examines all of the early and famous aircraft crashes, and how the truth was sifted from a lot of initial obfuscation.

 

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA267086.pdf