It seems hard to comprehend that "flight " only started at the beginning of the 1900's .... look how far we've come since then ....... .... but this man although he wasn't able to speak for himself in later years did some special things in WW1 !! On March 17 1910, F. C. 'Fred' Custance, a motor mechanic who came to Australia from England in 1906, allegedly piloted a Bleriot monoplane for "5 minutes 25 seconds" at Bolivar, South Australia, before daylight at 5am. The main witness was F. H. Jones, who owned the aircraft and who claimed in 1943 that he, and not Custance (who died in 1923), had made the flight. Jones also claimed on a previous occasion, that Custance's attempt was a mythical flight. Custance attempted a second flight soon after daybreak at 6.15am but crashed after takeoff. Conflicting reports, lack of reliable witnesses and doubts as to Custance's ability to fly for more than five minutes, completing three circuits and covering an estimated 4.8 kilometres all in semi darkness made the claim suspect. Australian Text TBA Fred Custance (c.1889-1922), Australian aviation pioneer Proformat Heres some more Aviators !! Australian Aviators of WWI & WWII
