Keith Macpherson Smith
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Sir Keith Macpherson Smith KBE, (born 20 December 1890 - died 19 December 1955) was an Australian aviator, who along with his brother, Sir Ross Macpherson Smith and two other men, became the first people to fly from England to Australia.
On 12 November 1919, the brothers, along with Sergeant Jim Bennett and Sergeant Wally Shiers, departed from Hounslow, England, in a Vickers Vimy aeroplane, eventually landing in Darwin, Australia on 10 December, having taken less than 28 days with an actual flying time of 135 hours. The four men shared the £10,000 prize money put forward by the Australian government for the feat. Keith and Ross were imediately knighted, while Shiers and Bennett were commissioned and each awarded a Bar to their Air Force Medals.
The aircraft is preserved in a museum in Adelaide, Australia.
[edit] Early life
His parents were born in Scotland and emigrated to Australia where his father became a pastoralist in South Australia. Both boys boarded at Queen's School in Adelaide, and for two years, in Scotland.
Smith flew in the Royal Air Force as a pilot between 1917 and 1919.
Smith had planned an around-the-world flight in 1922, but abandoned it after his brother Ross was killed during a test flight. He then lived and worked in Sydney as an agent for Vickers, vice-president of British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines (taken over by Qantas in 1954), and as a director of Qantas Empire & Tasman Empire Airways Limited (a subsidiary of Imperial Airways which was the forerunner of British Airways).
