Colin Defries

Colin Defries was an English pilot who made the first attempted powered flight over Australia on 9 December 1909 ^{a[›] b[›] c[›]} in Victoria Park racecourse. He crashed his biplane when he lost control upon reaching for his hat, which was being blown off by the wind ^{b[›] c[›]}. With the Aerial League and a newspaper denying that the flight had occurred at all, much less succeeded ^b[›], Defries made a second attempt on 18 December ^b[›]. Finally, his mechanic, R. C. Banks made an attempt of his own on 1 March 1910, and crashed the plane again ^b[›]. Harry Houdini accomplished the first successfully landed powered flight over Australia on 18 March 1910. ^d[›]

References

^ a: Aero-Web Aviation History – 1909 – http://www.aero-web.org/history/events/1909.htm
^ b: Hargrave Biography – Australian Aviation Pioneers, 1950-2000 – http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/biography1.html#defries
^ c: Wilson's Blogmanac – Maybe First Powered Flight in Australian – http://wilsonsalmanac.blogspot.com/2007/12/maybe-first-powered-flight-in-australia.html
^ d: Hargrave Biographu – Harry Houdini – http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/houdini_bio.html

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Name	Defries, Colin
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