The South Australian Aviation Museum is home to a permanent display of Smith crew memorabilia, and a significant collection of resource materials related to the epic flight. Highlights include personal items owned by the crew, a plaster maquette of John Dowie’s sandstone sculpture of the four men at Adelaide Airport and a vintage video reel with commentary.
The collection also includes two 1919 Royal Aero Club lead seals, removed from the Vimy’s engines after arrival in Darwin. The RAC supervised the race rules, one of which was that engines on competing aircraft could not be removed and replaced en route. Five seals were placed on each engine before departure from Hounslow, two of which had to be intact on arrival in Darwin. Hudson Fysh from the Australian Flying Corps, who went on to co-found Qantas the following year, was there on 10 December 1919 as the Australian Government’s representative to ensure the seals were intact.
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