The Flying Boat Era: Its Role as a Catalyst in the Development of Aviation and Social History in Australia

Abstract

This thesis analyses the significance of the flying boat to modes of imperial British connectedness through aviation, with a specific focus on interwar Australia. The thesis demonstrates the evolution of the flying boats' contribution to Australia’s development through their position at the crucial intersection of the nation’s economic development and military defence. It argues that the flying boats provide a unique lens through which to explore Australia’s changing sense of national and global connectedness in a period of rapid technological change. The significance of flying boats to the commercial and social life of Australia should not be understated. However, recognition of their significance has been diminished by a tendency to focus exclusively on their role during World War II. The result has been to disassociate and understate the salience of the flying boat era as a whole. This thesis demonstrates the rapid evolution of aviation in the period and situates the flying boat in the history of Australia’s then fledgling aviation industry. It argues that flying boats’ early significance derived from its role in pioneering long-distance routes, and from the Empire Air Mail Scheme (EAMS), a programme instigated to transport first-class mail throughout the British Empire by air. The Empire Flying Boats were central to this scheme through which the British Government proposed to develop international air travel to its dominions, including Australia and New Zealand, initially financed by subsidised airmail. EAMS had an equally significant objective of maintaining Britain’s links with and influence across its empire. Flying boat operations were severely curtailed by the outbreak of World War II, as many of the aircraft were requisitioned into their respective British and Australian Air Forces. However, the demands for passenger travel remained high, in particular for military personnel. As a result, airmail surcharges were reinstated in order to reduce the quantity of airmail and increase the scope for passengers. The Short S 25 Sunderland was manufactured alongside the Empire Class flying boats to satisfy military demands for a long-range reconnaissance aircraft and this aircraft, and its derivatives, proved themselves to be highly effective in this role both for the RAF and its dominions. This thesis demonstrates that the era of the flying boats’ dominance was both a catalyst and a fundamental component in the development of aviation in Australia. In doing so it traces the increasing degree of airmindedness among the Australian public, and the gradual emergence of a distinctive airmindedness that differentiated Australia’s aviation needs and imagined futures from those of Britain. The thesis also discusses how the initial bias towards seaplanes transformed into a pragmatic acceptance of landplanes, resulting in the end of the flying boats’ dominance in both civil and military contexts. In this study I provide, for the first time, a concise discussion of flying boat operations in Australia during the first half of the twentieth century, situating their history within the broader evolution of Australia’s sense both of imperial connectedness and national potentials through aviation.