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VIMY
Presentation and Book Signing
By Peter McMillan
Sunday Nov. 4th 1PM
Working in a private airfield hanger north of the San Francisco Bay, a team of pilots, craftsmen, and engineers successfully built from scratch a perfect replica of the Vickers Vimy, a historic British World War I twin-engine biplane bomber with a 68-foot wingspan. Then, they flew their wood-and-canvas replica-which decidedly did not meet present-day commercial aviation safety standards-on daring reenactments of the three pioneering feats of trans global aviation that ushered the original Vimy into the history books:
- First England-to-Australia flight (November-December 1919), re-created by the Vimy replica in 1994;
- First transatlantic crossing (June 1919, 8 years before Lindbergh's solo flight), re-created by the Vimy replica in 1999;
- First England-to-South Africa flight (February-March 1920), relived by the Vimy replica in 1999.
Building the Vimy replica took two years and 30,000 man-hours, and finishing the job cost more than two million dollars. The time and money spent, however, paid back amply in the satisfaction the project principals derived from the fulfillment of their dreams. Locals across Europe, Africa, Asia, Indonesia, North America, and the British Isles thronged the beautiful plane wherever it touched down along its 40,000-mile voyage.
After 17 years and three heroic expeditions that relived history, the Vimy replica made one final flight that literally took it into history itself. With Peter McMillan in the cockpit, on November 15, 2009 the aircraft flew to its retirement at the Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, England.
Those historic journeys are captured in a deluxe new book, "The Vimy Expeditions". The story of the Vimy and its past and present voyages, accompanied by 450 full-color photographs of the modern journeys taken by top National Geographic photographers, along with many sepia-toned archive images of the original flights and their brave pilots.
Peter McMillan will share some stories and pictures from the flights on Sunday November 4th at 1PM followed by a book signing.
Event is included with museum admission.
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