Herbert John Louis (Bert) Hinkler (1892-1933), aviator, worked with a photographer and in sugar mills before joining the Queensland Aero club and taking a correspondence course in mechanics. In 1911 and 1912 he made two gliders, the second based on his observations of ibises in flight. When the American airman Arthur Burr Stone brought his Bleriot monoplane to Bundaberg in 1912, Hinkler became his mechanic on a tour of southern Australia and New Zealand, thereby coming fully to grips with aircraft fundamentals. In 1913 he went to England and began work in the Sopwith factory; in 1914, he enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service. Through the war his inventions and his skills as a gunner in England, France and Italy saw him awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. Returning to England, he flew an Avro Baby from Croydon to Turin, Italy, in 1920 and won the Britannia Trophy. Having shipped the plane to Australia in 1921 he made a series of flights including a non-stop trip from Sydney to Bundaberg. Once again overseas, he became chief test pilot for the Avro company, won a series of English trophies and was decorated in Latvia for a non-stop flight from London to Riga. In 1927 he made an unsuccessful attempt on the London to India air record. In early 1928 he made the first solo flight from England to Australia, taking just over fifteen days; he was awarded the Air Force Cross. In England late that year he began work on his own aircraft, the Ibis, but the market for the craft died in the depression. In 1931 he flew a Puss Moth from Canada to New York, then, via the West Indies, Venezuela, Guiana, Brazil and the North Atlantic, to Great Britain. Though showered with trophies and medals, he could not find aerial employment in the UK, and returned to America, where he married, in 1932. Departing from Heathrow on 7 January 1933, intending to fly to Australia, he disappeared; the plane and Hinkler’s body were found on the slopes of Patomagno, in the Appenines between Florence and Arezzo, in April. Evidently, he had survived the crash. He was buried, on Mussolini’s orders, in Florence with full military honours.
