Early Flights
Donald Bennett was born the youngest son of a grazier in Toowoomba, Queensland. He attended Brisbane Grammar School and later joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1930 and transferred to the Royal Air Force a year later, starting with the flying boats of 20 Squadron. Bennett developed a passion for accurate flying and precise navigation that would never leave him. After a period as an instructor at RAF Calshot, he left the service in 1935 (retaining a reserve commission) to join Imperial Airways. Over the next five years, Bennett specialised in long distance flights, breaking a number of records and pioneering techniques which would later become commonplace, notably air-to-air refuelling. In July 1938 he piloted the Mercury part of the Short Mayo Composite flying-boat across the Atlantic; this flight earned him the Oswald Watt Gold Medal for that year.
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Famous quotes containing the words early and/or flights:
“And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 14:25.
“A noble soul is not the one that can manage the highest flights but the one that rises very little and falls very little but always dwells in a free, resplendent atmosphere and altitude.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)