AEROPLANE MEETS... LANG KIDBY
England-to-Australia flights in both Vickers Vimy replica and original Avro Avian are among the greatest feats by this renowned adventurer
It’s difficult nowadays to truly conjure the spirit of aviation’s pioneers. So many are the restrictions and requirements placed on the private pilot, no matter where in the world they might fly, that the carefree days of yore seem very far off — impossible, even, to re-create, especially in an historic aeroplane.
But a select few have been successful in such endeavours, and Lang Kidby is a marvellous example. This humorous, no-nonsense Australian masterminded the first of the replica Vickers Vimy’s commemorative journeys, from England to Australia in 1994. A few years later he made the trip again, in an Avro Avian. For Lang these achievements are part and parcel of a fascination for machines and the relentless search for a new challenge. With his wife Bev, he’s organised and participated in countless intrepid endeavours on two and four wheels: re-creating the 1907 Peking to Paris race with cars of the correct make, driving a Fiat 500 around the world, and heading a 6,000km ride from Ukraine to Italy by 20 old Russian Army motorcycles …
