Whale Watching in Outback Queensland

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to drive from Longreach to Katherine (then rail to Darwin), via the Gulf of Carpentaria, survey sites for suitable landing strips, then once approved, have them cleared and prepared in time for the first plane to land.

It is 1919, there are no roads, let alone bridges, nor detailed maps. You are given a Model T Ford, for the 2719km trip, be the first to drive an automobile across the Gulf of Carpentaria and the time frame is 5 months.

It does sound like something out of the Mission Impossible files.

However, with only days to spare, a landing strip, along with others, including Katherine, Newcastle Waters, Camooweal, Cloncurry and Longreach, were finished, before the first plane in the inaugural England to Australia air race landed in Darwin. ?

Charged with the seemingly impossible task was World War 1 Ace Pilot, Paul McGinness. He encouraged his war buddy, Hudson Fysh, to join him on this adventure. An outback adventure, which would lead to the creation of QANTAS.

“Conceived in Cloncurry, born in Winton, raised in Longreach”, Sir Hudson Fysh.

Now, just over a 100 years later, a French Canadian consortium has been surveying suitable landing sites in Australia, for their Flying Whales.

Some 340 kilometres from the Pacific Ocean this consortium has found its first suitable site, also in outback Queensland, Mount Isa.

Their idea has similarities to McGinness’s, air transport must be a lot more efficient for the transit of mail, passengers, health providers, and freight across our vast continent.

Though Flying Whales are thinking bigger, big as in length particularly. Transporting wind turbine blades, some up to 100 metre long, from port to their onshore, mostly remote, hilly, wind farm site, for one.

Presently transported by truck, with the assistance of a steering switch for the rear trailer, the driver (and support crew) faces many challenges, different but like McGinness and Fysh did, on their journey. Hills, tight corners, narrow roads, one lane bridges, weather conditions, traffic; all adding to the risk and cost of their transporting.

Would not the best alternative be to fly them direct to the site?

Even better, and greener, use air transport that creates no, or little, greenhouse gas emissions and does not require a landing strip, to deliver the cargo.

Enter, the Flying Whale, which looks more like, for those that can remember, the Goodyear blimp (or the Hindenburg), than a whale. But what is a little creative licence to make the name more marketable (and put distance between it and the Hindenburg).

Though there is more work to be done with the design, technology, and testing of the near 200 metre long Flying Whale, a 2028 start in Australia is the target.

There are 5 other bases in Flying Whale’s Australian plans, plus a manufacturing facility. What a coup that would be for Central Queensland. And in a way, a step back to the future. As Longreach once manufactured QANTAS planes, thanks to the skills, knowledge and teachings of Arthur Baird, another key figure in the QANTAS origin story.

Congratulations to the Mount Isa Council on reaching an entrepreneurial agreement with Flying Whales, which is still to be proven as a viable business. Taking a punt on something untested is something not normally in a Councils remit.

It is great to see the entrepreneurial spirit still alive in the outback, as it was back in the 1920’s (and beforehand). Spirit which Fergus McMaster, the third founder of QANTAS, converted into shares being bought in an idea, an untested business.

While the pros and cons of wind farms will be long discussed, the economic advancement and liveability of regional and rural Australia can now again look to the sky, not just for hope, but solutions. Instead of giant drones transporting infrastructure, medical equipment, humanitarian aid, it might be helium powered Flying Whales. Putting whale watching in a new light.

It is a pity though we are not talking about an Australian consortium behind the idea. But then, QANTAS started with British made planes. What spark would Paul McGinness add, if he was alive, and knowing whales can now fly? The sky is the limit.

P.S. When Flying Whales name their first Australian manufactured aircraft, I hope they consider Paul McGinness as its name. Arguably the forgotten founder of QANTAS, and at one time its biggest shareholder, a war hero, visionary; who died, without fanfare, aged only 58, physically (thought to had post-traumatic stress disorder) and financially broken.

“McGinness is the one who supplied the first spark then the others came along”, Sir Hudson Fysh.