page_title: Joseph Joel Hammond
section_title: Flights in Australia
hierarchical_section_title: Joseph Joel Hammond / Flights in Australia
caption_attribution_description: English: Bristol Boxkite Centenary Flight at RAAF Centenary of Military Aviation 2014
context_page_description: Joseph Joel Hammond was a pioneering New Zealand aviator. On 17 January 1914 at Epsom showgrounds he took New Zealand's first military plane, a Blériot XI-2, for its first flight.
context_section_description: The company sent Hammond (accompanied by his wife, Sydney E. Smith, the company's manager, mechanic/pilot Leslie F. Macdonald and a staff of mechanics as well as two Boxkites to Australia in an attempt to interest the Australian government in purchasing aircraft for military reconnaissance. Had they were successful, the intention was to establish a factory in Melbourne to build the planes. They disembarked from the R.M.S. Omrah in Fremantle on 13 13 December 1910 and transferred to Perth. 
  After assembling machine No. 10 Hammond made the first aircraft flight in West Australia from Perth's Belmont Park Racecourse on 3 January 1911.
  Hammond made the final of the seven flights he made in Perth on 12 January 1911, after which the aircraft was dismantled and shipped to Melbourne.
  Setting up their flight headquarters in Altona, a suburb of Melbourne and reassembling an aircraft, Hammond on 18 February 1911, undertook the aircraft aloft for his first flight in Victoria. On 20 February 1911, he flew from Altona to Geelong and landed on the Geelong Racecourse, taking 55 minutes to cover 42 miles (67.6 km). The following day Hammond returned to Altona, having made the first cross-country flights in Australia.
  On 23 February, also from Altona, Hammond made the first passenger flight in Australia, taking Frank Coles, one of the Bristol mechanics, for a 7½ minute flight.
  Later that same day he took his wife, Ethelwyn for a 12½ minute flight, making her the first woman to fly in Australia.
  On 2 March 1911, local businessman, M. H. Baillieu, paid to be taken for a flight. This 11.8 mile (19 km) circular journey was the first paid charter flight and also the first carrying an Australian citizen as a passenger. On 26 March 1911 Hammond flew with both Leslie McDonald and mechanic Coles as passengers to demonstrate the weight carrying performance of the Boxkite. This was the first multiple passenger flight in Australia. Hammond made a total of 40 flights in Melbourne before the team relocated to Sydney.
  On 18 April 1911 Hammond made the first-ever flight in Sydney, flying from the site of what would become Sydney Airport. 
  This was the first of several aerial displays and flights for fee-paying passengers over in Sydney
  While official observers from the Australian Army had observed these demonstrations and were also taken for flights, in a further attempt to obtain orders from the military Hammond with a Captain Niechy as passenger flew 20 miles on 3 May from Botany Bay at Sydney to a cavalry training camp at Liverpool. He landed in the presence of the governor general, Lord Dudley and Brigadier General J. M. Gordon. The following day he flew Lt Colonel Antill on an observation flight of the Liverpool camp.
  During his five months in Australia Hammond flew over 65 flights (some of them with his wife as passenger).  Leslie Macdonald gave further demonstration flights in Sydney before the Bristol tour finished on 9 May 1911.
  While Hammond was not the first person to fly in Australia, prior to the arrival of the Bristol team the others had only made short hops or flew at very low heights. In comparison, the Boxkite flew higher, further, carried out display flying and took up passengers, all under the complete control of the pilot.
  McDonald took a photographer from the Daily Telegraph for a 25-minute flight over Sydney on 6 May, making the first aerial photographs to be taken in Australia. By 19 May, 72 flights totalling 765 miles (1231 km) had been made by No. 10.
  Machine No. 11, still in its crate, was sold to Parramatta dentist W.E. Hart who was given flying lessons by Leslie McDonald. Hart subsequently used the aircraft to become the first Australian to gain a aviator's certificate.
  When the Bristol team left for home Hammond and his wife remained behind and travelled to New Zealand introducing his wife to family and friends. During the holiday Hammond was admitted to hospital, first with appendicitis, followed by a bout of pneumonia and then blood poisoning in the leg. It was six months before he was well enough to travel back to England.
caption: Bristol Boxkite Replica at RAAF Museum
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