Fred Custance, pilot for disputed first plane flight north of Adelaide in 1910; sets records for cars and motor bikes

Fred Custance (top, at right) as co driver and mechanic to G. Gilmore White aboard White’s 35-h.p. Talbot motorcar that broke records in 1909 for time travelled between Melbourne and Adelaide and then Melbourne and Sydney. At right: A tyre company cashing in on the feat. Bottom left: Custance, possibly at right, working with Fred Jones on his Bleriot monoplane. 
Illustration from Australian Aviators: An Illustrated History by Brian Carroll

Fred Custance’s status as the 19-year-old pilot for Australia’s first plane flight on March 17, 1910, at Bolivar, north of Adelaide, has been clouded but it only adds to the adventurousness of his short life.

Born in Essex, England, Custance arrived in Adelaide at 17 with his parents (his father Professor J. D. Custance was Roseworthy agricultural college’s first principal) with an interest in engineering that led to a job with Vivian Lewis, early South Australian bicycle, motor cycle and car builders.

Custance’s adventurousness saw him join Gilmore White in a 35hp Talbot car in 1909 when they set a record for the Melbourne-Adelaide trip of 20 hours six minutes, passing that set by South Australia’s B. Barr Smith and Murray Aunger. Nine months later, Custance and White beating the Melbourne-Sydney record by more than four hours at 21 hours 19 minutes. Three years later, Custance passed V. E. Feverill's 24 hours motor cycle record on the Maitland-Ardrossan-Athurton circuit, on a 3.5hp Vivian Lewis machine, completing 532 miles in 23 hours 11 minutes.

Custance, as a mechanic, was employed by Adelaide businessman Fred Jones to help engineer Bill Wittber assemble the Bleriot Type XI monoplane that Jones had bought in 1909 for £1000 and had shipped to Adelaide in kit form.

After being shown at John Martin’s Adelaide store, the Bleriot kit was taken on Sunday, March 13, 1910, to a paddock at Bolivar for its first tryout. With Wittber at the controls, the plane struck a tussock and hopped into the air for about 15 metres. This hop, though not a controlled flight, was a confirmed event.

Jones and Custance returned to Bolivar at 5am on Thursday, March 17, as part of experiments to get the Bleriot into the air. Custance taxied the aircraft around the paddock several times before taking off on a flight lasting five minutes and 25 seconds, with three circuits of the paddock covering about 4.8 kilometres at a height of 12-15 feet. Custance tried a second flight at 6.15am, looking for 50 feet altitude, but crashed after takeoff, damaging the plane.

Doubts on the reliability of witnesses to this flight were fanned in 1943 when Jones claimed he had been the pilot, after previously saying Custance’s circuit flight was “mythical”. Also overshadowing the feat was the flight the next day in Diggers Rest, Victoria, by the master of publicity: Harry Houdini. Later, Custance did fly and much higher.

During World War I, he was chosen for the Australian Flying Corps. He sailed in 1916 to Palestine to join its No.1 squadron and flew BE2cs, including creating a record flight from Cairo to Romani in 40 hours.

Back in Adelaide after the war, Custance’s brilliance as a draughtsman and engineer saw him invent a suspension spring and mining scoop. Also impressed with Caterpillar machinery hauling heavy artillery in Palestine, Custance promoted its tractors as a way to open the outback. He was sent to the United States and obtained the tractor agency for Vrai Ltd at Torrensville.

Custance died of exhaustion in the outback near Olary in 1922, aged 33. He had tried to walk for help for Trevor Hawker, his companion when their car broke down and became bogged.