The Deperdussin "The Dirty Dustbin"

It was from a grazing paddock that Australia’s military aviation took flight, outstripping its humble beginnings. 

The Central Flying School was officially established at Point Cook on 7 March 1913, making Australia the only British dominion to set up a flying corps for service during the First World War. The Australian Flying Corps (AFC) assembled and trained here before going overseas. 

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One of the relics of this ground-breaking period is the Memorial’s Deperdussin taxi-type single-seat training monoplane, Australia’s oldest surviving military aircraft. The Memorial’s example is serial number CFS.5, which identifies it as the fifth Australian military aircraft to be built. It was one of two single-seat trainers, Type A, with 35-horsepower Anzani Y-type three-cylinder engines, ordered from the British Deperdussin Aeroplane Company by the Australian government in 1912. One was purchased as a School Type for flying training (CFS.4), and the other as a Taxi-Type for ground training (CFS.5). When the CFS.4 took to the skies on Sunday 1 March 1914 with instructor Lieutenant Henry Petre at the controls, Australian military aviation had effectively begun.

But the Deperdussin’s inadequacies quickly became apparent when the career ofCFS.4 ended a week later. During a visit on 9 March by Australia’s Minister for Defence, the Hon. Edward Millen, Petre damaged it beyond repair. The Anzani three-cylinder engine coughed and died, not an uncommon occurrence. The monoplane immediately descended steeply, heading straight for some telephone lines. Petre turned sharply to avoid them before the Deperdussin sideslipped into the ground. Petre’s faith in the aircraft, which he called the “dirty dustbin”, was lost and the school did not order its repair. This left its sister aircraft, CFS.5, as the school’s only (non-flying) monoplane trainer.

CFS.5 was rigged to produce insufficient power to lift off and was mainly intended to familiarise students with engine-starting practice, rigging instruction, and taxi training -that is, running along the ground. Some keen students did, however, take it on unofficial “hops” during taxi training. In fact, the spliced repairs on the four fuselage longerons (thin strips of material to which the skin of the aircraft is fastened) are testament to at least one instance of rough handling.

Ordered at the same time as the Deperdussins were two BE2a biplanes and a Bristol Box kite. With these aircraft, training commenced on 17 August 1914 with four trainees. Of these, two would later become notable Australians: Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams, first Chief of the Air Staff, RAAF, and Director-General of Civil Aviation - and Sir Thomas White, member of several Commonwealth Cabinets, and Australian High Commissioner to London.

Major advancements were made in aviation technology during the First World War and the Deperdussin was obsolete before the war’s end. It is a fragile construction of wood, metal and Irish linen, and contains only basic features, such as the advance and retard controls. It relied upon wing warping for lateral control and the only instrument is the glass panel on the metal fuel tank (between the steering wheel and propeller) that indicated fuel levels. The skeletal construction of the aircraft makes it appear as if the pilot is sitting in a bucket on a ladder made out of milk crates. From today’s perspective, it is astonishing that this aircraft was considered adequate for training pilots. It was transferred to the Australian War Memorial in 1920.