The Western Australian Centenary Air Race (also known as the East-West Air Race) was a 2450 miles (3,942.9 km) air race held in 1929 from Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 to Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

 to commemorate the Western Australia Centenary.

The £1000 handicap winner was Horrie Miller

Horrie Miller (aviator)

Horace Clive "Horrie" Miller OBE was a pioneer Australian aviator and co-founder of MacRobertson Miller Airlines .Miller was born in Ballarat, Victoria....

 and the £300 fastest overall time prize was won by Briton Geoffrey De Havilland

Geoffrey de Havilland

Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, OM, CBE, AFC, RDI, FRAeS, was a British aviation pioneer and aircraft engineer...

 (22 hours 50 minutes 23 seconds), who flew the course solo, the only competitor to do so, in a modified De Havilland Gipsy Moth

De Havilland DH.60 Moth

The de Havilland DH 60 Moth was a 1920s British two-seat touring and training aircraft that was developed into a series of aircraft by the de Havilland Aircraft Company.-Development:The DH 60 was developed from the larger DH 51 biplane...

.

Determining results in the handicap event was found to be a difficult task, with type of machine, weather conditions, wind direction and strength of wind for each half day's hop, supplemented by times of starting being taken into consideration.

700 people had turned out at Kalgoorlie

Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

Kalgoorlie, known as Kalgoorlie-Boulder, is a town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, and is located east-northeast of state capital Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway...

 to see the competitors off on the final leg of the race. Victorian C.D. Pratt and his co-pilot J.R. Guthrie were both seriously injured when their Gipsy Moth Corio crashed near Baandee

Baandee, Western Australia

Baandee is a small town located in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, about halfway between the towns of Kellerberrin and Merredin on the Great Eastern Highway approximately from Perth, the state capital.-History:The town was gazetted in April 1912...

, 230 kilometres (142.9 mi) East of Perth. Weather conditions after leaving Tammin

Tammin, Western Australia

The town of Tammin is located in the central agricultural region, east of Perth, Western Australia and midway between the towns of Cunderdin and Kellerberrin on the Great Eastern Highway.-History:...

 were said to be atrocious, with at least one forced landing and one crash.

The 17 teams left from Mascot

Sydney Airport

Sydney Airport may refer to:* Sydney Airport, also known as Kingsford Smith International Airport, in Sydney, Australia* Sydney/J.A. Douglas McCurdy Airport, in Nova Scotia, Canada...

 in Sydney on 29 September 1929 and 14 managed to finish at Maylands Aerodrome on Sunday 7 October.

Fastest times

1. De Havilland (22 hours 50 minutes 23 seconds)
2. Heath (23.24.51)
3. Miller (23.31.58)
4. Cunningham (26.56.52)
5. Pentland (27.14.44)
6. Eaton (28.17.30)
7. McKay (29.23.10)
8. Bardsley (29.37.58)
9. Davies (29.32.54)
10. Manifold (30.31.58)
11. Farmer (31.35.7)
12. Knapman (32.4.49)
13. Lee Murray (32.30.0)
14. Penny (32.56.20)

Further reading

• Adelaide Observer, 28 September 1929, page 20d, 12 October 1929, pages 33 (photographs)-61.