John Robertson Duigan

John R. Duigan on his first aircraft

Duigan biplane 1910/1911

John Robertson Duigan (born May 31, 1882 in Terang , Australia , † June 11, 1952 in Melbourne - Ringwood , Australia) was an Australian aviation pioneer and electrical engineer.

Life

Duigan was born in Terang, Victoria in 1882 to John Charles Duigan and his wife Jane, née Robertson. Between 1902 and 1904 he was trained as an electrical engineer in London and after 1905 worked as an engine technician at Wakefield & District Light Railway in Yorkshire . In 1908 he returned to Australia and moved to Mia Mia after a stay in Melbourne .

There, with the help of his brother Reginald, John Duigan built the first airworthy motorized aircraft made in Australia for a crew of two on his Spring Plains estate , which took off for the first time on July 16, 1910. In October it was already flying at an altitude of over 100 meters. ( Harry Houdini had already demonstrated a French airplane near Sydney in March 1910. )

However, Duigan registered his aircraft too late for a competition by the Australian military, so that the prize money was forfeited due to a lack of qualified submissions. The Ministry of Defense had the aircraft demonstrated in May 1911. After that, it never flew again and was moved to the Melbourne Museum in 1920.

Duigan returned to England in 1911, where he received his pilot's license in 1912 and bought an Avro plane, which he brought back to Australia with Reginald and built there. The aircraft of the Avro-Flyer received his lighter constructed replica. He was seriously injured in a crash in 1913 and his machine was also badly damaged. In November 1913, John Duigan married Rebecca Corney, a nurse, in Caulfield .

Duigan volunteered for the Australian Flying Corps in 1916 and took part in the First World War. As part of the 3rd Squadron of the AFC, he flew missions on the Western Front , for which he was awarded the Military Cross . After his demobilization, he returned to Melbourne in 1919 and worked there as an electrical engineer. In 1928 he opened an engine workshop in Yarrawonga. In 1941 he returned to Melbourne after a stroke and worked as an engineer for the RAAF until the end of World War II . Then he retired to Ringwood in Melbourne. In 1951 he died of cancer. In 1960 a memorial was inaugurated in Mia Mia to commemorate his first flight.

Qantas announced that it would name an airplane after the pioneers of aviation, and the Australian Post issued a postage stamp with portraits of the brothers in 1970.

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