Glamour, danger and pioneering spirit are not words commonly associated with the air travel industry today, but for a time in the early 20th century, aviation captivated the global imagination.
UNC alumnus Peter McMillan ’81 re-lived the 1919 and 1920 record-breaking flights of the Vickers Vimy, a historic British World War I twin-engine biplane bomber with a 68-foot wingspan.pilots
McMillan will share his story in a free public presentation at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 10 in the FedEx Global Education Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A public reception will follow.
The event is held in conjunction with the release of McMillan’s book “The Vimy Expeditions,” which chronicles the Vimy’s epic flights until its retirement in 2009, including first England-to-Australia flight (1919); first transatlantic crossing (1919), eight years before Lindbergh’s solo flight; and first England-to-South Africa flight (1920).