The Birdman Monaro

In 1966, on Tuggerah Lake near Newcastle, NSW, Bill Moyes set a new world altitude record of 1,049 feet (319 metres) for kite-flying behind a speedboat. The previous record was a mere 300 feet (91 metres).

Story: James Cockington

Moyes’ secret was an innovative delta wing kite, designed by Sydney-based inventor John Dickenson (Dickenson was more or less the father of the sport of hang gliding). The delta wing design gave a dramatic improvement in uplift on previous designs. Moyes built the frame himself from lightweight aluminium tubing.
A year later Moyes, an auto-electrician from the Sydney suburb of Waverley, formed Moyes Delta Gliders. This was one of the first companies to make what are now known as hang-gliders. To promote this new sport (and his new business venture no doubt) ‘Birdman’ Bill and his mate Bill Bennett staged a dual flight behind a speedboat along the Parramatta River in 1968. They flew for over 1.6km with both men reaching heights of 305 metres.
Moyes then decided to adapt this stunt to the Royal Show circuit, where he was usually towed by a beach buggy and occasionally by one of the Monaro Driving Team cars (later known as the Holden Precision Driving Team). A much shorter rope had to be used, but these were spectacular performances and about as dangerous as they looked.
Former HPDT manager Lloyd Robertson well remembers the courage and determination of Bill the Birdman. “Towards the end of the Melbourne Show he unfortunately had an accident during a performance and sustained injuries, to his pelvis, I think.
“As the two Royal Shows overlapped by a few days, we all flew over to Perth on the Saturday midnight flight at the conclusion of the Melbourne Show. I had another set of Monaros organised in Perth and Bill asked me if I would pull him up behind my team Monaro at the Perth Show. As he was still suffering from his injuries, I tried to convince him to cancel his performance. On about the third flight, he stumbled on take-off and re-injured himself, after which he cancelled his remaining performances!”
This photo is a bit of a mystery. Lloyd says the yellow HG Monaro GTS shown is not one of his team cars, despite the GM-H logo visible on the front mudguard. It also looks like a Victorian number plate – all of Lloyd’s cars had Queensland rego.
And Bill Moyes was sure that it’s his understudy Bill Flewellyn flying the kite, not him. Flewellyn had a tough life. After a bad accident at the Melbourne Show when he crashed through a grandstand roof, he was killed a few years later performing at the Toowoomba Show.
Bill Moyes says that getting airborne behind a car wasn’t always easy, especially on a small showground track. Correct speed was vital. “Air resistance is everything,” he explains. “Going upwind (driving into the wind) the car could be doing only 20 mph (30km/h) but if you were downwind (wind behind you) they’d have to be doing 60 mph (100km/h).”