Brian Edwards (8) (1941–)

The March, 1990 solo flight in 1943 Tiger Moth “Matilda”, Brian Edwards set off to achieve his goal to fly the route of Australian aviation pioneer, Bert Hinkler, first man to fly solo from London to Darwin in a record setting 15 1/2 days (Feb. 7 - 22, 1928) in an Avro Avian. For which Hinkler was awarded the Oswald Watt Gold Medal.

The most incredible story you may never have heard of. On March 2nd, 1990 after some fifteen years of planning, Brian Edwards, Edwards Winery founder and show more amateur pilot, left Binbrook Airfield in England bound for Australia. Flying solo in his 1943 Tiger Moth “Matilda”, he set off to achieve his goal to fly the route of the great Australian aviation pioneers, Bert Hinkler and Sir Charles Kingsford Smith. His trip also set out to honour the memory of his late father Clifford, who went missing in action in World War II, and to raise money for Legacy who had cared for him and his mother for twenty years. It was an epic journey to say the least, from the first disastrous day of the journey where he had to make a forced landing due to a snapped crankshaft all the way to his successful completion of the journey and arrival at Langley Park in Perth on May 13th, 1990. In 1991 Brian and his wife Jenny looking to a ‘tree change’, purchased some land in Western Australia’s wine region of Margaret River. This piece of land was particularly appealing to Brian because he could get an airstrip along the back boundary. Two years later in 1993, the first vines were planted at Edwards, and the vineyard rapidly developed and has now grown to sixty acres. Estate grown grapes now include Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Shiraz, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon – all varieties perfectly suited to the conditions in the region. Brian Edwards passed away in 2003 from Leukaemia, but his memory and the dream he achieved, both on land and in the air, lives on through Edwards Wines and the Tiger Moth “Matilda” which sits in pride of pace in her own hanger adjacent to the Edwards Cellar Door. show less