Though flying the early civil aircraft could be a challenge, so could maintaining the aircraft along the desert air route. Capt. Garner explores the challenges supporting aircraft as a ground engineer in North Africa, first for the Royal Air Force and then as part of Imperial Airway’s Ground engineering staff. Not only did he have a number of adventures with the airline’s aircraft, he also helped to support some of the civil record breakers, including Charles Kingsford Smith in the Southern Cross and Bert Hinkler during his first flight from London to Australia.

Garner moved from ground engineering to flight engineering, and it is from the flight engineer’s seat that he played a memorable role in the experimental air mail flight from Karachi to Darwin in 1931.

Garner’s career continued into the period where landplanes gave way to flying boats and he retells stories of some of the first flying boats to enter service.

Captain W. L. Garner was interviewed by David Jones on 13 June 1975. This recording is part of the series Development of Civil Aviation from the UK to Australasia. It was digitised thanks to a grant from the RAeS Foundation and the podcast was edited by Eur Ing Mike Stanberry FRAeS.