The MacRobertson Air Race, the DH Eighty-Eight Comet Built in Nine Months to Win It, and the KLM Douglas DC-Two That Raced with Paying Passengers Aboard

On October 20, 1934, twenty aircraft departed RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk for Melbourne, Australia in one of the most consequential air races ever flown. The 11,000-mile MacRobertson Air Race produced two landmark results: a purpose-built de Havilland DH 88 Comet won on speed, and a KLM Douglas DC-2 flying a commercial route with paying passengers finished second - a performance that set the stage for the Douglas DC-3 and changed the economics of commercial aviation.

What Was the MacRobertson Air Race?

Sir MacPherson Robertson, an Australian confectionery magnate from Ballarat, Victoria, organized the race to mark the centenary of the state of Victoria. He contributed £10,000 sterling in prize money and worked with the British Air League to establish the route: Mildenhall to Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, with mandatory stops at Baghdad, Allahabad, Singapore, Darwin, and Charleville, Queensland. Each crew was required to prove they had cleared every checkpoint.

The race offered two prizes: a speed award for the first aircraft to reach Melbourne, and a handicap prize calculated against each aircraft’s expected performance. Twenty crews entered, representing Britain, the Netherlands, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

There were no weather satellites. No radar. No SIGMET advisories. Navigation was maps, compasses, dead reckoning, and whatever the sky decided to do.

The de Havilland DH 88 Comet: Designed and Built in Nine Months

When de Havilland saw the race announcement in spring 1933, the Hatfield company made a decision that set it apart from every other entrant: they would not modify an existing aircraft. They would design a new one.

The DH 88 Comet was a twin-engine, low-wing monoplane with retractable undercarriage, a fully enclosed tandem cockpit, and variable-pitch propellers - still a relatively exotic feature on British production aircraft at the time. The fuselage was molded laminated spruce and balsa, shaped into compound curves precision-engineered for drag reduction. Two Gipsy Six R engines, buried in the wings, each produced 230 horsepower. Loaded weight was just over 5,000 pounds. Top speed at sea level was 237 mph - faster than the Supermarine Spitfire, which would not fly for another year and a half.

De Havilland received their first firm order in January 1934. The race started October 20, 1934. They designed, built, ground-tested, and delivered three airworthy aircraft in nine months.

The three Comets were named Grosvenor House (red), Black Magic (black), and a third aircraft finished in racing green. Each carried a two-man crew funded by different backers.

Who Else Was on the Line at Mildenhall

Roscoe Turner and Clyde Pangborn entered a Boeing 247D - at the time arguably the finest commercial airliner in American service. Turner was one of the most recognizable figures in American air racing. Pangborn had completed the first nonstop transpacific flight, from Japan to Washington State, three years earlier - arriving with his landing gear deliberately jettisoned to save weight after a fueling calculation that left very little margin. Together they were formidable.

The entry list also included a Miles Falcon, a Fairey Fox, several de Havilland Dragon Rapides, and a Lockheed Altair - the full spectrum of what aviation looked like in 1934, from purpose-built racers to converted airliners to optimistic longshots who wanted the journey more than the prize.

The KLM Douglas DC-2 “Uiver”: Racing With a Full Cabin

The entry that defied easy categorization was Royal Dutch Airlines - KLM - which entered a Douglas DC-2 named Uiver (Dutch for “stork”). KLM flew the Amsterdam-to-Batavia route commercially; Melbourne was simply a detour south. Their argument was explicit and, in hindsight, visionary: modern commercial aviation is capable of competing with purpose-built racing machines.

The Uiver carried captain Koene Dirk Parmentier, co-pilot Jan Moll, two additional crew members, and three paying passengers who had booked seats on the regularly scheduled service. Mail was loaded in the hold. The aircraft had no race modifications.

They were racing with a full cabin.

How the Race Unfolded

Aircraft departed at 90-second intervals beginning at 6:30 AM. Within the first hour, the fastest machines were over France, climbing southeast toward conditions that would test everything their airframes had.

Baghdad’s October heat and dust fouled engines and collapsed visibility. Allahabad brought the monsoon fringe - low ceilings and turbulence capable of shaking a wooden airframe until the spars groaned. Singapore’s equatorial humidity made instruments unreliable and engines run rough. Darwin was the last stop before the outback: vast, featureless, and offering nowhere to put down if something went wrong.

Black Magic, flown by Arthur Orlando Edwards and C.G. Kay, made it as far as Allahabad before engine trouble ended their race. The third Comet, flown by Charles Cathcart-Jones and Ken Waller, was plagued by mechanical problems throughout but finished fifth overall.

That left one Comet running clean: Grosvenor House.

Scott and Campbell Black: Efficiency Built From Experience

Grosvenor House was flown by Charles William Anderson Scott and Tom Campbell Black. Scott had flown the England-Australia route before and held the speed record twice. He knew the checkpoints, the headwinds, and the fuel burn at different altitudes over different terrain - flying the route with the efficiency that only comes from deep familiarity.

Campbell Black matched him in temperament: calm, methodical, with the physical endurance that pre-autopilot long-distance flying demanded when there was no first officer to split the watch.

They flew three days and nights essentially without stopping.

The Night Over New South Wales: Albury Lights a Runway

The Uiver matched the Comets’ efficiency through the same checkpoints - refueling quickly, departing immediately, pressing south through Singapore and Darwin into Australia. Three passengers in the cabin. Mail in the hold.

Over New South Wales, a storm system moved in after dark. The Uiver was south of the planned route, low on fuel, unable to get a reliable radio bearing, the horizon invisible in cloud and rain. In 1934 there was no long-range navigation system to provide a position fix when the stars disappeared and the radio became unreliable. Position came down to compass, watch, and a best estimate of what the wind had been doing to groundspeed for the last four hours.

They were lost. They were low on fuel. They knew both.

Someone in the town of Albury, New South Wales heard on the radio that the KLM airliner was circling overhead, lost in the weather, unable to find the aerodrome.

The people of Albury drove to the aerodrome and the racecourse. They pulled onto the field, switched on their headlights, and pointed them down the runway. No coordination, no authority, no one in charge.

Parmentier saw the lights. He landed safely on the improvised flare path, refueled, waited out the worst of the weather, and pressed on to Melbourne.

The Final Results

Grosvenor House crossed the finish line at Flemington Racecourse at 3:34 PM, with an elapsed time of 70 hours, 54 minutes, and 18 seconds. The crowd numbered in the tens of thousands. Witnesses were still describing the noise when Grosvenor House made her low pass over the racetrack decades later.

The Uiver arrived with a final time of 2 days, 21 hours, 3 minutes, and 12 seconds - second overall on speed, first in the handicap class.

Turner and Pangborn’s Boeing 247D placed third on speed - a remarkable result for an unmodified production airliner.

Why the MacRobertson Race Changed Commercial Aviation

The KLM result did not go unnoticed. The DC-2 had entered a speed race against purpose-built machines and finished second overall. It had done this carrying passengers, mail, and cargo. It had done this on a commercial route with no modifications to the basic production airframe.

The aviation press noticed. American airline executives noticed. The sales department at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica noticed most of all.

Within months of the MacRobertson race, American Airlines approached Donald Douglas about a larger, sleeper-equipped version of the DC-2. Douglas built it. They called it the DC-3, which went on to become arguably the most important transport aircraft ever built - the aircraft that made commercial aviation economically viable.

The line from a candy manufacturer in Victoria to that airplane runs directly through three passengers sitting in a Dutch airliner over New South Wales, watching car headlights appear on the ground below them.

Where Grosvenor House Is Today

Grosvenor House survived World War II serving as a navigation trainer and is preserved on permanent display at the Royal Air Force Museum at Cosford in Shropshire - a nearly 90-year-old wooden racing airplane still accessible to visitors.

Key Takeaways

The MacRobertson Air Race on October 20, 1934 sent 20 aircraft 11,000 miles from RAF Mildenhall to Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, with five mandatory stops and no modern navigation aids.
De Havilland designed, built, and delivered three DH 88 Comets in nine months after deciding to build a purpose-built racer rather than modify an existing aircraft.
Scott and Campbell Black won on speed in Grosvenor House with an elapsed time of 70 hours, 54 minutes, and 18 seconds.
The KLM Douglas DC-2 Uiver finished second overall on speed and first on handicap while carrying three paying passengers and mail - proving a production airliner could compete with purpose-built racers.
The townspeople of Albury, New South Wales improvised a flare path from car headlights, allowing the fuel-low, weather-lost Uiver to land safely and continue to Melbourne.
The Uiver’s performance directly prompted the commission that produced the Douglas DC-3, the aircraft that made commercial aviation economically viable worldwide.