Two hundred pilots converged on Parkes airport on the weekend, inspiring dreams in future generations and - for one local lady - bringing back a lot of memories.
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Virginia Wykes OAM was our first Aboriginal Australian female pilot - and with her co-pilot Steve Hirvonen the first Indigenous pilot to fly the London to Sydney air race in 2001.
Today, Virginia and her husband Lyle farm at Goonumbla and her Cessna 150 is parked in the HARs Museum at Parkes airport.
They were keen visitors to the Fly'n for Fun event on the weekend, to take a front row at the Paul Bennets Airshow and visit the museum.
Virginia learned to fly in Parkes in 1982, with Lyle's encouragement so they could fly between the farm at Parkes and their other property between Yeoval and Wellington.
The couple made the trip regularly for decades, along with two dogs to work the sheep.
But if you take a few steps further into the Museum you can read about Virginia's adventure of a lifetime - the 2001 London to Sydney air race.
It's a massive step up from flying between the two properties and this venture, just like learning to fly, was at Lyle's urging.
It just so happened that Virginia featured in the Koori Mail on the same page as another Indigenous pilot, Steve Hirvonen.
As she considered the possibility of entering the 28-day around-the-world race, Virginia reached out to Steve to see if he'd be interested.
"I rang him up and he started laughing because he thought I was joking," she recalled this week.
"But I was serious and when he found out I was serious he became serious too."
The entry fee seemed prohibitive at $50,000 and the team reached out for sponsorship, with limited success, in the end it took a loan to get them airborne.
Then the team had to fly their Cessna 210 to England for the start of the race. Virginia collected Steve in Mount Isa - the first time they'd met - and embarked on their campaign.
It wasn't without its challenges: in fact, they missed the start of the big race.
"We got stuck in Calcutta (on the way over) because there was no fuel for the aircraft," Virginia said.
"There was plenty of jet fuel but none for the light aircraft. We were stuck there for nine days."
Fuel was brought from Australia just in time for the team to land in France on the day the rest of the competitors finishing their first day's flying.
Still, they were in it.
"You could lose two legs (of the race) and still be in the race, we'd lost one leg from England to France but we were still in the race," Virginia said.
"So we swung around with the rest of the race and back we came again."
The London to Sydney took them to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Thailand and Timor before it reached Australian shores and touched down in Darwin, Alice Springs and finally Sydney.
Virginia's team was 15th to finish but it was immaterial.
"We didn't care where we came - we thought we'd won just because we got in the race," she said.
"Just being able to see the world and cities from a light aircraft ...
"When you're in a big aircraft it all looks different and you're much higher, but to see it from a light aircraft it was just amazing."
Virginia and Lyle settled on the Parkes farm about nine years ago now.
Virginia received the Order of Australia Medal in 2006 for service to the community in western New South Wales through the support of health and service organisations, local tourism and pilot club activities. She's also in the Women's Hall of Fame in Alice Springs.
