BIRDS DON’T USE PARACHUTES
Bill was born in Bronte, a southern Sydney suburb, right next to the sea. He was the eldest of six children to William Moyes, a New South Wales police detective, and Mary Taranto, a homemaker.
Both of Bill’s parents were emmigrants to Australia. His mother was from Sicily, so Italian was the language spoken at home.
Bill was a tearaway whilst a boy, always seeking adventure, taking risks and getting into trouble. It wore his mother out.
In later years, Bill’s daughter, Vicki, said, “He was a scalawag and pyromaniac. He very much liked to go out and do reckless things.”
Bill would spend hours at the beach watching seagulls fly. He was amazed by their aerodynamic attributes. He dreamed of flying himself, “In my mind, I didn’t fly like superman with my arms stretched out. Nor did I flap my wings to fly. I wasn’t a bird. I was a boy with wings.”
Instead, Bill became an accomplished ocean swimmer, entering many races.
Bill had a childhood sweetheart, Molly Lowe, whom he married when they were still at school, aged just seventeen.
He left school at eighteen and went to work in Molly’s parents’ fruit shop. Bill called it, “The worst four years of my life.”
Eventually, Bill quit and went to study automobile repair at Sydney Technical College. Once he had graduated, he set up his own repair shop.
Bill and Molly were to have five children; Susan, Vicki, Debra, Jennifer and Stephen.
At thirty-two, Bill took up (barefoot) water-skiing as his new hobby.
Whilst running his shop, Bill became friendly with a television repairman, John Dickerson, who lived close by.
Dickerson was obsessed with building a kite which could be flown behind a boat, and Bill was intrigued by this idea.
After many failed designs, John’s breakthrough came when he read a NASA magazine. An article showed a prototype for a kite parachute to enable space capsules to return to earth.
John used the idea, adapting it to fit his kite. He put in a trapeze seat so a pilot would be able to steer it.
John Dickerson chose six test pilots to try his machine out. Bill was number six.
The trial was on the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales. It did not go well. Bill called it, “A comedy of errors.”
The first pilot crashed. The wire attaching the boat to the kite, severed his ear and he was rushed to hospital.
The second pilot was a bag of nerves, panicked, crashed the kite and broke his leg. He too was taken to hospital.
The third pilot let go of the control mechanism and was badly gashed – hospital.
After the fourth and fifth pilot had both been taken away in an ambulance, John and Bill had a problem. There was nobody left who was able to drive the boat.
Finally, they found somebody who could do this. Bill gave him strict instructions – drive it at exactly 30mph. He did, and Bill flew, without incident.
John Dickenson is now credited as having made the world’s first hang-glider.
Bill became his official test pilot.
Just six weeks later, Bill created the first hang-gliding world record – at Lake Tuggerah in Australia, flying at 1,045 feet.
Soon afterwards, Bill smashed this record by flying over Lake Ellesmere in New Zealand at 2,870 feet.
The next achievement was launching himself off Mount Crackenback in the Australian Alps. He launched himself off the mountain – the first glider to go from being towed to being ‘foot launched’.
During the flight, Bill came face-to-face with an eagle, that stared at him. “You look a bird in the eye, and you know that bird can fly. Well, so can I.”
A newspaper reported, “As the flight had not been publicised, skiers on the slopes watched incredulously and people ran out of lodges and the hotel to watch the spectacular ‘birdman’.”
Bill had flown for over two miles – the longest unassisted flight in history.
He also, instantly, popularised hang-gliding as a sport. “Bill never anticipated when he first flew off the mountain, that it would explode as a sport, but it wasn’t too long before friends began asking him to build them a hang-glider.”
Bill turned this into a business called Moyes Gliders. He built twelve hang-gliders in the first year and twenty in the next.
Bill gave his first public demonstration at a water-skiing show, with an audience of twenty thousand people.
There were gasps of amazement as he flew in, landed at the water’s edge – and then casually strolled off. “He just stepped straight on to the beach and walked away.”
Although there were accidents as well. Bill went on a water-skiing holiday in Denmark. He took his glider with him, but crashed into some trees, breaking a wrist.
He was in plaster for six weeks.
By now, Bill was constantly designing hang-gliders. He watched birds for hours, trying to learn from their aerodynamics.
On his flights, he refused to wear a helmet, saying birds didn’t use helmets (in later years whilst teaching a young man to glide, Bill was asked where the parachute was – “Birds don’t use parachutes”).
On one occasion, he was flying behind a Stearman when his glider fell apart. The wind was too strong. Bill admitted he had been lucky not to have been killed.
In 1970, Bill decided to fly the Grand Canyon in the USA.
He stood at the edge of the canyon, throwing paper planes into it, to see how they flew.
A National Park Ranger came up and asked what he was doing. Bill explained that he intended to fly into the Grand Canyon.
The ranger said, “This is a park, not a bloody circus – besides, I don’t think you could do it anyway.”
This just made Bill more determined. “Whenever someone says something can’t be done, that’s when I have to do it.”
The following day, Bill returned – and flew straight over the same ranger’s head, waving as he went.
Bill was arrested as he landed at Phantom Ranch. He spent two days in jail and was fined hundreds of dollars.
This made little difference to Bill as Paramount had filmed his escapade – and paid him $250,000.
The subsequent film was shown throughout America, and the sport became immensely popular. Everybody wanted a Moyes Glider.
Shortly afterwards, Bill climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and then glided off the top.
His next jaunt was at the Melbourne Air Show. It was exceptionally windy (25 knots). Bill had a rule that he wouldn’t glide over fifteen knots, but he didn’t want to disappoint the 28,000 crowd.
He flew behind the same plane that he had launched himself into the Grand Canyon but, Bill lost control of his glider and crashed, landing on two parked cars. He broke his pelvis.
His wife, Molly, was in the crowd. She begged him to give up the sport. “Please give it away now – Tell me you won’t go up again.” But he did.
Bill was nearly killed again in 1972, at an air show in North Dakota. His towing rope snapped, and he fell from 300 feet. He sustained multiple fractures and was hospitalized for several weeks. “We bled almost every time we flew.”
He once tried to launch himself from a motorbike that he was driving himself. Bill was unsuccessful, falling heavily. There were no broken bones this time, but it was a stunt he never tried again.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Bill was the headliner at fairs and airshows across the world. He wore a white suit and had various taglines – ‘Australia’s Birdman’, ‘The Sensational Flying Jetman’ and ‘The Modern-Day Icarus’.
At the Sydney airshow attended by the Duke of Edinburgh, he forced the duke to duck.
It did not prevent him from being awarded the 1977 Queen Elizabeth Anniversary Silver Medal.
Another attendee in Sydney was the Shah of Iran, who was so impressed that he invited Bill to his country to teach the his leading general how to hang-glide.
However, shortly afterwards, the General was killed and the invitation was withdrawn.
In 1980, Bill was the subject on Australia’s ‘This is your Life’. He said despite his love of flying, his family were the most important thing in the world to him.
In the programme, Bill said it was impossible to describe the exhilaration he got from his stunts. “From the day you’re born, you’re familiar with the force of gravity – and then one day you’ll step off and you’ll be free of it. How can I describe that? I can’t put it into words. But once you’ve done it, you won’t be able to describe it either.”
Bill was inaugurated into Sport Australia’s Hall of Fame and also received an FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) Gold Air Medal for his contribution to aviation.
In his last few years, Bill was confined to a wheelchair.
Moyes Gliders are still the biggest manufacturer of hang-gliders in the world.
Molly and Bill’s son, Stephen, is an award-winning hang glider, who was World Champion in 1983.
Many people credit Bill with creating hang-gliding. He dismissed this. “To say I invented anything is rubbish. You don’t invent things; you just make discoveries.”
Upon Bill’s death, hang-gliding historian, Kende Russy said, “Rarely does anyone have the opportunity to do something that they’ve never seen before. That takes a very special combination of crazy and daring. Bill Moyes had that. He was a showman.”
RIP – Rejecting Irrelevant Parachutes
