01/31/2011. The prototype Avian, built for the Daily Mail two-seat light-aeroplane trials held at Lympne in September 1926, was an orthodox biplane fitted with a 75 hp Armstrong Siddeley Genet engine, the characteristic circular Avro rudder and square-cut wing-tips.

Although a promising entry in which H. J. Hinkler gained second place in three of the six trials, it was eliminated with magneto drive trouble. After repairs, however, it won the £200 prize in the race sponsored by the motor industry.

In modified form as the Avro 581E Avian with an 80-h.p. A.D.C. (Aircraft Disposals Company) Cirrus I, additional centre-section struts and a triangular fin, G-EBOV was again successfully raced by Hinkler at the 1927 Bournemouth Easter Meeting.

In the following September he made headline news by flying it non-stop from Croydon to Riga in Latvia. Rounded wing-tips were then fitted, and between February 7 and 22, 1928, Herbert John Louis 'Bert' Hinkler made his now-historic first solo flight from Croydon to Darwin, Australia, in 15.5 days.

When Hinkler returned to the UK in 1929 he presented G-EBOV to the Queensland Government, and it is preserved today in the Queensland Museum, Brisbane.