Dick Smith

Dick Smithis an Australian aviator, filmmaker, explorer, businessman, and publisher, renowned for his aviation exploits.

Smith had limited formal education at public schools and a technical high school, but his inventiveness and curiosity soon turned him into one of the signal success and survival stories in modern Australia. His remarkable entrepreneurial skills first appeared when he founded Dick Smith Electronics in 1968. By the time he sold the firm in 1982, Smith was a household name and his firm was a market leader in selling small electronic items, from calculators to computers. With the proceeds of the sale, he began a new career in philanthropy, exploration, and publishing. Smith made the first solo helicopter flight around the world (1983), the first helicopter flight to the North Pole (1987), and the first flight around the world via the poles (1988). He served as head of the Civil Aviation Authority (1990–92 and 1997–99). In 1987 he purchased The Australian Encyclopaedia.

One of the projects Smith approached with his greatest enthusiasm was the quarterly magazine Australian Geographic, which he founded in 1985 and modeled on the U.S. publication National Geographic. In October 1993 Smith announced that Australian Geographic would henceforth be printed in Australia rather than overseas. This, said Smith, would save Australian dollars in foreign-exchange revenue. In keeping with his nationalist perspective, Smith exhorted media moguls Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch to follow his example and print in Australia. Smith sold Australian Geographic in 1995.

Smith continued to amaze the public with his displays of versatility when he was blown into the record books once more in 1993. Smith, who had become famous for flying his Sikorsky S76A helicopter under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, swapped the fixed-wing and helicopter aircraft of his previous exploits for a hot-air balloon and entered a race to cross the Australian continent from west to east. The millionaire adventurer vowed that this dangerous exploit would be his last. When he landed in northern New South Wales in June 1993, exhausted but ecstatic, Smith resolved that henceforth he would stick to being a watchdog for civil aviation interests, where he would concentrate on such issues as air-traffic control systems and the provision of rescue beacons for finding crashed aircraft.

In 1999 he founded a new company, Dick Smith Foods, which distributed products made in Australia by Australian-owned companies and donated all profits to domestic charitable organizations; the business closed in 2019. Smith was noted for other philanthropic endeavours, and in December 2008 he and his wife donated $1 million (Australian) to Scouts Australia, asking that the money be used in part to encourage “responsible risk-taking” in young people. The recipient of various honours, he was named Australian of the Year in 1986.