Aviation has played an important part in shaping Australia’s culture and history through the course of the twentieth century. Australia embraced aviation from its earliest days, eagerly responding to its potential to cover a challenging country, to bring far-flung communities closer and to provide services that could not be delivered any other way. Add the romance of pioneer heroes, the vital role of aviation in wartime and the capacity to deliver aid to people in need in Australia and beyond, and it is clear why aviation is at the heart of Australia’s recent history.Histories of aviation in Australia have tended to focus on the biographies of individual achievers, on the stories of pioneering airlines and technological innovations. There is much yet to understand about how aviation, culture and society have interacted to transform the way in which we understand Australia as a place and a nation and its sense of itself in the world. At the same time interest in the culture of aviation is growing worldwide, particularly in the fields of cultural studies, geography and mobility studies. This book emerges from a larger project examining the rich heritage of Australia’s century of civil aviation entitled Connecting the Nation, a partnership between Airservices Australia and researchers at the University of Canberra. This two year study culminated in the launch of a digital portal, http://connectingthenation.net.au/, which provides a digital repository for aviation heritage, particularly oral histories, and a focus for community interest as we lead up to the centenary of civil aviation in Australia in 2020/21.This burgeoning interest in ‘aviation culture’ and the need for a fresh, interdisciplinary perspective on Australian aviation is at the heart of this project. This book aims to set out the major themes that characterise Australia’s aviation history for a broad audience and to provide a foundation for a broader discussion, and for further research, about how aviation transformed Australia.