Australian businessman and aviation advocate Dick Smith has put up a $22,000 trophy for the first person to fly an electric aeroplane from the UK to Darwin.
Conceived in the spirit of the 1919 Vickers Vimy flight between the same two points, Smith commissioned sculptor Linda Klarfeld to create the trophy in 2019.
Dubbed Lightning Woman, the trophy is intended to encourage aviators to take up the challenge of pioneering long-distance electric flight.
“As more electric aircraft are now being built, I decided to issue this challenge because there will come a time when someone will be able to fly from England to Australia," Smith told Australian Flying.
"There will be minimum rules – simply fly an electrically powered aircraft from England to Darwin in the spirit of the 1919 Vickers Vimy flight.
"The first one to do it gets the beautiful trophy, which is an original sculpture by Linda Klarfeld worth $22,000.”
The trophy depicts a stylised woman suspended on the tip of her toe above a representation of part of the globe, with her fingertips positioned over Darwin. A neon green lightning bolt beside her lights up as she takes off in flight across the globe, lighting up the world with empowerment.
Lightning Woman is crafted from clay with a chrome finish, and took a year to finish.
As most artists create work in their own image, Klarfeld suggested a sculpture of a woman flying across the world. Smith suggested a woman holding a lightning bolt and to call her Miss Electricity. The artist preferred the name Lightning Woman; a superhero with the tail of a comet.
The stylising reflects the expected streamlined nature of any electric aircraft successful in making the 7480-nm journey.
Commissioned in 2019, Klarfeld started developing concepts during COVID border closures and lockdowns, flying anywhere was impossible and everyone yearned for freedom and connection.
Klarfeld channeled that yearning into her design, and after remembering the motivational book The Lightning of Empowerment, incorporated the lightning bolt as a symbol of the empowerment lost in those times.
Having sculpted busts of Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, Klarfeld was the first female sculptor in Australian history to be commissioned to make sculptures for the Prime Ministers Avenue.
She is one of the best-known figurative sculptors in Australia having made over 40 bronze monuments around Australia, including figures of Dr Victor Chang, cricketers Keith Miller and Bill Woodfull, AFL Footballer Neil Roberts and former Mayor of Mosman, Dom Lopez.