The MacRobertson Air Race of 1934 sent competitors from England to Australia. It displayed the speed of modern aircraft and the rivalry between private, imperial, and commercial aviation. The race was widely followed and helped popularise long-distance air travel.

Air races created narratives of endurance, weather, mechanical failure, and fame that resembled modern epics. They fed newspapers, adventure books, and poems with a new kind of heroic journey measured by engines and clocks.