[15] Though Smith retained no shares nor role in the company after 1982, the business continued to trade with his name prominently displayed in every aspect of its operations.

Smith did not want to greatly expand Australian Geographic, but his friend and CEO Ike Bain persuaded him to change his mind and soon it was a successful business.

[26] Having developed a taste for outdoor adventures in the Scouts, Smith trained to acquire a pilot licence and went on to establish several long-distance flight records.

Failing to top it on this occasion, Smith returned in 1980, completed an ascent and, together with Hugh Ward and John Worrall, formally claimed the land for Australia by unfurling the New South Wales state flag.

[29] In August the same year, Smith chartered another jumbo, this time to take paying passengers on a 10-hour, 5,000 km flight over the Red Centre of the Outback in search of Lasseter's fabled but lost reef of gold.

[12] In January 1980, with Rick Howell co-piloting the Jetranger, he made a record-setting flight from Sydney to Lord Howe Island and returned (1,163 km).

[32][33] For the next 20 years, Smith would come to hold several other world aviation records, made in rotary and fixed-wing aircraft and beneath balloons: On 19 August, the 50th anniversary of James Mollison's solo crossing of the Atlantic, Smith completed the first solo Atlantic crossing in a helicopter when he arrived at Balmoral Castle, United Kingdom to be greeted by a waiting (then prince) King Charles III.,[40] then to London and Sydney, Australia, where he arrived on 3 October 1982, 23,092 km later.

[42] In 1988–89, Smith flew a Twin Otter aircraft VH-SHW, landing at both the North and South Poles,[36][43] making him the first person to complete such a circumnavigation.

[46] In August and again in October 1989, Smith, piloting his own helicopter, initiated and conducted searches in remote tracts of the Simpson Desert for the first stage of the Redstone Sparta rocket which had carried Australia's first satellite into orbit, making the nation only the fourth to succeed in doing so, on 29 November 1967.

The vehicle was equipped with 1,943 solar cells epoxied to its fibreglass shell, with lead-acid and lithium-thionol batteries for storage, producing a maximum of 1.4 kW.

At their journey's end, Dick and Pip had completed the first east to west helicopter flight around the globe, flown more than 39,607 nautical miles (73,352 km).

[58] The bus was driven by adventurer Hans Tholstrup and Smith, who had been set up as its conductor, decided at the last minute to stay on board during the jump.

Beginning with his first charter in February 1977, Smith's Antarctic flights (operated by Qantas) had raised A$70,000 for charities including the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife (then of New South Wales) and Australian Museum over the following year.

[61] In the 1980s, Smith gave millions to Life Education Centres which taught schoolchildren about the health effects of smoking, alcohol, and narcotics.

[63] As its chairman, he initiated and led the restoration of polar adventurer Sir Hubert Wilkins' childhood home near Mt Bryan, South Australia, a nine-year project completed in 2001.

[64] Smith became a major philanthropist after the sale of his electronics business, contributing A$1 million yearly,[65][66][67] including the Salvation Army,[68] the Australian Lions Foundation,[69] Rotary Australia World Community Service,[70] Country Women's Association,[71] The Scout Association of Australia, Wild Care Inc. of Tasmania and the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.

[74][75] Smith has been consistently openly critical of tax evasion by the wealthy and their failure to be active in philanthropy, cajoling billionaires Rupert Murdoch[76] and Harry Triguboff[77] to do more.

In July 1980, Smith collaborated with renowned sceptic James Randi to test water divining, offering a prize of A$40,000 for a successful demonstration.

[79] Within days of Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating's 1995 parliamentary announcement of his intention to make Australia a republic by 2001,[80] public opinion was found to favour Smith as the nation's first president.

[81] Then Prime Minister John Howard appointed Smith founding chairman of the National Council for the Centenary of Federation in December 1996 and he served till February 2000.

[86] In November 2009, he paid a large share of the ransom to free Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan and Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout who were both being held hostage in Somalia.

On 14 February, he offered the inventor Andrea Rossi US$1 million if he were to repeat the demonstration of 29 March of the year before, this time allowing particular care to be given to a check of the electric wiring of the device, and to the power output.

[90] Smith donated A$60,000 in February 2007 towards a campaign to secure a fair trial for then Australian terrorism suspect David Hicks who had been held in a U.S. military prison in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay detention camp for five years.

[96] In 2011, Dick Smith expressed support for action on climate change, including the introduction of a carbon tax, and criticised the response to actress Cate Blanchett speaking out on the matter.

[100] In December 2011, Smith was appointed as a consulting professor in the Department of Biology, School of Humanities and Sciences of Stanford University, California, by Dean Richard P. Saller,[101] in recognition of his work in relation to environmental issues.

[109] On 6 December 2016, Smith spoke in support of the One Nation party's policy of reducing immigration to historical levels of about 70,000 per annum whilst at the same time rejecting its leader Pauline Hanson's call for a Muslim ban.

[115] On 15 August 2017, Smith launched his "Fair Go" campaign to pressure Australia's major political parties to incorporate population policy into their platforms and to radically increase taxation on the rich and corporates,[116] pledging to spend another A$2 million on promoting population policy at the next Federal election if no major party would commit to reducing immigration to 70,000 per annum from a level then averaging in excess of 200,000.

[117][118][119] The campaign became permanent as the Dick Smith Fair Go Group which also agitates for economic reforms to tackle income inequality and a return to affordable housing.