Outlook A.H.S.A. AHSA News Vol. 37 No. 1 March 2021 Looking back on the last year: We had to move our AHSA mee�ngs online due to lock-downs cause by the COVID-19 pandemic. This required a rapid learning curve in the use of online mee�ng so�ware, both for a�endees and presenters. Looking back on the last 100 years: In 2021 we celebrate the centenary of the crea�on of the Royal Australian Air Force. Numerous events are planned to commemorate the service of hundreds of thousands of Air Force staff, as well as the aircra� they operated. Images at right from the March 31st fly past over Canberra (images courtesy Alan Fle�). Newsletter of the Website: Aviation Historical www.ahsa.org.au Society of Australia, Inc. A0033653P Facebook Group: ARBN 092-671-773 www.facebook.com/groups/AHSAust President’s Comment Avia�on Historical Society of Australia Inc. What a waste the last year has been. Lockdowns, staying indoors and away from people. Businesses closing their Our 2020/21 Commi�ee: doors, some permanently. Sure there have been Government payouts to help prop up some but not all. President: Dave Prossor I am s�ll glad that I have not heard about the passing of any [email protected] AHSA members due to the virus. As a plus I would like to think that the �me spent in isola�on may have given Vice-President: Derek Buckmaster members �me to work on wri�en histories in avia�on that [email protected] they can submit for publica�on in the AHSA Journal or the newsle�er, Outlook. Secretary: Mark Pilkington From the flying side there has been an almost closure of [email protected] overseas airline travel and a marked reduc�on in airline travel here in Australia. I feel for the pilots and ground personnel who have been fired, furloughed, made casual or Treasurer: Robert Van Woerkom hired on an on-demand basis. A few airline pilots have been [email protected] busy doing ferry flights in Australia and some to and from overseas. Good luck to them. We have seen the last of the Membership David Knight Boeing 747 aircra�. It seems like only a few years ago that they were being introduced and yet it is many decades that Secretary: [email protected] they have been plying the world under the QF and other brands. The Airbus A380 has been put out to grass, parked, Commi�ee Members: andlookslikestayingthatwayforalong�meandiftheworld GPCAPT David Fredericks airline market says so they may never return to Australia Dion Makowski under the QF brand. Phil Vabre We live in changing �mes; �mes that only a year ago one could never think imaginable. Shut down the airline system Outlook Contacts: local and overseas! Never! At least that was the thought. May Postal address: PO Box 461 we see be�er �mes ahead? Lilydale, Victoria, 3140 I look forward to when we can go back to mee�ngs in the Air Email: [email protected] Force Associa�on building in Hawthorn. More about that below! AHSA Mee�ngs: The year 2021 is to be an interes�ng one. We have the Melbourne mee�ngs are held on the 4th centenary celebra�ons of the founding of the RAAF. It was also the year that the first aircra� formally took up a Wednesday of each month, at the Air Force registra�on in Australia, some 40 aircra� ini�ally. Now it is Associa�on offices in Camberwell Road, Hawthorn. about 12,000. It is the year that a civil avia�on regulator Mee�ngs are also streamed on Zoom. came into being, the Civil Avia�on Branch of the Department of Defence. Membership of the AHSA for the 2021 calendar Essendon airport came into being as a grass and dirt airfield year costs $50 in Australia, $55 for Asia-Pacific and in 1921. It would be a few years before it come be known as $73 for the rest of the world. A membership an aerodrome or airport. It is now the home to the largest applica�on form can be downloaded from our collec�on of execu�ve jets in Australia. It is known as website: Essendon Fields. This issue of Outlook comes with a new editorial staff and a www.ahsa.org.au new perspec�ve. This Outlook was put together by the AHSA Commi�ee. Our former editor, Keith Gaff, has elected to part from being editor. We must thank Keith for his past input in The views expressed in this publica�on are those ge�ng the newsle�er together, from April 2018 to December of the authors and do not necessarily represent 2020. A newsle�er is meant to be a li�le brother to our main the views of the Avia�on Historical Society of publica�on, Avia�on Heritage, and as such carries items that Australia Inc. would not normally go into the journal. We trust that AHSA members find this newsle�er of interest. © AHSA Inc., 2021 A good �me to again say that AHSA member contribu�ons Coming AHSA Mee�ngs: Wednesday April 28th at 7:30pm Mee�ng in person at the Air Force Associa�on, 24 Camberwell Road, Hawthorn - or join via Zoom (link sent separately) Wednesday May 26th at 7:30pm Mee�ng in person at the Air Force Associa�on, A.H.S.A. 24 Camberwell Road, Hawthorn - or join via Zoom (link sent separately) Outlook / AHSA News Vol. 37 No. 1 February 2021 are welcome (send your feedback by email to Hoover, with whom I shared words when he was in Tasmania [email protected]). for the air races that were held there. I have met and exchanged words with my two flying heroes! National Heritage Lottery Fund? Could historic ins�tu�ons here in Australia such as Australia Day awards museums, in par�cular avia�on museums, be served by the January 26. Interes�ng to note only two avia�on awards but public be�er by having a na�onal lo�ery of which the profits neither was to a person involved in Historical Avia�on, or did go to assist those museums na�on wide? I miss something? I have said it before that a country that has history is a great country but needs to tell its people In the UK, thanks to the Na�onal Lo�ery Heritage Fund, about that history and that history needs to be recorded Na�onal Lo�ery players have since 1994 awarded over first. The people who record that history are called £2.2bn to more than 5,000 museums, library, archives and historians. There should be more of them. In our field they historic collec�on-based projects across the UK. Funds have are avia�on historians and they should be recognised for the helped those UK historic related facili�es to their be�erment valuable work that they do. and in some cases to help survive. Could we do good for our museums and the like to have a Flying North similar na�onal lo�ery? I certainly think so. As most of you know I work as an independent flying instructor. In that role I went to Brisbane in October planning Avalon 2021 deferred one week to go further north to conduct flight review work with The Australian Interna�onal Airshow, scheduled for late exis�ng clients. I got as far as the Brisbane airport and then November has been moved to the new date of 30 November got tossed out on the basis that if a Qld pilot could do the to 5 December. The change has been brought about by the work that I had planned on then I was not needed. Four days Australian Formula One Grand Prix originally being one week in quaran�ne in the Novotel hotel and then back home later ahead of the Airshow. A large amount of the logis�cs that to get a $600 bill for the accommoda�on. Things se�led make up the Grand Prix could not be easily moved and re- down and in January I went back to do the October work. On sited in one week. The end result is that there will be two the way I stopped in Brisbane. I did a flight in an RA aircra� weeks between the Grand Prix and the Airshow. AHSA with the firm of Flight Scope Avia�on at Archerfield airport. members planning to a�end the Airshow may need to make I also caught up with the AHSA Qld. President, Warwick changes to their transport or accommoda�on bookings. Henry. We had a chat and chew President to President session and talked over AHSA and other ma�ers. Warwick managed to organise an airside tour of the airport now Vale Phil Wellesley Dulhunty having the main runway lengthened and resurfaced. Nice. Always known as Phil, he passed away in his sleep on There were less aircra� parked at Archerfield than the last November 29, aged 96, from aspira�on pneumonia. A man �me I was at there. who had seen a lot of avia�on. Over the years he was involved in many many things, organisa�ons and ac�vi�es. Being a bit of a book reading person I chased up a few book To some he was best known as the firm of Dulmison that shops in the Brisbane CBD. The first was Dymocks in the imported the L40 Metasokol with its reverse tricycle main shopping centre.