NEWS Published by the Aviation Historical Society of Australia Inc. A0033653P, ARBN 092-671-773 Volume 33 Number 1 (Published January, 2017) editor: Dion Makowski All images by editor unless otherwise credited E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ahsa.org.au (memberships available) facebook: look for us under Aviation Historical Society of Australia REMINDER: THOSE WHO HAVE NOT YET PAID THEIR FEES ARE REQUIRED TO SETTLE THESE BY 31 JANUARY Welcome to AHSA News 2017. I won't dwell on matters discussed below, however this issue brings the publication up to where I feel we have been heading. It is "newsy", more immediate and covers both past and upcoming events with something to interest all mem- bers. An indication that contributions are increasing, is that I spend more time creating it! Please keep sending news and imagery and we will print it. This issue appears somewhat later than intended - life can do that when job, renovations and writing missions keep one away from the computer and is no reflection on the promptness of items appearing in my inbox! Happy new year. Dion Makowski PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS It seems like only a few weeks since the annual AHSA Inc. elections and I found myself voted in as President. It has been good working with the committee as a team to drive the AHSA forward and achieve our aims. That will continue. The time that has elapsed has allowed a bit of time to look both backwards and forward and review several things. Two things come to mind immediately. The first is that of COLLECTIONS. For most AHSA members we have gathered up a collection of records over the years. Those records comprise books and periodicals, photos, prints, notes and ‘things’ given to us or obtained along the way. All of an historical bent. The issue that I raise here is what happens to those collections when the member or owner passes away or is no longer capable of look- ing after them? I recall two cases in the Sydney area where AHSA members passed away and next we heard was that their collections of valuable mate- rial, gathered over many years, had ended up on the tip as ‘no one knew what to do with it’! Those records cannot be replaced and con- tained many unique and one only notes. What all this boils down to is the aspect of what happens to our collections with our passing? Could it be that with increasing years we should make a written note as to what should happen to our collections in the event of our passing and who to contact in the short term. That note to be given to Trustees or family prior to the passing. The other avenue may be to start decreasing our collections as we age. We all gather books but some we will never look at ever or again. Could it be that we have a book sale, perhaps lists made available via this AHSA Newsletter or perhaps sold via E-bay or given to our local friendly air museum for retention or disposal. By reducing our private collections there will be less for others to worry about to dispose of in the event of our demise. With records it probably means that our records that we both gather and create should be in some sort of order thus a friend or trustee can make sense for their retention or disposal rather than just a pile of scrap random paper. Of late I have heard of several situations where the original historian has passed away and the family has ended up with a stack of books. They are keen to ‘get rid of them’ and call up the AHSA or an air museum and simply say ‘please come and collect them by a stated time or else we will have to get rid of them some other way’. In an ideal world it might be nice to have what I call the AHSA Centre where we could run a research centre and have a place for the retention of past member collections. A place where records could be used for further use and books and the like could be sorted, a li- brary created, and the excess sold off. The funds so gained going to the running of the AHSA Centre. Unfortunately I cannot see it in my lifetime. In summary we as members need to put serious thought as to the ultimate disposal of our collections so that they will go to a good home and be expanded on, in the case of records, and book collections go to likewise good homes and to people who appreciate some- times rare interesting and useful books or limited editions. Perhaps you as the reader should put some thought towards the fate of your collection. My second subject is that of MEDIA. A lot of research for historical articles comes from the media, in particular the newspapers of the day. Trove would be the classic example of the day for notes regarding aviation happenings in years gone by. Now in case you have not been noticing it a number of things have been happening with both the printed newspapers and also the tele- vision news reporting. Newspapers face an issue regarding their survival. Newspaper make a profit by selling advertising, not making a buck from the sticker price of the paper. In recent years print media has been under assault by advertisers moving to the internet. Cheaper, more effective and a bigger audience would be some factors advertisers might say. In order to cut costs media organisers have reduced staff, use more out- side agencies to gather news, utilize outside stringers to supply news clips and sometimes do not run news items that may take advertis- ing print space as well as running news items that they feel will sell papers as distinct from reporting serious news items that they may have had to pay for. All this means that for the serious aviation historian the newspapers of today are not as good as those of yesterday in reporting all worthwhile aviation related news items. It also means that the future quality of the reported news items is under threat. This in turn will be reflected in the quality of the use of those very papers by historians in the future. Put simply there will be a lack of 1 news material to refer to in the process of building up research on a particular subject. Indeed it has been said that newspapers as we know them today may not exist in the future. Television and news reporting. TV station boards may have chuckled about the possible shrinking of the printed media but the same is happening to television, in case you have not noticed. TV is under assault like printed media and television boards have elected to try the same by having less expensive shows and more reality productions, with a lesser production costs. The quality of news reporting has noticeably decreased in recent years as TV studios chase the dollar and try to shrink costs. The quality of news reporters has also noticeably decreased. Certainly the news reporter may have spent several years at media school but the product that we see is still of the model that comes out with the ‘Yeah, and how does it feel’ presentation. Being blonde and female helps to become a news pre- senter. How many times have we as aviation people seen an accident of say a single-engined RA aircraft presented as a ‘twin Cessna’ and ignoring the obvious. One flawed reporting case that stood out with me was a morning TV show. Its prime entertainment reporter had become naturalized as an Australian. The beautiful people prattled on for an excessive time about how did that person feel, why did he become an Aussie etc. The one thing missing was any discussion of where said reporter had come from! The motto of the said TV station was that their news reporting is the best. Really? For the record he came from New Zealand. I knew you were hanging out for that! So my case rests regarding the quality of TV news media reporting. Again, TV news is not there to present a full and accurate story but only give you enough to whet your appetite so that you will view the so called news and at the same time take on board the advertising that supplies the dollar to run the station, hopefully at a profit. Again TV news in under threat as the internet gains pace to supplement and possibly pass both printed and TV media in the presenta- tion of news. A brief clip and not always accurate is the future as I see it. Not good for we aviation historians keen to review previous news for future research for the recording of aviation history. We are also seeing this with the likes of YouTube, facebook etc. A brief clip as someone rushes to get their news item onto the screen but leaving out facts, facts that us historians can use. What was the rego or serial? What is the history of the aircraft? Where did it come from, who owns it, why was it there. The old who, what, why , when, where and how. All missing. There I have said my piece. Food for thought. GENERAL COMMENT Members enjoyed a BBQ and general chat and gathering at the annual December afternoon at the Australian National Aviation Mu- seum at Moorabbin airport. Good company and time to talk outside of the usual meeting.