Rpt2
Aaaaah ….MacRobertson Miller Airlines, fondly known as Mickey Mouse Airlines, now there’s a name to conjure with in the development of West Oz airlines.
One of the founders was of the Melbourne MacRobertsons choccy fortune, which have/had a magnificent family pile in Sackville Tce KEW, the gauntys lived over the road for a bit, families pile NOT.
Capt Cyril Kleinig and his men brought the company out of the Dove/DC3 days into “modern” F27 era and on.
We could to their disgruntlement and dismay beat the earlier F27 point to point in our Navajos. They became Ansett WA then just Ansett after the Holy Wars with East West or something like that.
Cyril also saw the need for “charter “ with the construction of the NW Iron Ore stuff but made a tactical error by ordering a couple of Piaggio, which promptly lived up to their porcine reputation. Their delivery flights are a fascinating story all in themselves. You see anything Ummurican was suspect and as the Brits didn’t have anything suitable (except the illbegotten Beagle 206 on the horizon) the Piaggio was the nearest non Ummurican type.
One wonders what would have become if they had got it right in the first place, we tried to steer them but we were not “real” pilots.
Skywest was not in the direct lineage to MMA more of a cousin by shotgun marriage after MMA got sucked up by Ansett. Who then sort of inherited Skywest after Ansett “won” the aforementioned Holy Wars with East West then in the same stable as Skywest..
Just like most Oz families really. You have to be very careful when you stir up the family tree, lest you find things you would rather not.
MMA have a deservedly distinguished place in the pantheon of the development of West Oz in particular and Oz aviation in general.