Mace died of a horrible form of cancer in country Vic, called to see him and was horrified at his suffering, am well aware of his problems within TAA, but who are we to judge. Those other great TAA pilots have to include Peter Kausman, Gordon Close, both WW2 bomber command pilots, the late great Larry Blackman who took part in the Berlin air lift, and talking about John Hickey, He was amazing how he got you to volunteer for a job, when you had no idea that you had! I well remember going into Faulty Towers one day at his request, thinking I must have done something terrible but could not think what it was, only for him to say, see that volunteer position on the Mineral Deposits DC3 over there, well it would look good for you if you considered it, I looked at it and thought no way,handed it to him and he signed it application filled! Off to Boulia I went, and on to VH -MI bloody M (as she was fondly known) for the next three years! As it turned out I enjoyed it very much, as we had a great bunch of geo blokes with us, and flew at 500 ft most of the time and though we were supposed to fly in uniform, we flew in only shorts, army boots and a cap, (except when the TAA bosses turned up) and used to drink up to 4 litres of waters a day. I won't even mention the mountain of beer cans that grew steadly larger at our various camps, which included Gordon Downs, Mount Hope, and the Cape, it was hard to go back to line flying after that, I don't think the young pilots of today would be impressed if it happened to them, and of course it wouldn't but I have no regrets, in fact It was great flying. (and TAA never knew we used the aircraft to go fishing!