Barleyhi, thank you for your post: it was kind of you to do that.
Now, a few days after the event, the Melbourne
Herald Sun, still retain that post in their “Spotlight” section (I’m not sure why) under Steve Jobs and V8 Supercar Driver Jason Richards who has just passed away far too young.
Forgive me if I use this forum as a pulpit (this post will disappear into cyberspace-ether shortly anyhow)! Dad didn’t want a Funeral so there wasn’t a chance to mention this stuff.
Foolishly, and perhaps we are all guilty of this to a degree, it has taken his death to make me sit and contemplate segments of his life and more importantly, those of all of us as Professional Pilots.
Firstly, what is has done is prove that.
1) That Pilots do not invariably retire at sixty and keel-over within 2 years (he was 81)!
2) You can give up smoking overnight and not think of having another one (he did that 12 years ago when he started kidney dialysis)
3) Professional Pilots need to drink lots of water when they’re flying.
I flew north along A461 towards Darwin yesterday and looked down on all of the places he talked about flying into on TAA F27 hops through the Centre in the 60’s (Leigh Creek, Oodnadatta, Finke, Daley Waters etc) and more importantly the people he talked about as having had an influence on him over during his time in aviation.
He had a great career and to him (and me) TAA was his family. He was very fortunate to join 8 years after the airline started and left in 1988, eight years before it, then known as Australian Airlines, officially ceased operations. He had a career that most of us would kill for these days - not just for the stability of employment but also the variety of aircraft types he flew. If I am capable, I’ll post a sequence of pictures of these below.
Whilst he and his peers certainly benefited from the protection the Two Airline Policy afforded, he was also aware that by the 1980’s, the system probably needed a kick in the bum. At the time, having just joined TAA myself, I thought the ‘new wave’ of management (the James Strongs and Geoff Dixons) could only be a good thing and dismissed Dad’s reservations. I believe he actually expressed his concerns as to aspects of the corporate restructuring to Strong on a couple of occasions, for what that was worth!
Looking back on it now however, I do have to wonder who has actually benefitted from that shake-up other than the corporate high-flyers and their bonuses. TAA is gone, Ansett is gone, Qantas and Jetstar seem to be at war with their employees and Tiger is a mess. Maybe they should have left the airline business to Arthur Coles and Reg Ansett. But that’s another story well covered elsewhere!
Thinking about it now, it’s not the corporate entity we work for that ends up mattering, but the people you work with who stick in your mind - the people who have influenced you in some small or large way. And we rarely say thanks to them.
Too often, the people are just forgotten but in my reckoning, these people have a far greater influence on our aviation community than any revered corporate hotshots.
For example Dad was indebted to George Campbell at the Royal Victorian Aero Club for helping the academically challenged Melbourne High Year 10 evictee on his way in aviation. People like Gertrude McKenzie and Roy Goon were memorable to him (Gertie was written about recently in
Classic Wings and Roy was a Chinese-Australian squadron leader who had commanded the 83rd Squadron in the RAAF and flew later with the Royal Vic). There were other aviation people he remembered there who were just plain nice folks - like Pat Bourke and Rick Tate and his brother and Dads' great Qantas mate Frank.
I was also privileged to work professionally later in GA with pilots Dad knew. Great people like Laurie McPherson (a thorough gentleman) and one of the nicest and keenest aviators of them all; John Lindsay.
During his time with TAA he learnt much from great Captains such as “Darkie” Duffield and Eric Krieg and enjoyed flying with F/O’s with names like Poletto, Newnham Chomley, Belcher (
dad would like you to know it was kidney failure he died from not liver) - they all added a lot to his life. Even after TAA he was very honoured to mix with and learn from pilots of the ilk of John Chew.
So in a nutshell, companies and corporate wizards come and go but it was the people who meant so much to Dad.
In his mind, and I have to agree, there could be nothing better than an overnight in some hotel telling BS aviation stories with a bunch of work colleagues. He reckoned if it wasn’t for the management and the bloody simulators, it would have been the perfect existence.
Not much has changed (except for the pay and the standard of the hotels and the hours flown)!
Anyhow, apologies for the lack of funeral and on behalf of dad - many happy hours of flying.
This embodies the spirit of TAA:
TAA 1975 Up Up and away with TAA, the friendly, friendly way..mp4 - YouTube
http://www.edcoatescollection.com/ac1/austb/vhboh.jpg