Royal Aero Club
It stirs the nostalgia and fond memories of the days when Bankstown Airport was a centre of activity for young aspiring aviators and the Royal Aero Club was a meeting place. Perhaps the camaraderie of those days is something missing from today’s flying schools.
Vic Schubach taught me to fly and must have done something right because I and a couple of my colleagues ultimately made it to B747’s.
I vividly remember flying over to Camden for one of those ‘competition days’ with two Chipmunks, Pat Gallagher in one and Eric Marsh in the other, barrel rolling around each other all the way. For a young pilot their skills were not only breathtakingly inspiring but so exciting that even today, it is a moment frozen in time.
There were others. Like Tas Dalton, CFI, a thorough gentleman and an excellent role model of professionalism.
Tom Long, Bob Jarvis, Bob Hay and Jim Minahan were about in the early fifties and from each one of them I learnt something which I carried with me throughout my professional career.
The Royal Aero Club of the fifties was full of characters, scallywags, the Walter Mitty;s, the hopefuls and the dedicated.
Am I biased or were they not ‘the good old days’?