There is some chance I'm the one that you can just see the top of a head on the bottom right photo. I was still at school then. As I recall the Miles Falcon was advertised in " The Age" which had a classified section for aircraft in Saturday's edition. I recall daydreaming about buying it. I think it sold for about the same amount of money I was planning to spend on a car. This might have been $500.
As I recall, it came to Berwick on a permit to fly and was in sad shape. I vaguely recall something about wood rot - possibly in a spar. I recall it being in the maintenance hangar for years and years, but it may have also spent some time tied down in the front row near the hangar. Alongside a couple of Fuji's if I remember right. This would have been 1974 - 1976??
Is that Dave Squirrell in the blue T shirt?
This was about the same time that Pete Murphy & Jacqui Walker flew a new Cessna 411 back from the states for Arlene Robb's father. I remember it beating up the airfield (sorry, I think it was a missed approach). Arlene soloed at 16 and got in the local paper. I soled the week after I turned 17 due to weather and didn't. Bill Campbell-Hicks was MC at the wings night that I got my Groupair wings. I had a flying lesson with him the next day and he looked less than perfect. Where have the old learned instructors gone?
My office now looks out over the threshold to runway 12 (is that correct?). I think I'm pretty much where the old dirt bike circuit was. There's not much traffic anymore. Just Gunter's chopper.