Originally Posted by
Aussie Bob
What a lot of people don't realise about Billy was that for the majority (all perhaps?) of his flying career, he only had a private pilots licence. While this is no reflection on his flying skills, it sure pissed off the DCA.
Everyone locally knew this. It's worth reiterating that Bill's abilities made him the primary resource for S&R work in the NW which created an ambivalence about prosecuting him. I shared one flight down to Hobart with him when he was "up before the beak" whilst at the same time I was engaged in my own legal (civil) difficulties. That was a very memorable trip because the weather conditions were abominable with extremely low and heavy cloud. We did the trip in two legs, once out to Smithton from Balfour and the next morning down to Hobart. Both legs were, to put it mildly, circuitous and for some of the first leg actually below tree/ridge level. Maybe I'll expand on that some other time.
I'm a bit surprised that relatively few people are posting anecdotes about Bill (or the Jaegers for that matter.) In the latter case I seem to recall something about panicked sheep being jettisoned over Bass straight.... But I guess sheep don't post here (cue witticisms.)