TASMAN BEATTIE

[Fantome]

Tasman Beattie was the pseudonym of Terrence Claude Alistair Beattie, airman and author of eight books. One was a novel based on the life of Charles Kingsford Smith, upon which a mini-series called A Thousand Skies (1985) was based. Terry had been a radio op for Skyways of London on the Yorks. He moved to Western Australia in 1964, then found work two years later in Melbourne with Brain and Brown, the air freight company. After that he had a job crewing DC4s in Botswana. He moved back to Australia, dying of cancer on the gold Coast in 1988. He was survived by his wife Judith, a former air hostess. They had no issue. Hoping that this will be read by someone who knew Terry, and can add something to the potted biography.

[johngidney]

Tasman (Tas) Beattie came to Sierra Leone Airways about the beginning of April 1980. He came from Malawi (I believe) were he had converted his PPL to a CPL licence and so he then joined SLA as a Capt on the BN2 MkIII Trislander a/c: converting to type with Loganair in Scotland before completing his line training on type on 29 Apr 80. Unfortunately he was caught out in severe line squall weather with torrential thunderstorm and rain and had to force land his a/c (9L-LAR) on John Obey Beach towards the SE end of the Freetown peninsula on 26 May 80. All on board were unhurt, but the a/c nose-wheel assembly had buckled and had to be rebuilt before the a/c could be flown out and over the Freetown Peninsula back to main base of Hastings airfield on 1 Jun 80.
I lost track of Tas when I left Freetown about the middle of July but I believe Tas eventually became Chief Pilot for a while before moving on again perhaps towards the end of 1981 / start 82. His book Diamonds is a story based on his experiences and knowledge gained while living in Sierra Leone and the operations of the diamond mining at Yengema.

[blackburn]

I met Tas when I worked as a DC3 F/O for "Jetairlines Australia" during 1970.
He was employed as an F/O on the DC3 based in Melbourne, probably for the duration of the company's operations from about late 1969 until November 1970 when the airline ceased operations. I lost track of him and all the other staff when the company ceased Ops.