Why is it that most of what has – and still is – being passed as aviation history in this country, has been written by amateur historians? I use the term [amateur] unpregoreatively here, since it is the case that few of our published authors have formal training, qualifications – or experience – as either professional historians, or writers. […]
High above the Dardanelles
Queenslander Alfred Warner served in the Dardanelles for more than two-and-a-half years, far longer than any of his compatriots, and yet you won’t find his name mentioned in any Australian military history. As Australia’s only airship pilot (and airship station commander), his war experience was singularly remarkable, much of it spent floating high above the […]
Opportunity Lost
Back in 1979 a leading State Museum was offered the nose section of a Douglas A20G Boston. The would-be donor described the aircraft, and it’s salvage, in the following terms…. It came from an entire crashed airplane from which a few parts such as doors had been removed prior to my finding it….I put it […]
What might have been # 1
The last two decades of the twentieth century may come to be regarded – by anyone reading this, at least – as the halcyon years of Australian aviation heritage. This was an era of unprecedented popular interest and government largesse, an era when there were more galleries, heritage centres and museums built, and imagined, than at […]
What were they thinking?
Only one Australian designed aero engine has ever achieved mass production and commercial success, Jabiru engines having now been in continuous production for more than quarter of a century (and sold to more than thirty-one countries). During the Second World War Australian industry proved itself well capable of mass producing aero engines, vast numbers of […]