September 2021 Outlook Newsletter

DerekB07/10/202113/12/2021

The September 2021 edition of the Outlook AHSA Newsletter has been emailed to members.

This edition can also be read online in the viewer below.

1919 Major General Gordon Legge, Chief of the General Staff, Australian Army, released his report 'Outline Policy for the Military Air Force of Australia' on 29 April 1919. In this he confirmed ideas that had been put forward before WWI with the following statement: "The Military Air Force of Australia should mainly be composed from Citizen Forces with a proportion of permanent troops. The latter to provide for the instruction of the force and the maintenance of equipment." Hence, the Reserve elements of the Permanent squadrons came into being and in April 1936 several autonomous Citizen Air Force Units were raised in the major cities of the East Coast and in Perth. Source: airforce.gov.au

1924 WGCDR Stanley Goble and FLTLT Ivor McIntyre continued their around-Australia flight in Fairey IIID A10-3 on Tuesday 29 April 1924 (journey day 24, flying day 12). At Broome they picked up Leading Aircraftsman Gottschalk, who was to prove invaluable later. The three left Broome at 8:10 am on the 29th in a very rough sea, and arrived at Port Hedland at 11:20 am. With the floats taking in water, they decided to stay there the rest of the day because the next sheltered harbour was Carnarvon, two stages further on. Source: The First Round-Australia Flight, 1924 by Neville Parnell, AHSA Journal, vol 6, no 12, December 1965

1929 The first group of four Westland Wapiti Mk.1A general purpose aircraft were delivered to the RAAF on 29 April 1929. These included A5-1, A5-2, A5-3 and A5-4. The RAAF eventually operated 44 Wapiti aircraft. The Wapiti was developed by Westland to meet a design requirement issued by the British Air Ministry in 1927, intended to replace the ageing D.H.9A in a general-purpose role, which could include bombing, training and reconnaissance. A key criterion for selection was the use of as many D.H.9A components as possible since there were many in storage. Source: ADF-Serials