A fresh start for aviation medicine?

The Aviation Medicine section has been a festering sore with pilots for some time. AOPA has been arguing that CASA’s Aviation Medicine section needs an overhaul and a new attitude of working with pilots rather than against them Perhaps the incoming Director of Aviation Medicine can change the status quo.

Casey Berwick reunion

History shows that airfields come and sometimes go, such as Berwick to the east of Melbourne.

Berwick airfield was established in 1938 by Lt Col Rupert Ryan who lived at his nearby property ‘Edrington’. At that time the airfield was an all-over grass field but with two basic directions, 18/36 (860m) and 09/27 (805m).

Ryan’s brother-in-law was Lord Casey who owned a Percival Vega Gull, VH-ACA Corio Gull and flew it to and from Canberra. There he was a member of the House of Representatives and held the positions of Federal Treasurer andMinister for Supply, and he would later became the Governor-General of Australia. From Berwick Lord Casey would also fly Fairchild F. 24R. 40 VH-ADF, Miles M. 38 Messenger 2A VH-AVQ and Cessna 180 VH-RCG.

Into the early 1960s the airfield was used for gliding by the Victorian Motorless Flight Group. It was also used by the fledgling Victorian Parachute School.

In 1968 the airfield was taken over by Colonel Keith Hatfield and Major Ron Kerrison, who then operated a flying school under the name Groupair Pty Ltd. The north-south airstrip was closed and another longer strip running approximately 30/12 was laid down, which became the main airstrip. Although not the longest strip it could take the likes of an Aero Commander 500.

(Kerrison was killed in the fatal crash of Beagle 121 Pup, VH-EPB, on November 22 1969 following a low level aerobatic manoeuvre. ) Groupair named the field Casey Field in honour of Lord Casey and it was operated as a general aviation airport from 1968 until 1994.

It was home to a flight school and charter operation plus a maintenance shop which kept the school aircraft in the air. One of the chief flying instructors was the well-known Bill Campbell-Hicks.

Keith Hatfield was the prime figure at Casey Field and always had a warm welcome for everyone. Over the years the airfield café became

The aviators who flew out of Casey always had a good word for it.

well-known for what was called an Elsa Burger. Elsa was Keith’s wife and made a great hamburger.

The aviators who flew out of Casey always had a good word for it largely because of the camaraderie with fellow flyers. It was a real flyers club.

By the early 1990s the town of Berwick had expanded and housing started to encroach on the field. In 1994 it was sold and became Monash University, Berwick Campus. The last aircraft to fly from the field was DH. 85 Leopard Moth, VH-UUL, with the late Mac Job at the controls, in September 1995.

With the passing of time veteran Casey flyer and instructor David Squirrel, now living in Sydney, thought it about time that a Casey reunion was held. He sent out flyers and email messages to all he knew and on Saturday November 22 a gathering of more than 80 Casey Field aviators was held in the former Lord Casey hangar that had been saved by the Australian National Aviation Museum and relocated to Moorabbin Airport.

Those who attended included members of Lord Casey’s family, Gordon Rich-Phillips, the former Victorian Minister for the Aviation Industry who did his initial training at Casey Field, Elsa Hatfield (Keith Hatfield passed away in November 2013), Alan Baskett, David Squirrel and even Alan Patching who had flown sailplanes out of Berwick before Casey Field was established.

There were also a good number of instructors, commercial and private pilots who had flown out of Casey who attended. All had their own stories to tell about their times at Casey.

That 1938 licence follow-on

Readers will recall the item in the November issue of AA on what it took to get a pilots licence in 1936. Since then long-time flyer Ron Lawford has written in to comment on how he obtained his licence in the 1950s. Ron started flight training on December 12 1955 at RAAF Base Pearce, WA in Tiger Moth biplanes. He noted that not much had changed from 1936. He did his PPL test with the CFI of the Royal Aero Club of WA, Clive LeMesurier, on February 26 1956 at Maylands aerodrome (an all-grass field with no runways as such). The test took all of 40 minutes. He had 23 hours and 35 minutes dual and 23 hours and 5 minutes solo when he got his PPL.

The PPL test was for aircraft handling only, no navigation flying was involved. Ron had to do one practise forced landing, stall and spin recovery, glide approaches were normal, no figure of eight turns but steep turns and steep gliding turns were required. All this in a Tiger Moth with Gosport tubes for pilot-to-pilot communication.

While no navigation training was required for the PPL Ron did dual and solo nav flying before he went for his PPL flight test.

Ron commented that at age 17 he could not afford flying training but he was fortunate to receive a flying scholarship from the Air Training Corps (now Air Force Cadets). In those days the RAAF gave continuation training to some of the scholarship people – four hours per month for flying aero club aircraft until age 18. As a result Ron did 28 hours at RAAF expense after he got his PPL before he turned 18. He had some 80 hours when he turned 18.

How the times have changed!