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Your Say!
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Defence Force Pay Rise.
May I firstly ask that you withhold my name – for private reasons.
I wish to reply to Defence Force Pay Rise article if I can call it that – see Opinion in Vol 48. I have been in civvy street for 23 years now and have found my RAAF training to be the best available. I think comparing a defence force pay to the average tradesman's pay is selling defence personal short.
From my experience they do not get any better than this. My civvy counter parts do not know the meaning of Team Work or good fault finding skills. The Air Force selects the top percentile of applicants and puts them through extensive training. Thus I believe that they should be financially rewarded for this. They should be on the upper end of the pay scale. I think the proof will be in the pudding as we see how recruiting goes.
As of today my nephew who is in his early twenties has just been approached to work at Mount Tom Price in Western Australia. He has been told not to bring his wallet. Everything paid for, rent, food, air flights to and from Victoria. He is a diesel mechanic and will be earning $10,000 per fortnight. I think the defence force will be hard pushed to find quality defence personnel with these sort of wages in civvy street.
Our Defence Personnel have to put up with all sorts of hardships and put their lives on the line for Australia and should be rewarded so.
Just my two bobs worth.
In closing thank you for all the effort you go to in putting the magazine together and sending it out. As for myself I am employed as an electrician and earn a little over $50 dollars an hour living in the city of Melbourne. No remoteness, average house. I earn double time for weekend duties if required or rostered to do so. On top of my $50 dollars per hour I earn 15% for afternoon shift and 30% for night shift. My average gross pay per year is $130,000
War Veteran’s film festive
Francis J Edwards writes, ‘Can you please distribute this to all your contacts and ask them to spread the word even further. 2015 marks the launch of the first ever War Veteran’s film festival. It is an Australian development and is open to worldwide involvement. As an actor/film maker and War veteran, I am the volunteer advisor to the film festival organization board. This film festival is designed to bring a much greater awareness, understanding of and respect for Australia’s and the world’s war veterans. The DVA is fully aware of and supportive of this endeavour as are those RSL’s that are currently aware of this new undertaking. Please Google ‘screen my shorts’ and click on ‘Veterans film festival’ to read more and watch short films about Australian veterans including my own short film ‘The Guardian of John Street Square’ in which I play dual roles as a film producer and his identical twin brother a Vietnam war vet. You can watch the 10 min movie by clicking the pic below. |
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This project offers anyone an opportunity to submit a short film that is essentially about a War veteran. If any of you who read this would like to tell their story in film then please let me know at my email address franced@bigpond.net.au and I will do my best to turn your story into a film script and then let’s see if we can get it produced. There are many who are willing to assist.”
Vietnam Logistic and Support Medal
Tony Smith writes. He says: “Recently by pure chance, I found out that the Vietnam Logistic and Support Medal was gazetted in 2012. This medal is to recognise the service of Australian personnel in support roles during the Vietnam War. It was created to provide recognition to the men and women who played a vital support role during the Vietnam War but did not qualify for the Vietnam Medal.
The qualifying criteria for the medal includes:
I was in Ubon from June 1965 to August 1968 and that qualifies me - I have now applied for the medal." You can obtain further info HERE.
If you’re eligible, you can make a claim HERE.
Politics.
Anthony Element writes, he says: “I was dismayed to read Charlie Lynn's intemperate and inaccurate rant about the Gillard Government in the latest edition of The RAM. As a regular contributor, my understanding of editorial policy has been that content would be strictly non-political. As a political satirist, I would be quite happy with a change, as it would open up what is, to say the least, a target rich environment, however, I strongly feel it would be in the RAM's best interest to stay with the old policy and keep party politics out”.
Point taken Anthony – non-political it shall be – though I bet I get correspondence commenting on your description of the “Rant”. tb.
Cyclone Tracy
Howie
Campbell writes. “G'day. Well it is the 40th Anniversary of THAT
cyclone. (Christmas Eve 1974). To the my many friends who shared this
horrific time with me in Darwin, I salute
To ALL the groups of young airmen and women, especially those from No 2 Control and Reporting Unit, who worked long hours under terrible conditions, to clean up the base, especially around the destroyed married quarters and airstrip, I salute you.
We were lucky that we were able to get our families out by air on Boxing Day, which made it easier for us to do our rescue work, and get many thousands of people out by air. To the wives who stayed behind with their husbands, I salute you.
I remember our first days’ rest, when we were allowed to go to Berry Springs for a BBQ and some R&R and then on the way back were stopped at a road block by a couple of pale-faced gun toting, southern cops, who said you are not allowed into Darwin. When we told them that we were airmen who did not give a shit about going back anyway, they soon relented and waved us through.
The trip South in January was another nightmare, with flooded roads, high temperatures, and vehicles, which probably should not have been on the road anyway. To go from a modern society, with running water, sewerage, electric power, with fridges and deep freezers full of food and Christmas cheer and a roof over a head, to.... NOTHING. How did we survive? It was because we had guts and the true Aussie Spirit.
The recent tragedies' in Martin Place and Cairns have shown me that when it comes to adversity, Aussies come up trumps
P.S. I still look for cover when the wind gets wild and the memory of this event will never dim.
F-111 A8-109
Kel Davey writes, Re the story in Vol 42, if I remember rightly, F-111 # 109 was an A model not a C model as it was one of the first and served in Vietnam. I worked on the fleet of F-111 A's and C's during the mod upgrade from 1992 until 2004 and there were 2 A models and they were different to the C models on the digital flight control harnesses we installed as they were 6" difference between 2 breakout points on the spine.
You’re right Kel – thanks. tb
East Sale
We heard from an old pre-historic codger named John Gleeson who says: “Just been reading the mag about the East Sale base. It brought back a few memories of my ATC camps down there in the 50's (1850’s??) especially the theatre and mess. As a young bloke, the 3 hour train ride beat the hell out of a 30 min bus ride to Point Cook or Laverton. We would have a flight in a Dakota, a run in the crash boat on Lake Wellington and get to help out in the hangars. I remember sitting on the wing of a Vampire with a sanding machine rubbing it back to the metal. Like at Point Cook, a ride in the crash boat ended with a tin of Brasso and a rag, now start polishing.
My last time at East Sale (YMES) was 1997, I flew the Super Cub down with a glider for the Anzac week end. The East Sale gliding mob used to come and fly with us at Mt Beauty each Easter and wanted us to come down and bring a tug. The Local ATC flight were having a camp and we helped out with glider flights for the cadets. They launched with V8 Valiant sedan and a mile of cable, the aero tow was a novelty for them. I offered the CO of the Roulettes to swap a ride in the Cub for ride in one of his PC-9s, didn't work – no sense of humour those blokes.”
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John tried to con a ride in Elvis – the large, no-nonsense, fire putter outer.
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Werribee Remote Receiving Station (WRRS)
Ian Greenacre got in touch, he says: “I had some memories revived with the recent article on WRRS that mentioned Ivor Rothwell. I was serving at WRRS when he arrived and he brought some great ideas with him from the RN, but we did have to educate him on Australian standards and Air Force terminology. I think it was morning tea on Fridays (but I won’t put money on that day) he invited all the NCO's into his office for a chat. Where discussions would range about things happening on the base, equipment problems and any and everything relating to the base. He was advised that the RAAF did not have Bulkheads, Ports, and Hatches, but we did have walls, windows and doors. I remember that he wanted the Heads painted, which turned out to be a nautical term for ablutions. This would mean 2 days with no showers available. May be ok for the RN, and we took some time to convince him it was not OK in Australia, and a shower run was organised morning and night to Laverton for staff while we painted the showers.
He
took us to tour his ship when it came in to Melbourne for a visit. My
memories of this was the tiny size of the communications centre - and
the fact that operators were allowed to use a screwdriver (a definite no
no in the RAAF) and the girls on the wharf in the very mini skirts that
had so much trouble with their shoes.
Ivor also encouraged us to study on shift, particularly night shift, and I owe my (very) limited electronics knowledge to his encouragement.
We built a mini golf course at Werribee - I think it was the techos who built it and I have never forgotten the look of disbelief on the WOff Techo (Name escapes me at the moment) who asked if I was going to play a round and I replied with "If someone can lend me a bat, I will". Another memory was the PMG Teleg that used to come into Werribee to monitor the "Ghost" (again no money on that being the right name - they would listen to free floating balloons that would supply weather and winds at high altitudes) transmissions. When his receiver began to smoke - thanks to some spaghetti running back to a smoker behind the rack (smoking in the workplace? Try that now) the look on his face - Priceless.
SOTELS visited and Ivor had us spending weeks on painting everything that did not move. I think he was the most disappointed of us all when the visit lasted all of about 15 minutes (from memory). Another day our microwave to MTU kept dropping out / back on at a reasonably frequent rate. The farm next to WRRS towards MTU was getting some aerial spraying done and on investigation i.e. watching the plane and listening to MTU, it became obvious he was flying through our signal. We put up with it for most of the morning.
I can remember another operator stepping out the receiver hall and spotting a tiger snake on the ground outside. He executed a beautiful U turn at least 2 foot off the ground and stepped back into the hall. There was no rest for anyone until the snake was despatched to happier hunting grounds.
The WRRS had a very active social calendar when we were there, and Rothwell's office was always used as the crèche when we had dances or functions on base. One night I witnessed Nev ? (a BIG transport guy) told to go to bed by Jack Giddey (who was considerably smaller) and he walked meekly off to bed. I voiced my surprise to another member, who enlightened me that to see Jack with his shirt off and I would understand, apparently he was quite well up with body building, and had won a Mr Australia award.
I was at WRRS for just over 12 months. We moved into accommodation in Werribee on our daughters 9th birthday and out on her 10th. The entire street had no water meters, but that year we were all charged for excess water. I believe one Techo paid it, but if you queried it they dropped it.
I was there when another teleg was posted in (name missing att) who was one of the original members of the station when it first opened. He was quite OFEY with the technical side of things as well because they were short of techos when it opened and the opos had to make things work. The day he arrived they were working on a receiver that had lost one channel. He asked what the problem was and suggested a valve to change. They ignored his advice as that was in the receiver selection circuit and had nothing to do with the receiver. The teleg came back about 30 minutes later and again suggested the same valve and to shut him up one of the techos fitted the valve and bingo there was the other channel. He was never ignored again and often queried on things that did not seem quite "normal" around the place, and he usually knew the reason.
We have very fond memories of our time at Werribee and WRRS, the station, and the staff.
Check it before you send it.
Graham Crawford saw our article in Vol 48 regarding sending on those “fake” warnings. He says: “I totally agree with the comment about bogus emails that threaten to destroy your computer. My point is that, for the goose who immediately puts his brain into neutral and flags EVERYONE in his address book to ignore a vile, earth-shattering email about the dangers of what he/she is sending, is that there could be a virus attached to the very email that that person is passing on. For those reading this, you will know who I am, and the vituperative response I usually return about emails of this nature.
Historical Radio Society
Kevin Poulter advises: “The Historical Radio Society has started the Australian Radio Museum and will have a website up soon. One of our most senior members - Doug Dowe, who is in his 90s will give a talk on his experience with Radar in the RAAF and despite a recent triple by-pass, he is in amazing health, just got married again and was back at our meeting just two weeks after his operation. He also has a handshake that nearly crushes the hand of much younger people. For 2015, meetings are held at 2:00pm on the third Saturday of each month at St Michael’s Primary School, corner of Victory Boulevard and High Street, Ashburton (Vic). Entry is from Victory Boulevard, parking is available on-site”.
A job for Sam.
Grant Hicks writes, “Great mag, I look forward to it. Would it be possible for Sam Houliston to do an article or two on Tablet computers, not only good ones but cheap ones as well, any good FREE programs, especially if they don’t have pop up adds. His article on Linux Mint was great, I have been using Ubuntu for ages, bought a new Laptop and installed Mint 17, 64 bit, somewhere along the line I deleted Windows 8.1, but that didn’t really worry me, to me 8.1 only had 2 really good bits going for it, it started up fast and it shut down fast, didn’t really like too much of what was in between.
We’ll put it to him Grant – after all, he’s got nothing else to do – tb.
109 RTC
Hi, I am the same Tim Corcoran in the photo of 109RTC in Vol 48 page 5 of The RAM. I still keep in contact with a couple of others in the photo. We have been recently discussing the idea of a reunion in 2018 to celebrate 40 years since we passed out of Rad School. The article says the photo was sent by our course orderly John Darling. Are you able to either pass on his e-mail address to me for direct contact or pass on my e-mail address to him so that he can contact me directly? Many thanks for the article
Done Tim – tb
InterAsia
Dan Nebauer writes, “You may not know me but I receive your e-newsletter/magazine all the time. I am in my third career now after leaving the RAAF in 1988 after 25 years - see my company details below.
Don't know if you would be able to promote our business to your defence and ex defence readers - we do offer 10% discount on all our travel products to and ex defence or serving member!
Dan Nebauer, Director InterAsia Tours 1 300 133 001 or dan@interasia.com.au
RAAFA Museum, Perth WA.
Ron Clayron, radio fixer from yonks ago, sent us this: “Howdy, the RAAFA Museum has an F-111-F simulator that is under restoration. I’m working with the owner to try and get some of the systems running and interfaced to FSX.
A question has come up about the amount of control stick deflection and loading that was experienced by the pilots. Do you know anything about this that might help or maybe do you know any ex F-111 pilots who live in WA?. At the moment the sim is pulled apart for painting but we hope to start re-assembling in a few weeks. The priority is to get the primary flight controls interfaced to FSX, hence the questions.
If you can help, or if you know someone who perhaps could, let us know and we’ll pass on your details to Ron – tb
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