RAAF Radschool Magazine

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RAAF Radschool Association

Magazine

Vol 42

May, 2013

www.radschool.org.au

ABN 18 477 110 847

Merchandise | Print this page

Sadly, in the few months since our last issue, we have once again lost some very good mates.

See Page 2

Our lovely Page 3 girl is Chrissy Hart.

See Page 3

There are some terrible computer viruses out there, Sam tells us how to beat them.

See Page 4

The first intake of WRAAF’s was in 1951.

See Page 5

Ted has the latest Pension levels and he has a story on a bloke who owns a Harrier.

See page 6

Allan O’Connor tells us his story and a US Navy Sub “sinks” a train.

See Page 7

Why don’t Pommy Cops wear guns? And should service at Butterworth be recognised?

See Page 8

Allan George has a look at North Korea’s defences and then there was one – the RAAF now only operates one model C-130.

See Page 9

By serving at Ubon were you “Agent Oranged?”.

See Page 10

Cold remedies, what works and what doesn’t.

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Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner has had some teething problems – but are they fixed?

See Page 12

Tony Element reminisces on his previous Christmas Dinner and its tendency to surreptitiously expand one’s girth. And! what really happened to the Concorde??

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DVA Queensland held their annual end of year get together and we meet a remarkable man.

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Just who was Hedwig Kiesler and what did she do? And are mobile phone ticking time bombs?

See Page 15

Paul Spackman takes us on a tour of Fairbairn and we have a look at Edinburgh.

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A few blokes haven’t been as well as they could be.

See page 17.

We’re looking for a few people, perhaps you can help.

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This is where you have your say. We look forward to getting your letters - so please keep them coming.

See page 19.

Here’s the news, all the news, the whole news and nothing but the news.

See page 20

Index.

The Index is now finished - all references have been linked so if you're looking for a topic or a photo of someone, click on the Index link on the top of each page and just follow the links.

If you agree or disagree with anything in this Magazine - please let us know.

Click on "Contact Us" at the top of any page and have your say.

DFRB/DFRDB.

There has been an awful lot of email activity over the past few months on the topic of ADF Superannuation, and rightly so, as it affects many many people. There are many groups fighting for what most consider to be fair and equitable increases in their retirement pension and it seems at last someone is listening.

On the 29th April we attended a morning tea held by the Hon Teresa Gambaro MP. Teresa’s guest of Honour was Senator Michael Ronaldson, Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs who spoke on the Coalition’s plans for fixing this dreadful injustice.

I had a private discussion with Senator Ronaldson after the morning tea and was told that if elected, this is what the Coalition has promised.

1. DFRB/DFRDB

DFRB and DFRDB superannuants aged 55 and over will have their superannuation pensions indexed in the same way as aged and service pensions. This costing will be budgeted in their first Budget which will be set down in May 2014. The increases will take effect from the 1^st July 2014.

2. TPI and other Disability payments.

Senator Ronaldson said he has held discussions with the Directors of the TPI Federation and they have agreed to hold further discussions again after the election should the Coalition be elected. Although Senator Ronaldson is aware of the situation, nothing was or could be promised until the Coalition had access to Treasury’s figures.

Reading between the lines we would suggest any change in the present situation could be a ways off yet and will probably hinge on the state of the nation’s finances.

This magazine tries to be non-political (and non-religious), but if you’re in receipt of a DFRB/DFRDB pension (which we’re not) and you want your pension to be fair and equitable you now have a clear choice which way to cast your vote.

See the latest update from the Fair Go Campaign HERE

Photos

Most (but not all) of the photos on our pages have been ‘crunched’ to make them open faster. If you want a copy of any in their original condition just email us, use the “Contact Us” link at the top of page, tell us which one you want (Vol and page #) and if we have a better copy we’ll email it back to you.

This edition contains a lot of photos and if your internet connection is not all that fast you will find some pages will take a while to load. If this is the case, it is best if you just open the page and wait a little while until it fully downloads before trying to navigate through it.

Course Photos.

We intend to eventually have copies of as many RAAF courses (with the names of those thereon) as it is possible to obtain. When finished you will be able to search by course name and/or personal name and if your course is there, get a copy. Availability is the big problem, some photos are easy to get others we have to travel to copy but over the coming months we intend to do so. We did hope to be able to get copies of all WRAAF Recruit Courses, as we were promised them, but for some reason the Qld WRAAF group have denied us access to them - they have the impression that the photos are their own and theirs alone. We don’t know what that’s all about but we’ll keep trying. We’ll have more on this next issue, in the meantime, if you have copies of any WRAAF course please send them to us. You can check what we have by going to the www.Radschool.org.au site then click “Course Photos”. If you see any errors let us know or if we're missing any names and you can provide them, please do.

Over time the list we've started will be expanded, we hope to be able to include courses that were held at Wagga, Frogers, Pt Cook, Sale etc.

Merchandise.

We’ve now got a merchandise page, the link is on each page, but you can go there HERE too. If you’ve got something you want to sell, send us a photo and a description and we’ll add it to the page.

Links.

A few blokes suggested that we add links to useful (and free) programs in our Links page, we thought that was a good idea, so if you’re looking for a tried and tested and FREE program to do a particular job, you could find it HERE.

At the moment we’ve only included programs that run under Windows, if you know of any FREE and useful programs that run under the Apple label, please let us know, and if you have any suggestions for other Windows programs, let us know so we can include them.

Videos.

If you use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, you will find that it does not like Flash Video – that’s any video that has the .FLV extension. This is unfortunate as more and more videos are being produced in Flash format. There is a cure though, you can download VLC Media Player for Windows from HERE, associate it with .FLV files and you won’t have a problem.

Membership.

Please check the list of names and if you’ve joined but your name isn't there, please click on the "Join the Association" tag (there's one on the top of each page) fill in the details again and send it to us. If you’re not a member and would like to be, do likewise. Membership is FREE!

Also, if you change your address, or phone numbers or email address, or you just want to say hello, or you want to give us a tongue lashing, you can do so by clicking on the "Contact Us" tag, also at the top of each page and filling in the details. It's so easy even an instrument fitter could do it, it's all done on line, no printing out forms and no postage.

Over the past couple of months we have been able to put a bunch of people in contact with long lost mates - but that's only because we have your details. Please click on the Join the Association tag and fill it in, the more people that join the more we can match up.

If you just want to get the RAM, but don’t want to join the association, that’s not a problem either. Just click on the “Contact Us” link at the top of each page and fill in the details and tell us to add your email to the list. Then whenever a new edition is released you will be advised.

We don't and won't give out your details to anyone so there is no risk of you being spammed.

Donations.

Membership in this Association is Free - we deliberately do this as we feel more people will join the Association and read our magazines while there is no cost involved. And that's the way we'd like to keep it - but!!

Costs are mounting up and we're planning to make the magazine a bi-monthly, 6 editions each year instead of the 4. We now get so much material sent to us that to continue to deliver the RAM on a quarterly basis would mean it would soon go to 300 pages - and we get requests from all over the country to go and cover various Association reunions but we just don't have the funds to do that. We'd like to - but we just can't.

So!! - we're asking for donations. If you feel the RAM is a worthy magazine and you can afford to make a donation every now and then (annually??) then please do. Please be assured, this is not a requirement, if you are not able to make a donation, or don't wish to, then that is not a problem, the RAM will still be produced and you will still get it, but it probably won't be as good as it could be.

If you wish to make a donation, (any amount) please do so direct into the Radschool Association's Bank account which is:

Title: RAAF Radschool Association.

Bank: Bank of Queensland. BSB: 124-021 Account #: 1048 7401

Please put your name in the details window when you make your deposit so we know who to thank. We would prefer not to make public your donation as we feel this could cause embarrassment to those who are not able to do so.

Reunions.

If you're having a reunion and you would like us to cover it and publish it, let us know (well in advance if possible) and we'll see what can be done.

Errors

We try and make sure this magazine is as accurate as possible and that it contains no errors. If you find any, be they incorrect links, spelling mistakes, factual errors, please let us know so we can correct them. You can contact us by using the link at the top of each page.