danednie
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01:35:37 am on September 22, 2009 |
Alan and Bill saw FIA crawl out and up from its originally unsure market position. As they established the airline, the crayfish market was to become less central to the development of the company.
We got to a stage where the crayfish were dying down. Like everything, you fish it out. Fisherman while they can make money will go hard, but in the end it gets fished out. Crayfish went up to an enormous price. Right now it’s the cheapest it’s been for thirty years.[1] Everybody who loved crayfish had a ton to eat of it at Easter if they wanted it.
The early years were certainly a scramble, Moorabbin was a colourful array of characters, one in particular was Dave Burke. He was only with FIA for a short time, but was hard for many, like Bruce, to forget:
We had one pilot, Ted Marshall, I was the co-pilot, Alan was the boss, Ted Allen was the ground Engineer who looked after maintenance and FIA owned engines, he had an apprentice, David Squirrell. Ted Marshall got very sick and couldn’t fly any more so we got a guy called Dave Burke and when he came to us he was all of 55 or 60, so I was 18 and he was already a very old man!
Dave was deaf had a hearing aid, in those days hearing aids were a big box on your chest – of course he’d be on the telephone, and he’d turn the telephone upside down, so that the earpiece would be at his chest, and he’d be talking to the mouthpiece, one day he was doing this in the control tower and a guy up there leant over and turned the phone around for him! Of course Dave also had a bit of vision problem, and one day he shocked the guy in the tower by saying put your finger on the line, where do I have to sign?
Dave certainly was a worry, but he was experienced, and with no one else on hand, Alan was at ends to hold the whole operation together. Dave’s record at FIA, unsurprisingly, was not without fault.
When you went down to Bridport there were sheep and sometimes cattle on the runway – cause it was a farmer’s paddock. But we had them all trained, so you’d fly down the runway, over the top of where you were going to land then they’d all go out to the side, and only then would you come down and land.
Dave Burke on one occasion, the sheep all moved out, then one sheep decided it might run back on in front of him and he hit it. He tried not to hit it, and finished up digging the wingtip into the ground. So we spent months and months and month repairing that aeroplane all in Bridport.
With this unlucky exception FIA’s planes were very well looked after, one policy at FIA was to ensure that the aeroplanes spent their time in the hanger if they weren’t flying:
Except when they had to stay out over night at Flinders Island where we didn’t have a hanger, FIA’s planes stayed in the hanger when they weren’t being flown. Every night they’d put the planes away in the hanger. Brain and Brown would wheel their aeroplanes out on a Monday morning and put them away on Friday night. Now when they [DCA] started to think about these wooden spared wings [2]they came around to all the different companies to check their planes wings to see how the old wooden ones were holding up.
First up they had a look at FIC[3] and they’d drill holes in the wing to check the wood. The wing was long enough to check in six places so they drilled there at the root, near the pilot, perfect: then out near the wingtip, perfect; one in the center, perfect. And the guy running the inspection said, ‘shame to spoil it by drilling anymore holes, this aeroplane is fine.
The next plane up was BAB, Brain and Brown. With their plane theu didn’t worry about this drill a hole business, they just pushed their thumb up into the soggy rotten wood! That aeroplane never ran from that day on.[4]
Bruce loved this story, and laughed accordingly. It was amazing to feel the warmth that the memories of Alan engendered.
Alan and his pilots were to fly to Flinders Island for many years to come. And so too Flinders Island Airlines grew to become a prosperous charter airline, which flew all around Victoria and further afield. However, in the late 1950s competition for airfreight escalated considerable. Despite this Alan’s airline continued to thrive through dedication, reliability and persistence. A key pillar in the continued enlargement of FIA’s scope of business was a long-term association with a well-known Melbourne newspaper, that Alan had first been employed to sell when he was only a boy.
[1] As was the case in early 2004.[2] Wooden spars – these were the heart of the wing. When you built the aeroplane it was the spine that you would hang everything else off as you went.
[3] FIC was Flinders Island Airlines’ third plane.
[4] Even though this story suggests a rivalry of sorts there was no animosity in anyone’s hearts when speaking of Brain and Brown.
