The Australian Aviation Hall of Fame (AAHOF) is keen to locate descendants of two of its inductees for 2016.
Six new members of the AAHOF will be admitted at the official ceremony at the Temora Aviation Museum in Wagga Wagga on November 12.
The class of 2016 includes Australian Aviation contributor and aviation safety author Macarthur “Mac” Job, whose books included the world-renowned Air Crash and Air Disaster book series (published between 1991 and 2001).
Job began his writing career in the mid-1960s as editor of the then Department of Civil Aviation’s Aviation Safety Digest publication (which in 1972 was awarded the Flight Safety Foundation’s prestigious “Publication of the Year” award), while from the late 1970s he was editor of Australian aviation industry magazine Aircraft (now Aviation Business).
Later, Job also wrote for a number of aviation titles and was a contributor to Aero Australia magazine. He was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2003 for “services to the promotion of aviation safety”. Job died in August 2014. He was 88.
The other inductees in the 2016 intake included Lester Brain, who established Trans Australia Airlines in 1946 and was its first general manager. Prior to TAA, Brain was a distinguished pilot and senior administrator with Qantas for many years.
Horatio “Horrie” Miller, the co-founder of MacRobertson-Miller Airlines, which started flying between Broken Hill and Adelaide in 1927 before it moved to Western Australia and eventually became part of Ansett, is also an inductee.
Test pilot, engineer and designer of the Percival Gull aircraft, Edgar Percival, and Sir Robert Norman, a RAAF pilot who established Bush Pilots Airways in Queensland, rounds out the five individual members to receive their awards.
The AAHOF has also recognised the contribution to Australia’s aviation heritage of Bush Pilots Airways, which began with one aircraft operating out of Cairns in 1951 before expanding to serve 44 destinations in 1988, with the “Southern Cross Award”. The airline eventually became part of Australian Airlines, which later became part of Qantas. Sir Norman died in 2007. He was 93.
“These five outstanding individuals and “Bushies” join thirty two other individuals and five organizations in the Hall of Fame. All have made quite incredible contributions in their respective fields for the major benefit of Australia, particularly regional and remote Australia,” AAHOF chairman Padgett said in a statement.
Padgett says the AAHOF has been unable to locate relatives and descendants of Brain and Percival.
The AAHOF said Brain was born in Forbes, NSW in 1903 and lived in both Melbourne and Sydney. He was married to Constance Brownhill and the couple had two sons and two daughters.
Meanwhile, Percival was born in Albury, NSW in 1897. Born to parents William Percival and Blanche Hilda Leontina Wikner, he lived in Sydney until after World War I when he moved to London until he died in 1984. He never married.
Anyone who can help get in touch with Brain or Percival’s family is asked to contact the AAHOF via its website or via email to [email protected].
