After the war I rode in other piston-engine, turboprop and jet aircraft but the excitement was never as great, except for my first jet flight in a RAAF Canberra bomber after the war. This flight from the RAAF base at Laverton was with a very young pilot making his first solo flight. It had been arranged by Wing Cmdr Gel Cummings who at that time was Commanding Officer (CO) of ARDU which I believe was the abbreviation for Aircraft Research and Development Unit.

Other memorable postwar flights were made in 1959 in a US Air Force Globemaster from Christchurch, New Zealand to McMurdo Sound in Antarctica and return. As one of a party of about 20 people I travelled in the cavernous empty cargo hold of the huge Globemaster. While in the Antarctic I had the good fortune to ride in a DC-3, a Hercules and a helicopter. The many postwar flights I have made in fast commercial jet aircraft have lacked the delicate grace of the DH-86. Modern jet aircraft hurtle through the atmosphere with little of the sensation of graceful motion of a soaring bird which I experienced in my first flight in a Tiger Moth. Taking-off or landing in a modern jet aircraft, or cruising in the relatively turbulence-free upper troposphere provide little interest except for the high-level vistas of cloud formations and the beauty of the colours of twilight and dawn as seen from upper levels of the atmosphere.

Bureau of Meteorology