Page 12 - David Coles Australian Military Aircraft Book Interior Sample

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The Creation of the Central Flying School
Obviously, the first requirement in the establish- ment of a flying school was a flight instructor. Two pilots were chosen: one was an Englishman living
in Australia, Henry Petre, and the other an Australian living in England, Eric Harrison. Four mechanics were also hired: SGTs Richard ‘Henry’ Chester and Alexander ‘Ted’ Shorland, both from England along with George Fonteneau (a Frenchman who had worked for the Depersussin company), and Cyril Heath a mechanic from Melbourne. At this stage, however, there were no aircraft nor was there a place for them to fly when they arrived.
The next order of business after the instructors had been chosen was to purchase the aircraft. On 3 July 1912, an order for four aircraft - 2 BE.2a and two Deperdussin Monoplanes - was placed with the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company. In December, the order was expanded to include a Boxkite aircraft for the purposes of elementary training. The Boxkite arrived in Sydney on 3 May and the two Depersussin arrived in Melbourne before the end of that month (the two BE.2s would not arrive until February 1914); however, a location for the flying school had yet to be confirmed. While the new Military Collage located at Duntroon, Canberra, was the first choice, Petre considered the location to be unsuitable with its mountainous terrain and so embarked on a mission to find a more suit- able location. He travelled to Victoria and reported on several locations around Melbourne, including Altona Bay where J.J. Hammond had demonstrated the Bristol Boxkite. Eventually a parcel of land was purchased from the Victorian Government at Point Cook which offered a large area of flat land as well as access to Port Phillip Bay for future seaplane operations. The big problem was that the purchase of the land took over a
year, which seriously delayed the establishment of the required base facilities such as a hangar.
On 7 March 13, the Government announced the formation of the Central Flying School, although little in the way of physical progress was evident, with the Media making a lot of noise about an expensive military capability that did not seem to exist. This was made all the worse when Harry Hawker, an ex-pat Melbournian who had learned to fly in England, came to Australia in February 1914 to display the new Sopwith Tabloid racer - which made the aircraft purchased by the Govern- ment look very out of date. The then Minister for Defence, Senator Edward Millen, was taken for a flight by Hawker (while both Petre and Harrison looked on). This flight was the catalyst to get work underway at Point Cook as Millen ordered the instructors to be flying by the end of the month. On Sunday 1 March 1914, the Bristol Boxkite was ready to fly (the maintenance of the aircraft had to be done in a tent as the hangar had not yet been completed) and once the dull morning condi- tions cleared, Captain Eric Harrison made the first mili- tary flight in Australia, thus showing that CFS was a unit ready to begin training.
Once the aircraft hangar had been completed, the first pilot course began on 17 August 1914 with four trainees: Captain Thomas White (the first of several people to crash their aircraft into the Hangar), LT Richard Williams (who was to become the first Chief of Air Staff), Lt George Merz (unfortunately to become the first Australian airman lost in combat on 30 July 1915) and Lt David Manwell. All four had graduated by mid-November, but as Australia had no other aviation units, all four were looking at returning to their own units. Williams and Manwell stayed on as Instructors, but a message arrived on 2 February 1915 that changed
AUSTRALIAN MILITARY AIRCRAFT