08-11-2020, 08:23 AM
Caught with our pants down.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
(Attributed to writer and philosopher George Santayana.)
As the world struggled to cope with the great depression in the nineteen thirties, clouds of war were gathering over Europe.
lessons learned from the end of the war to end all wars in 1918 were quickly forgotten.
The axiom “Plan for the worst, hope for the best” lost in the desperate times of the great depression.
In 1939 Australia was ill prepared for conflict, other than providing a pool of cannon fodder as it did in 1914 to defend the empire, we had little to add much else.
Manufacturing industries in Australia were in their infancy and struggling to gain a foothold against the might of the “Motherland”. Buy British was the mantra and most of our manufactured goods came from Britain strongly supported by government we survived from the wool off our sheep’s backs. Australia was not bereft of innovators or entrepreneurs but taking an idea from conception to a finished marketable product was almost impossible.
The Australian aviation industry, shackled by self-interested interstate squabbling, regulated by an authoritative defence department didn’t lack in enthusiasm. However, nobody in the ruling class or in defence saw much value in it. It was barely tolerated and never encouraged, unlike the USA which was rapidly developing a vibrant growing aviation industry.
Way back in 1939 my dear old Dad enlisted in the RAAF when war appeared imminent hoping to head off to Europe to fight. Australia was woefully unprepared for war; pilots were very thin on the ground. Already a licenced pilot and instructor dad was immediately tasked with training pilots for the coming war as a burgeoning bureaucracy developed within defence to administer the Empire training scheme. In the USA training was tasked to private industry funnelling vast amounts of money into development which paid enormous dividends for the civilian aviation Industry at wars end. In Australia vast amounts of money was spent but at wars end the civilian side of aviation saw little in the way of dividend.
Into the sixties Flying training was positively encouraged, the lessons from the war still at the front of the political elites’ brains. Airports were protected as vital infrastructure, scholarships provided for pilot training, pretty much everything was free of charge.
On the commercial side of the industry the pre-war shackles were replaced, industrial development and manufacturing stifled.
lessons of the war faded into history, from being vital for national security, aviation became a liability and as the user pays philosophy developed within the bureaucracy, aviation and its necessary infrastructure became viewed as surplus to requirements or potential cash cows by bureaucrats with absolutely no understanding of how the industry worked. Competing interests of non-aviation entities seeking to push aviation aside in pursuit of the holy dollar has gradually taken precedence and aided by an at times complicit, self-interested, totally incompetent regulator, aviation in Australia is descending into a third world abyss from which it may never recover.
Given the current crisis facing aviation are we again standing on the precipice?
The drums of future conflict are almost audible, will we once again regret ignoring the lessons of history?
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
(Attributed to writer and philosopher George Santayana.)
As the world struggled to cope with the great depression in the nineteen thirties, clouds of war were gathering over Europe.
lessons learned from the end of the war to end all wars in 1918 were quickly forgotten.
The axiom “Plan for the worst, hope for the best” lost in the desperate times of the great depression.
In 1939 Australia was ill prepared for conflict, other than providing a pool of cannon fodder as it did in 1914 to defend the empire, we had little to add much else.
Manufacturing industries in Australia were in their infancy and struggling to gain a foothold against the might of the “Motherland”. Buy British was the mantra and most of our manufactured goods came from Britain strongly supported by government we survived from the wool off our sheep’s backs. Australia was not bereft of innovators or entrepreneurs but taking an idea from conception to a finished marketable product was almost impossible.
The Australian aviation industry, shackled by self-interested interstate squabbling, regulated by an authoritative defence department didn’t lack in enthusiasm. However, nobody in the ruling class or in defence saw much value in it. It was barely tolerated and never encouraged, unlike the USA which was rapidly developing a vibrant growing aviation industry.
Way back in 1939 my dear old Dad enlisted in the RAAF when war appeared imminent hoping to head off to Europe to fight. Australia was woefully unprepared for war; pilots were very thin on the ground. Already a licenced pilot and instructor dad was immediately tasked with training pilots for the coming war as a burgeoning bureaucracy developed within defence to administer the Empire training scheme. In the USA training was tasked to private industry funnelling vast amounts of money into development which paid enormous dividends for the civilian aviation Industry at wars end. In Australia vast amounts of money was spent but at wars end the civilian side of aviation saw little in the way of dividend.
Into the sixties Flying training was positively encouraged, the lessons from the war still at the front of the political elites’ brains. Airports were protected as vital infrastructure, scholarships provided for pilot training, pretty much everything was free of charge.
On the commercial side of the industry the pre-war shackles were replaced, industrial development and manufacturing stifled.
lessons of the war faded into history, from being vital for national security, aviation became a liability and as the user pays philosophy developed within the bureaucracy, aviation and its necessary infrastructure became viewed as surplus to requirements or potential cash cows by bureaucrats with absolutely no understanding of how the industry worked. Competing interests of non-aviation entities seeking to push aviation aside in pursuit of the holy dollar has gradually taken precedence and aided by an at times complicit, self-interested, totally incompetent regulator, aviation in Australia is descending into a third world abyss from which it may never recover.
Given the current crisis facing aviation are we again standing on the precipice?
The drums of future conflict are almost audible, will we once again regret ignoring the lessons of history?