December Newsletter

November is over and we are just about to head into the Christmas season.  The month brought some mixed weather.  We had some rain, we had some sunshine, and had some wind and we had some more wind.  In between we managed to get some flying done.  Spare a thought for the poor old farmers trying to make hay.

A lot of people would like to learn to fly, Some learn to fly and go solo, whilst some continue and obtain their G.F.P.T.  however a lot drop out in the process and in the end only a few students end up with a P.P.L.  It is therefore very gratifying to congratulate the following students on attaining their Private Pilots License.
Nicole Grigo, Scott Percival, Cole Darley, Will Owen and Nu Vo and Vince Zampogna.

Nicole passed her PPL on the 9th of September and is now studying for a commercial license. Nicole and her husband Todd, own and run ERG electrics who incidentally won the 2009 South West Small Business of the year award.  They are building a new hanger next to Kim Matheson’s hanger. (Blair’s old one)  I’m waiting to see what aircraft they put in it.

Nu Vo passed her PPL on the 11th of November.  Nu and her husband Peter Swarder have been coming down from Perth regularly on weekends since May and she has put in a lot of hard work and effort to get her license in such a short time.  Nu was a school teacher in Vietnam before moving to Australia and now works in business with Peter.  I have heard the she is interested in getting an aerobatic endorsement.

For the full list of achievements see the 2009 Honours List (http://www.bunburyflyingschool.com/news/29-congratulations-2009-honours.html ) , or see the pin up board at the Flying School.

Things are getting busier at the school.  To operate at maximum capacity on weekends, we end up with only one instructor, Lloyd, working on Thursdays.  With more and more students wanting to learn to fly we have had to put on some more staff.  Adam Price is currently doing some relief work at the Flying School.

The Flying School usually operates from 8.30am through to 5.00pm, seven days a week. With summer coming, better weather and longer days we are happy to fit in with any student wishing fly outside these times.  You must however give us a couple of days notice so that we can fit you in with the pilot’s roster.

Just a reminder to students that the Friday night sundowner is still on.  You are more than welcome to come and have a drink and something to eat with the staff.  It’s a good chance to talk about politics and world peace or maybe just talk about airplanes or some of those tricky exam questions. (does the altimeter read in hectopascals or millibars?) Everyone is welcome; we usually start around 5.30 p.m. You are also welcome to join us for lunch on Saturdays or Sundays.
On Friday the 18th of December the Bunbury Flying School is holding its Christmas party.  All students and friend are invited and we will also use the function as a presentation night. RSVP would be appreciated by Wednesday the 16th.
Any contributions to the newsletter are more than welcome to do so. Just email it to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Well that’s all for now. I’ll catch you next month.

For those of you interested in the story of the man who owns the Flying School, I’ve managed to glean the following article out of him.  
Blair Wellington Howe.            
I was bought up on a fat lamb producing farm in New Zealand on a farm my Father drew as a returned serviceman from the Second World War. I went to the local primary school to which I rode a horse  the six miles for a good part of my schooling. After primary school I was sent to boarding school in Danevirke          [ I hated it ]. I left school at fifteen and went to work on my Father’s farm as was pretty normal those days. I later went shepherding and contract mustering. In 1964 I took over the manager’s position of a dairy farm milking 400 cows and running around 700 pigs. I had a staff of four men. I stayed at Te Ariki till Feb 1970 then spent a season driving a maize harvester.
 I left New Zealand arriving in Western Australia  in June 1970 as a 25 year old. I came to WA to manage a beef farm for a member of the Willhelmsen shipping family at Walpole. 32 volt power no proper water supply and an Everhot stove that was buggered. What a shock.
I stayed there for two years before going to Kalgoorlie to become an underground miner. I did a few years as a miner and in 1975 was in Darwin driving a backhoe demolishing houses and buildings after Cyclone Tracey. Seven months of that and I went back down to Walpole and spent a season catching salmon off the Nornalup beach for my wife's cousin Frank Ebbett [dec] that season we caught 130 tonne.
After my season catching salmon I went back to the gold fields mining and spent some time running a three boom Gardiner Denver first at Kambalda and then at Poseidon out of Laverton.
In late 1977 I came back south and spent a season as a crew man on the whale chaser Cheynes 111 catching Sperm whales off the South coast.
 In my travels to this date I had obtained a shotfirers license which allowed me [ and still does ] to work with explosives in public places. I had also obtained an unrestricted crane drivers license which allows me to operate any mobile crane other than steam to an unlimited capacity.
 I purchased a large crane and joined with a friend of mine who is a builder and we took on several big projects one being the Mosman Park Tea-room jetties, and we also did all of the jetty work on the original Hillary's complex.
I did a lot of blasting connected with the building industry, and I also knocked down thousands of the Karri trees around the South West that had been ring barked by an earlier [1930's] land settlement project.
I built a barge out of a fibreglass swimming pool mould 28X14 ft and used it  to transport goods [ 14 tonne ] and as a dredging and pile driving platform. I powered it with an outboard motor.
We built many houses, machinery sheds and shearing sheds in the Denmark, Walpole and Rocky Gully area.
In 1987 I went back to the Goldfields, this time Mt Magnet. I planned to go gold prospecting and had bought the fanciest detector there was at the time. I soon found that my hearing had lost its edge after years of working around air driven machinery so I soon gave that away.
 I started with a company, Monodelphous, as a part time crane driver. In the few months I was there I discovered the business of mill relining.
 I gathered together some out of season Cray fishermen and started the business called Murchison Relines which still exists today.
Murchison grew to a company employing 120 men and we had contracts relining mills at most of the mines in Australia. I had five aircraft with which I transported my men to all of the remote mines throughout the whole of Australia. I also had teams working In South East Asia including Borneo, Selawesi, Java, Malaya and Sumatra, South America Chile and Argentina, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Mauritania. During this time we installed the linings in the biggest at that time mills in the world, One a KCGM in Kalgoorlie and the other at Orange in NSW. These mills have something like 4.500 tonne of linings in them.
In 1995/6 I bought the property here at Myalup intending to retire. There was a lime producing Quarry next door and I thought I may have a go at producing Lime on my property. I have since bought the property next door and I think we are the biggest supplier of crushed lime in the State now. We can produce around 125,000 tonne of road base material and about the same amount of Agricultural lime per year.
 In 2002 I decided to start a flying school in Bunbury to satisfy a passion I have for aviation. I started with a Cherokee and a Cessna 150 I had owned for some years.
 The school now has ten aircraft and I would say it's probably the biggest privately owned school out of the Metro area. The school has become a vibrant place for like mind aviators to meet and we have taken the school from strength to strength.
Blair