Home of the Air Force’s finest
Next year, the School of Air Navigation celebrates its 60th anniversary. Andrew Stackpool looks at a unit which has been one of Air Force’s quiet achievers over the past six decades.

 

Royal Australian Air Force School of Air Navigation.

Students from No.16 Post War Navigators Course, School of Air Navigation, Senior AIR CDT Raymond Lewis, Senior AIR CDT Terence Gilroy and Trainee Navigator Peter Francis in October 1957. Right:

A classroom at the School of Air Navigation in the 1960s.

THE School of Air Navigation (SAN) is inviting past and present staff and students to a grand celebration of its 60th anniversary.

The SAN turns 60 in February 2006 and to celebrate the milestone will be holding an Open Day and dining-in night during the second quarter of 2006.

The celebrations will provide an opportunity for navigators and observers to catch up with former course mates and see the path that air navigation training has taken over the years.

“The School of Air Navigation has largely been a quiet achiever over the past 60 years,” staff member Flight Lieutenant Joyce Small says.

“Nevertheless, [for 60 years] it has continued to produce professional and capable navigators and observers, which is a tribute to all of the people who worked at SAN past and present.”

The school opened its doors on February 5, 1946. Its first course, No. 1 Specialist Navigation Course, began on February 3, 1947 with 11 students.

While training has changed to reflect the times, its charter – to graduate professional, highly motivated and capable aviators – has remained the same.

Its role has also expanded to include photographic courses.

In the early years the students flew in Lincoln bombers and Anson training aircraft, conducting day and night cross-country navigation combined with bombing runs.

One of the highlights during those early years was a task to deliver urgently needed food and medical supplies to the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions stationed at Macquarie Island.

A Lincoln was fitted with long-range fuel tanks to conduct the 13-hour round trip and dropped its supplies successfully.

Like most other units, the SAN has had its tragedies. In 1949, an Anson aircraft with five crew members, including two students, failed to return from a familiarisation flight. The wreckage of the aircraft was found a few days later.

A new generation started in 1968 with the arrival of the HS-748 aircraft.

An unusual step accompanied the aircraft when students during this era were permitted to smoke pipes in their classrooms.

Other changes included the then state-of-the-art computer technology that allowed them to conduct simulated flights in the Synthetic Navigation Trainer and a brand new aircraft specifically modified to suit the school’s training requirements.

Now, a new era has dawned with the retirement from service of the “Draggie”, which has been replaced by the King Air 350.

The present students are the first to conduct all their training in the King Air and to deploy after they graduate.

Requests for further information and expressions of interest should be forwarded to e-mail SAN.60th@defence.gov.au

 

 

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