Foreword (continued)

Colin served for 38 years in the Bureau as an 'old-style' Weather Officer at offices in Adelaide, Alice Springs, Canberra, Darwin, Lae, Melbourne, Perth, Port Moresby and Sydney. When he first joined the Bureau, Colin had hopes of gaining a university degree in Science by part-time study but frequent transfers and shift-work made that impossible.

He served mainly as an aviation forecaster and recalls the early post-war days at Mascot when the meteorological staff were located in the old control tower building together with Operations, Area Control and Aeradio. This was the period of rapid development of aviation technology and, with the advent of pressurised aircraft, the workload of the meteorological office increased significantly with forecasts required for higher and higher altitudes and for an increasing number of aircraft movements.

Colin next worked at Essendon airport, near Melbourne, with Jack Nance as OIC. There followed a series of transfers which provided Colin with a variety of climates and weather conditions, each requiring new learning experiences.

He was particularly impressed by the smooth operation of the meteorological office at Perth Airport and the familiarisation procedure employed by the OIC, John Sylvester Maher, who took great pains to ensure that incoming forecasters were thoroughly briefed on their duties. He also found the duties at the Darwin aerodrome office particularly interesting.

Colin returned to Melbourne in the late 1960s and was involved in the move of the Meteorological Office from Essendon to Tullamarine and later, when aviation forecasting was transferred to Regional Offices, worked at the Melbourne Regional Forecasting Centre when Keith Hannay was Regional Director. Here he was involved in the trial of various systems for the provision of meteorological service to a rapidly developing aircraft industry.

Bureau of Meteorology