'Fly Boy' Retires [Bill Brann]

It was 1941 and as a weather officer who had recently joined the met service he was in Mt Gambier attached to the No 2 Air Observer School In those days weather officers at the school were able to go up on training flights. When the pilot felt like a rest the weather man took over the controls of the two-seater aircraft.

Bill was doing fine until they ran into some rough weather and he buzzed the pilot to take over. Imagine his consternation when he discovered the pilot had fallen asleep!!

Bill, who retired on 21 June as the Superintending Met Observations and Traffic (STOT) is best remembered for his work with the Bureau's upper air equipment and radar. Responsible for standards techniques of measurement and how equipment in the field should be used, he has brought radar and upper air equipment to specifications which he pioneered.

Bill Brann joined the Bureau as a weather officer on the same day as DIR, in March 1940. After 12 months at various yield stations he enlisted in the RAAF as a weather observer.

In 1944 he transferred to VIC RO and was placed in charge of an aircraft instrument repair workshop. It was at this workshop that the government wars typetesting the first Australian-made radiosonde.

After Bill left the RAAF in 1946 he was in charge of aircraft instruments at Drummond street, working under the then instrument section head Alan Cornish. In 1948 he took over the section staffed by two mets, two laboratory assistants and five instrument staff. Bill was to head this section until the establishment of the Facilities Branch in 1969.

Bureau of Meteorology