I Flew For MMA (ePub)

Reg Adkins was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1926, went to Inglewood State School and after three years at Guildford Grammar School completed his education at the age of 16.

From the time he was 11 years old his ambition was to be a pilot. Joining the RAAF in October 1944 he was too late for pilot training but spent four and a half years as an Armourer in the service he loved.

Learning to fly at the Royal Aero Club of W.A. at Maylands Aerodrome in 1948 was the first step up the ladder towards achieving his ambition. Following an instructor rating and employment at the club for eighteen months he was well on his way when he stepped out of a Tiger Moth into a DC-3 to become one of the first post-war Aero Club trained pilots to be accepted into the airlines.

In 1955 he joined MacRobertson Miller Airlines. After a career spanning 33 years, flying DC-3s, F.27s and F.28s all over W.A. and the Northern Territory and amassing a total of 21,000 hours he retired in 1986 at the top of the ladder as Senior Captain.

To use his own words, "How could anyone have been so lucky?"

I Flew For MMA is a rollicking story covering the massive change in Western Australia's aviation history, from the days of post-World War Two flying unpressurised piston-engined DC-3s with virtually no navigation aids and the most basic of equipment and accommodation, to the introduction of the comfortable and fast F.27 turboprop, then to the magical jet era and the state of the art F.28. Reg and his colleagues really were the trail-blazers of post-war flying up to the modern age.

But I Flew For MMA is more than just a terrific historical record of flying in W.A. and the N.T. It lays bare the highs and the lows of being an airline pilot. The personalities, the family aspects, the industrial battles, and the emotional trials and tribulations that go with being responsible for the lives of the passengers in sometimes trying and stressful conditions, all the while being mindful of the desire to "get the job done".