PETER SHUTE

by Peter Shute

I joined Adastra in February 1968, having heard of their existence from a "friend of a friend". I phoned up to ask about employment as a camera operator and was told that there was a list of several people with the same idea but that my name and details would be added.

Being an aircraft buff, on my next day off I decided to call in at the hangar to check out the Hudsons. I met Mike Wood and Sid Thompson who gave me a guided tour of the hangar, the film labs and the mapping plotters. I mentioned that I was a keen photographer and had obtained a Private Pilots Licence when in the Cadet Corps at school in the U.K. Within the week I received a telephone call from Mike Wood offering me a position as camera operator and I started a couple of weeks later. Sid Thompson gave me instruction on the Wild RC9 and I went for a test fly with Brian Costello in Cessna 206 VH-DGD. I then spent nearly a month doing very little except getting to know the finer points of the camera and practising loading and unloading film in the dark room.

During this time Hudson VH-AGX was ready for a test flight and I went for the ride. Nobody had told me that Lionel Van Praag had the habit of cutting an engine on take-off and I was a bit perturbed to hear an engine cut and see the runway below at an unusual angle. The next day the same thing happened but I was prepared for it.

In the beginning of March 1968, Brian Costello, Jack Batho and I were off in DGD to Cloncurry - a bit of a culture shock for someone who had only come from working in London one year before and had spent all the time in Sydney. Later in 1968 I retrained as a navigator. By June 1973 I had a wife and a five month old baby. The writing was on the wall with the East-West take-over and I decided it was time to give up the life of a gypsy.

The following is a resume of my time with Adastra: