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Western Sydney Airport named.


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Western Sydney (Badgerys Creek) airport has today been officially named as "Western Sydney International (Nancy Bird-Walton) Airport".

 

 

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Mascot

 

Airport is known for it's locality.

 

Nancy-Baird Walton, needs the hyphen, because it was her husband's "pet" name for the Very famous flyer.

 

BUT what a mouthful.

 

Badgery's will be its name forever, & finger up to the pollies.

 

Were is avalon airport ?, : "Avalon in the City of Greater Geelong in Victoria" . Brisbane ?, & so the list goes on.

 

spacesailor

 

 

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My opinion of Nancy Walton was that she was a self-promoter who did not do much for expanding aviation in Australia. There were more important personalities at the same time: Reg Ansett, Cecil Butler, Max Hazleton to name a few. Andrew Badgery seems like the best. That news article had more photos of his plane and his flights than I have seen of many an early aviator from anywhere in the world.

 

Was the airport named after an aviatrix purely out of political correctness?

 

 

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Yes a curious choice. There are many famous aviatrix's in the Australasian area that could of been selected if gender was a selection criteria. Bonney, Miller and Batten to name but a few contributed to the advancement of aviation. Jean batten's exploits (yes she was a New Zealander) in particular has impressed me. But then again they didn't write a book, which had quite a few historical names in it, and didn't pass away recently. I met Nancy Bird-Walton several times and found her personable but she most certainly was focused on her Australian Women's Pilot Association during those encounters, which was not unexpected.

 

 

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Yes a very politically correct choice but the wrong one. Badgerys it should be. I hope at least he is honoured with a memorial in the terminal building or something. Jean Battens aircraft hangs from the ceiling at Auckland International Airport.

 

 

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Here is Andrew Badgery's WWl Service Record: https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=3044004

 

It seems that stuff must have happened to him early on when he was operating in Egypt. Seems he got what we call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and lost the confidence to fly. He was supposed to be sent back to Australia to act as an instructor, but no training was being done back Home. He went to London and was assigned to a training flight. His PTSD prevented him from flying in anything other than perfect conditions, so his commanders transferred him to an office job. There is a letter in there from him to High Command in which he says he didn't want to fly an aeroplane gain. He was , however, disappointed that his condition prevented him from being with his comrades in No 1 Sqn, AFC.

 

As an aside, there is a record of correspondence between him and the Government in which he offers an Anzani aero-engine. Probably the same engine that was in the plane he built. Mr Google can't find any Caulder. Most likely it was a Caudron

 

 

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My opinion of Nancy Walton was that she was a self-promoter who did not do much for expanding aviation in Australia. There were more important personalities at the same time: Reg Ansett, Cecil Butler, Max Hazleton to name a few. Andrew Badgery seems like the best. That news article had more photos of his plane and his flights than I have seen of many an early aviator from anywhere in the world.

Was the airport named after an aviatrix purely out of political correctness?

You forgot Lawrence Hargaves and Jim Hazelton

 

 

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Lawrence Hargraves was nominated. Max & Jim - isn't that father and son? I'm deliberately not mentioning people who were not based in NSW like Horrie Miller of Macrobertson Miller in WA.

 

 

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