Captain K.G. "Ken" Jackson MBE
Kenneth Garth Moffat "Ken" Jackson was born in Burnie, Tasmania on October 12, 1912, to Louis Arthur and Lina Jackson (nee Holloway).
The Jackson family moved to the suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria in 1919 when Ken Jackson was around 7 years old. Ken remembered at age 10 "watching the flying machines coming and going over our back yard" and "running around making plane noises with my "wings" oustretched". He had, at that young age, decided he was going to become an aviator.
After an unremarkable stint at school, Ken joined the Victorian Railways as an apprentice fitter and turner. In 1932 vacancies for the Royal Australian Air Force were advertised and Jackson quickly jumped at the opportunity. His only means of entry was via a technical trade job and so he joined as a fitter and lathe operator. Within a short period of time he had applied for and been successful in gaining a traineeship as a pilot. He transferred to RAAF Point Cook, near Laverton, Victoria.
In a record 6 hours and 34 minutes training time, Ken Jackson flew his first solo. Eventually, as a Flight Sergeant, he would fly the routine weather sorties out of RAAF Laverton in a Hawker Demon, gathering data from altitudes around 16,000ft. No mean feat in an open cockpit!
In 1936, the nearby town of Shepparton, Victoria was sent into shock by the antics of a pilot who, by all accounts, "did pilot an aircraft, prominently displaying the rondels of the Air Corps [sic], in a dangerous fashion around the centre of our town". There were reports of the flying stunt getting as close as "50ft to the ground" and circling the Post Office clock tower (at the time under repair), "so close that it did almost dislodge a worker there". There were some reports that the airplane also carried a passenger. It can be revealed that the pilot was, in fact Ken Jackson, but it cant be verified whether or not the passenger was his soon-to-be fiance... This possibly romantic gesture could have meant the end of Jackson's flying career, but a stern telling off from the base commandant and restriction to base for a week was the extent of the punishment received.
Ken Jackson left the RAAF some time after that, and was married to Dorothy Katrina "Kath" Bamber at All Saints Anglican Church, St Kilda, Victoria on October 12, 1936. This date also happened to be Kath's and Ken's birthday.
In 1938 Jackson joined the fledgling W.R.Carpenter Airlines and helped establish the first airmail service between Sydney, Australia and Salamaua, Rabaul through Brisbane, Rockhampton, Townsville, Cairns, and Cooktown, and then on to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Theround trip left Sydney on a Tuesday morning, returning on Sunday afternoon. The service carried both mail and passengers between New Guinea and Australia. On the inaugural service, crewed by Captain R.O. "[...]" Mant and Jackson, their most auspicious passenger was the then Australian Minister for External Affairs, Billy Hughes who had, at the peak of his political career some 16 years earlier, been Prime Minister of Australia.
It was on one of the usually routine flights that Ken Jackson almost ended his flying career again, this time in very spectacular fashion. On March 15, 1940, a routine mail run between Salamaua and Rabaul was diverted northwest to Kavieng because of an encounter with "the worst tropical storm seen in the area".
With co-pilot C.R.Burnard, one other crew member and 5 passengers the De-Havilland DH86 Express struggled towards safety. Unfortunately, AbOUT 20 miles short of the small plantation airstrip used as an emergency alternate the aircraft ran out of fuel and the plane was forced to ditch, some 400 yards offshore the plantation of Sicacui. The owner of the plantation, C.E.P. Davis, advised authorities in Rabaul that the passengers, mail and baggage had all been recovered safely.
Earlier, however, things had not been so smooth. Burnard had been ejected from the airplane on impact and Jackson had been thrown forward in his harness, hitting his head, knocking him unconscious for a short time. When he came to, Jackson found himself underwater and trapped by his harness and he began to drown. Resigning himself to his fate, he relaxed and put his head back, only to find his face out of the water! Burnard swam back to the plane and helped Jackson escape. The empty fuel tanks helped keep the plane afloat until a native canoe came out from the plantation and helped rescue all 8 passengers and crew - as well as the mail. The plane sank in "12 fathoms of water" and although a salvage effort was made within the next week or so, nothing recoverable from the aircraft constructed largely of wood and fabric could be found.
In 1946, Qantas Empire Airways acquired W.R. Carpenter Airlines and the services of captains Ken Jackson and R.O. Mant as well as their fleet of DH86 aircraft, not to mention their airmail and passenger services between Australia and New Guinea. This service was soon expanded to use the Douglas DC3 aircraft.
By this time, Qantas began to look beyond Australian shores and placed an order for several Lockheed Constellation aircraft. Ken Jackson was chosen to be part of the inaugural crew for these aircraft, together with R.O. Mant and R.J. "Bert" Ritchie, who would later go on to become the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Qantas. After extensive type training in the United States, The first Constellation, a customised version of the prototype L049 was delivered to Qantas from San Francisco early in 1947. To suit the particular needs of air travel from Australia, Qantas provided Lockheed with some 550 changes to the design of the 049/749 to arrive at the L1049 Super Constellation.
The extended range L1049 Lockheed Super Constellation was brought into service with Qantas and Jackson was one of the first Australian pilots to be trained on this amazing aircraft.
In July 1947, planning began on establishing a "one airline" route between Sydney and London. This route had previously been shared half way (Sydney to Singapore) by Qantas Empire Airways, and the other half (Singapore to London) by B.O.A.C (now British Airways), the service being provided on Sunderland flying boats and Lancastrian airliners (developed from Lancaster bombers). Jackson flew many of the proving and survey flights while Qantas developed this route.
On December 1, 1947, the Lockheed Super Constellation named "Charles Kingsford Smith" departed the airport in Mascot, NSW that was soon to alo bear that famous name, bound for London, with Captain K.G. Jackson at the controls.
Jackson went on to help Qantas develop long-haul air routes, shrinking the remoteness of Australia to a few days or hours, as opposed to the weeks or even months that travel to and from Australia required in the past.
His next project was the Australia-South Africa route, traversing some of the most remote stretches of water yet. Survey flights and establishment of outposts along the route began in 1948, with Jackson (now Qantas Chief Pilot) in charge. The route left Sydney and travelled to Darwin, Australia then Singapore, Colombo, Cocos Islands, Mauritius then Johannesburg. There were no modern navigation systems available to the long-haul crews at that time, with navigation being achieved by dead-reckoning and plotting locations by using a sextant and taking sightings of stars and planets.
Captain K.G. Jackson was awarded an MBE for his services to aviation as part of the Queen's Birthday honours on the 9th of June, 1955.
In 1967, having achieved the somewhat nominal age limit in some countries (including Australia) for inter-continental pilots of 55 years, Jackson retired from flying to become head of Flight Operations for Qantas in Sydney. Not content to fly a desk he took a short-term contract with Canadian Pacific airways based out of Vancouver.
Jackson retired from flying all together in 1970, returning to Sydney to enjoy his retirement by playing golf and tuning European sports cars.
Captain Kenneth Garth Moffat Jackson MBE passed away on November 10, 1995 peacefully in Sydney, survived by his wife and daughter.