Flight fun
Don't call us bitter here at The Note, but every time we see a bit of news about Quickstep Holdings we are reminded about its move from Perth to Sydney.
The carbon composites manufacturer, which is working on the Aussie part of the much-delayed Joint Strike Fighter project, was coaxed to NSW by government incentives. Readers may recall the federal government boasting that $10 million in assistance from Canberra “had helped lure Quickstep to Bankstown”.
Anyway, we could not help note a couple of new directors to the board.
Firstly there was Bruce Griffiths. It might be stretching the imagination to suggest Mr Griffiths continues the WA-link for Quickstep, but he used to run the car parts division of Futuris Corporation, once a high-flying Perth-based conglomerate. Then there was the appointment to the board of aerospace and defence industry player Tony Quick. Let's hope Mr Quick, who is now chairman, doesn't get confused with the company's founder.
Sweet street
Speaking of names, The Note’s ignorance of Western Australia's aviation history came to the fore while examining the detail in an invitation to attend the official opening of Perth Airport's new domestic terminal.
The new terminal is located on Sugarbird Lady Road, just off the main route to the nearby international terminal at the end of Horrie Miller Drive.
Now we know of Captain Horrie, co-founder of MacRobertson Miller Airlines, or MMA as it was fondly called, from perusing the new aviation history display as part of the memorial opened last year at the site of the old Maylands aerodrome. But what is a Sugarbird Lady?
Reliable sources tell us that this is the nickname attributed to Horrie Miller's daughter Robin, a notable aviatrix who was also a nurse and adventurer. There is a memorial to her at Jandakot.
In the late 1960s, Ms Miller travelled the WA outback administering an oral polio vaccine to children in remote communities. Her trick was to dose lumps of sugar with the vaccine, hence the nickname, Sugarbird Lady.
While we might have suggested Sugar Birdlady was more accurate, history as recorded by the Nomenclature Advisory Committee has beaten us on that one.