Lester Brain

Originally from Gloucestershire, Austin had emigrated with his parents and siblings in 1885, prospecting for gold in the United States before settling in Australia.

By age thirteen, Lester owned his own motorcycle bought secondhand for £11; its poor condition and constant need for repair helped him become mechanically adept at an early age.

Lester Joseph Brain, AO, AFC (27 February 1903 – 30 June 1980) was a pioneer Australian aviator and airline executive.

Born in Forbes, New South Wales, on 27 February 1903, Lester Brain was the second son of an English mining engineer and manager, Austin Brain, and his Australian wife, Katie.

He completed his education at Sydney Grammar School, where he excelled in maths, before being employed by the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney (CBC) in 1919.

Brain's penchant for motorbikes and things mechanical inspired a lift driver at CBC to suggest he apply for pilot training in the recently formed Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

He was among five civilian students nominated by the Civil Aviation Branch (CAB) of the Defence Department for entry into the inaugural RAAF flying training course, which commenced at Point Cook, Victoria in January 1923.

The benefit of these nominations from a military perspective was that although the destiny of the CAB-sponsored students was to be civil aviators, they would also be members of the RAAF reserve, known as the Citizen Air Force (CAF), and could therefore be called up for active service as and when necessary.

Brain's fellow attendees included Royal Australian Navy lieutenants Joe Hewitt and Ellis Wackett, and Australian Army lieutenant Frank Bladin, all of whom were seconded—and later permanently transferred—to the RAAF.

Brain graduated at the top of his class after the year-long training course at Point Cook, and was duly commissioned in the CAF.

Born in New South Wales, he trained with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) before joining Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (Qantas) as a pilot in 1924.

Moving to Queensland in April 1924, he took up employment as a pilot with Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (Qantas), its first aviator without a war record.

On 7 February 1925, he flew the first scheduled passenger service from Cloncurry to Camooweal, extending the airline's founding 580 mi route—from Charleville to Cloncurry—by 284 mi. The following year, he completed a refresher course at Central Flying School, Point Cook.

On a rain-soaked McKinlay airfield near Cloncurry on 27 February 1927, he flipped Qantas' first de Havilland DH.50 on to its back while attempting take-off, though he managed to escape without injury.

Qantas founder Hudson Fysh berated him for a "serious error of judgement", but noted his excellent three-year record as a pilot; the aircraft was soon repaired and operational again.

The next month, Brain became Chief Instructor at the Qantas Flying School in Brisbane, doubling as manager of the airline's local office.

By mid-1928, he had overworked himself to the extent that he was ordered to take respite by Fysh; this "respite" nevertheless involved a 13-week trip to England to study aviation developments.

He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1929, after locating the lost aircraft Kookaburra in northern Australia.

In April 1929, Brain was selected to take part in a search for lost aviators in northern Australia, having gained experience of the area while flying over the Tanami Desert to assist a gold prospecting expedition some years earlier.

On 20 April, he took Qantas DH.50 Atalanta from Brisbane to link up with RAAF Airco DH.9s under the command of Flight Lieutenant Charles Eaton at Tennant Creek, to look for Keith Anderson and Robert Hitchcock in their Westland Widgeon the Kookaburra.

The pair had disappeared while searching for Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm, who had been reported missing on a record attempt from Sydney to England in the Southern Cross.

Brain located the Kookaburra the next day in the Tanami Desert, approximately 130 km east-south-east of Wave Hill.

He saw one body underneath the wing, but the terrain was too dangerous to attempt a landing.

After Brain reported the Kookaburra's position to Eaton, the latter led an overland expedition to the site and buried the bodies of Anderson and Hitchcock, who had evidently survived crash-landing their plane before succumbing to heat and thirst.

His discovery of the Kookaburra and, shortly thereafter, of two lost British aviators in Arnhem Land, earned Brain the Air Force Cross; the award was gazetted on 31 May:

"The KING has been graciously pleased to approve of the award of the Air Force Cross to Mr. Leslie Joseph Brain, in recognition of the distinguished services rendered to aviation by his recent flights in the northern territory of Australia in search of missing aviators."

The Gazette later corrected "Leslie" to "Lester".

With the Kookaburra saga making news across the country, Brain had become a national hero, and Fysh declared that the publicity for both pilot and airline "could probably not have been bought for any money".

Having risen to Chief Pilot at Qantas by 1930, he was appointed Flying Operations Manager in 1938.

As a member of the RAAF reserve, Brain coordinated his airline's support for the Australian military during World War II.

By 1930, Brain had been appointed Qantas' Chief Pilot.

In June that year, he was given responsibility for sales and special flights such as demonstrations and agency tours at the airline's new Brisbane headquarters, and also acted as a reserve pilot.

He married Constance (Consie) Brownhill at Holy Innocents Catholic Church in Croydon, New South Wales, on 8 July; the couple had two sons and two daughters.

Brain played a leading role in Qantas' operations as it expanded its mail and passenger routes throughout Australia and, as Qantas Empire Airways (QEA) from January 1934, other parts of the world.

He earned a King's Commendation for his rescue efforts during an air raid on Broome, Western Australia, in 1942, and was promoted to wing commander in 1944.

Seeing little prospect for advancement at Qantas once the war had ended, Brain left to join the fledgling government-owned domestic carrier Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) in June 1946.

Appointed its first General Manager, he swiftly built up the organisation to the stage where it could commence scheduled operations later in the year.

By the time he resigned in March 1955, TAA was firmly established as one half of the Commonwealth government's two-airline system.

After his departure from TAA, Brain became Managing Director of de Havilland Aircraft in Sydney, before joining the board of East-West Airlines as a consultant in January 1961.

He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in January 1979 and died in June the following year, aged seventy-seven.