Eric Harrison (RAAF Officer)
Eric Harrison (10 August 1886 – 5 September 1945) was an Australian aviator who made the country's first military flight, and helped lay the foundations of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Born in Victoria, Harrison was a flying instructor in Britain when, in 1912, he answered the Australian Defence Department's call for pilots to form an aviation school. Along with Henry Petre, he established Australia's first air base at Point Cook, Victoria, and its inaugural training unit, the Central Flying School (CFS), before making his historic flight in March 1914. Following the outbreak of World War I, when Petre went on active service with the Mesopotamian Half Flight, Harrison took charge of instructing student pilots of the Australian Flying Corps at CFS, and maintaining its fleet of obsolescent aircraft. Harrison transferred to the RAAF as one of its founding members in 1921, and spent much of the inter-war period in technical services and air accident in ...
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Castlemaine, Victoria
Castlemaine ( , Variation in Australian English, non-locally also ) is a small city in Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, in the Goldfields region of Victoria, Goldfields region about 120 kilometres (75 miles) northwest by road from Melbourne and about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the major provincial centre of Bendigo, Victoria, Bendigo. It is the administrative and economic centre of the Shire of Mount Alexander. The population at the 2021 Census was 7,506. Castlemaine was named by the chief goldfield commissioner, Captain W. Wright, in honour of his Irish people, Irish uncle, William Handcock, 1st Viscount Castlemaine, Viscount Castlemaine. Castlemaine began as a Victorian gold rush, gold rush boomtown in 1851 and developed into a major regional centre, being officially City of Castlemaine, proclaimed a City on 4 December 1965, although since declining in population. It is home to many cultural institutions including the Theatre Royal, the oldest continuously ope ...
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