It is with great sadness that we advise of the passing of Keith Raymond Meggs OAM, DFM, AAM(US), former AHSA President and Patron, on Sunday, 13 March. He was aged 94. He had been in a retirement home for some time.
Keith entered the Australian aviation industry in 1943, commencing with Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation as a teenager while the company was producing Boomerangs and Wirraways. He commenced his flying, in gliders, at the end of 1945. In August 1948 he joined the RAAF for flying training and subsequently flew Mustangs and Meteors in the Korean war, earning a DFM and AAM (US). Later he flew Vampires in Australia and Malta. He re-joined CAC in 1957 working for several years on Sabre fighters and the Ceres agricultural aircraft. He then worked at the Department of Civil Aviation as an Air Traffic Controller before taking up freelance charter flying. His log books have a total of some 19,500 hours on 109 types of aircraft.
Keith was a foundation member of the AHSA in 1959, served as AHSA President from 1988 to 2013, and was later a Patron of the Society. Over the past 50 years Keith compiled, in four volumes, a comprehensive history of 100 years of Australian aircraft building activity, published as Australian-Built Aircraft and the Industry. Keith has left an indelible mark on Australian aviation history since it is no longer possible to gather the amount of detailed information that he compiled over such a long time.
He leaves behind a daughter and three sons.