Robert Carpenter OAM

Over the next few years I was promoted to the level of Relieving Staff in country NSW. In 1966 Australia changed to decimal currency and I was part of the team that had to change all records during a 4 day bank shutdown; it is important to note that during that time we manually changed all the banking records of every customer by hand. There were no computers and few adding machines. The opening of the banks on Tuesday the 14th February 1966 was extremely busy and the pressure both from within the system and that generated by customers certainly took its toll. This led to my decision on the following Monday to leave the bank. Where to find a job that was challenging. I had since the age of 7 been interested in Model Aircraft and aviation, so I rang the defence department and asked if there were any positions available.

Following a series of assessments and medicals I finally joined the RAAF in January 1967 as an adult trainee. I was successful in the first few courses and ended up training as what was then a Radio Technical (Air). Little did I know that this would lead to a 25 year career. After training I was posted to RAAF base Amberley in Queensland and this led to a posting to 2 Sqn in Vietnam in 1970 where I worked on Canberra bombers. During this time in a war zone to while away the hours I managed to purchase and build the first of my many Radio Controlled aircraft. The interesting portion of this saga is that I could not fly the aircraft that I built and I taught myself to fly from a soccer field one street back from an active flight line in a war zone. Over the months many of the American servicemen called on me to assist in both their building and flying.

On return from Vietnam in 1971 I was posted back to Amberley where I worked on the F4 Phantom Bombers that Australia leased whilst waiting on delivery of our FIII aircraft. During this time I established the RAAF Amberley Model Aircraft Club which is still in existence today.

I was subsequently posted to the United States for training on the F111 aircraft and spent the next 4 years involved with maintaining these aircraft.

In 1976 after being promoted to Sergeant I was looking at being posted and took the opportunity to apply to become a Flight Engineer on the C130 Hercules aircraft. The Flight Engineer system had just been opened to applications from radio, Instruments and Electrical from the traditional Engines and Airframes. I was successful in becoming the first Radio Technician to become a Flight Engineer at 36Sqn. Over the years during training and practical experience I came to understand the benefits of teamwork and collaboration , key components of our STEM training today.

It is important to understand the role of the Flight Engineer and the way it has led to my involvement in Space and STEM with today’s students. The Flight Engineer during my day was part of the 5 or more person crew.

Many people look on defence as being associated with conflict, however a large proportion of the flying the C130 Hercules are involved in humanitarian support. I have personally been involved in medivac rescues, natural disaster support throughout the region.

I was fortunate to be involved in support of Antarctica where we landed the aircraft on the Ross sea ice shelf. The opportunity arose for an interesting situation where I was able to take a radio controlled aircraft with me and after refueling and reloading the C130, with approval from the Control Tower was the first person to fly a radio controlled aircraft in Antarctica, this was in 1981, well before the development of the drones that we have today.

Over the years I progressed through the various Flight Engineer roles especially in training and assessing and finally was promoted to Flight Engineer Leader, a position I held for 7 years. During this time I was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM). Of particular note was that during this time with expansion of the civil airlines both in Australia and overseas, many of our Pilots and Flight Engineers left to take advantage of this expansion. In my role of Flight Engineer Leader I normally had 20 Flight Engineers working under my control. With the civil expansion our numbers decreased to 7. We had to train our way out of this situation and at the same time we changed from the C130A, a 1958 aircraft to the new C-130H aircraft in 1978.

During the late 1980s I could see that the role of the Flight Engineer was going to be replaced with computers and having served for 20 years, I started to look at the future. I had lots of experience but no formal qualifications and how was this going to assist in my development and my family’s future. During 1989 I enrolled in my first tertiary course, a diploma in Adult education. This was followed in 1991 with a graduate diploma in Computer based education. I also started to look for a position outside the RAAF that could utilise my skills. In 1992 I was hired by the newly established Asia-Pacific Training and Simulation (APTS) organisation to be their Chief Engineer in Singapore. This role was a challenge as we were setting up a new facility, in a different country, and developing all the courses required. I moved my family to Singapore, continued my Graduate Diploma in Sydney, and became involved in all roles within the new company. In 1993 after completing the Graduate Diploma, I could see the need to expand my education and so commenced an International Master of Business Administration, this was completed in 1995.

Jackie has been involved in what is now called STEM training since 2006 when she was successful in obtaining a fully sponsored tour to Space Camp USA provided by Honeywell. It should be noted that Jackie was the only Australia teacher selected with a cohort of 268 teachers from around the world. This trip changed her world and from that time she has pursued bringing Space Camp to Australia. This led to her retirement from the NSW education department in 2014 and the subsequent formal establishment of One Giant Leap Australia in 2015. Due to the many years involved in this area and the many colleagues in the international environment that have assisted in the development of the educational programmes provided to the students from all areas of Australia, One Giant Leap Australia is now being looked on as a leader in this field.

One Giant Leap Australia represents Australia as the STEM consultant with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency where we work with 11 other countries to provide innovative space based STEM programs. This included placing Australian Golden Wattle seeds on the International Space Station for a period of 7 months. These seeds that have returned are being grown as a research project in over 300 schools and community organisations throughout Australia and with international programs in Japan, the UAE, and the United States.

This development of the STEM based education and my engineering and management expertise together with Jackie’s many years in education has led to the development of many innovative activities that are being complemented by educators, industry, parents and more importantly the students that they are aimed at.”