Billy Stutt and the Richmond Flyboys, written by the late Neville F Hayes, almost didn’t make it to print – thwarted by the author’s death in 2005.

The retired train driver was a keen aero modeller and was passionate about Australia’s aviation history, and the role of the Richmond air base and flying school.

After his death, it fell to his brother Barry to step into the breach and sort through Neville’s research notes.

“ Initially, it was a minefield,” Barry said. “Many times I picked up the phone before remembering he wasn’t there any more to ask. As an author of fiction it was difficult for me to shift genre and realise when the plot thickened, I could not change the plot to get out of a bind.

“One major problem was that he had his own shorthand hieroglyphics and had reams of notes that were all in chronological order. It took me a couple of months to figure out that chronological material over a 10-year historical period would bore readers to tears and confuse them, including me.”

The wait, however, will be worth it for aviation buffs who hunger for information on famous aviator Billy Stutt, who was chief instructor at the NSW State Aviation School (NSW SAS) at Richmond.

Stutt left in 1919 and transferred to Point Cook in Victoria, and later mysteriously disappeared while flying over Bass Strait.

“I do know Neville’s original focus (for the book) was on the Curtiss aircraft used for training on Ham Common,” Barry said.

“I believe his intended magnum opus (his term) was originally aimed at that aircraft, about which little knowledge survived... Neville found it difficult to gain knowledge of the Curtiss aircraft from other historians, even those who were experts in Australian Flying Corps history.

“He then started to contact the pilots’ families for information, and Billy Stutt’s son, Jack. That led him to the certainty that this was a history that had never been written.

“The Official History of Australia in the War by Frederic Cutlack only mentioned the NSW pilots who went from Richmond to Point Cook before departing for the UK. The history ignored the Richmond pilots who went direct to the UK to join the RFC, which they did because Point Cook gave its own men priority for promotion.

“The National Archives and Australian War Memorial also have little information on the Richmond-UK men. Knowing Neville, that got his dander up, and he set about filling in the blanks.”

The allure of Australia’s fledgling aviation program is easy to pinpoint, according to Barry.

“I feel that as a society, we still have a sense of wonderment about aircrafts and the men who fly them – even moreso those who were first to fly,” Barry said.

“The NSW SAS began in 1916. This was just 10 years after the Wright Brothers flew their contraption at Kitty Hawk. And the fact, in this case, that some of the children of those Richmond flyers are still alive today. Brian Edwards of Uralla is one – then the Love brothers, and Jack Stutt.”

Visit Barry hayes’ website for more details – http://users.nex.net.au/~pacdown/