Ellis Wackett Air Vice Marshal Ellis Charles Wackett , CB , CBE ( 13 April 1901 – 3 August 1984 ) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force ( RAAF ) . Its chief engineer from 1935 to 1959 , he served on the RAAF ' s controlling body , the Air Board , for a record 17 years , and has been credited with infusing operations with new standards of airworthiness . Commencing his service career as a Royal Australian Navy cadet during World War I , Wackett transferred to the Air Force in 1923 while on an engineering course in Britain . He qualified as a pilot before completing his studies and returning to Australia , where he inaugurated parachute instruction within the RAAF and made the country ' s first freefall descent from a military aircraft in 1926 . The following year , he led a three - month survey flight to Papua New Guinea . Wackett became the RAAF ' s senior engineer with his appointment as Director of Technical Services in 1935 . A wing commander at the outbreak of World War II , he rose to air commodore by 1942 and assumed the role of Air Member for Engineering and Maintenance . He established the Technical Branch as a separate department of the RAAF in 1948 , and was promoted to air vice marshal the same year . Wackett served as Air Member for Technical Services until leaving the military in 1959 , having been appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire and Companion of the Order of the Bath . From 1960 to 1968 , he was a member of the Australian National Airlines Commission , parent of Trans Australia Airlines . Generally known as " Wack " , or " EC " ( to distinguish him from his elder brother , aircraft designer Lawrence James Wackett or " LJ " ) , his prominent chin and nose also earned him the nickname " Punch " . He died in 1984 at the age of 83 . Early career . Born in Townsville , Queensland , Ellis Wackett entered the Royal Australian Naval College at Jervis Bay , New South Wales in 1914 , aged 13 . Graduating in 1918 , he served as a midshipman aboard the Royal Navy battleship HMS " Monarch " and battlecruiser HMS " Renown " , and later the RAN light cruiser HMAS " Brisbane " and battlecruiser HMAS " Australia " . He was commissioned a sub - lieutenant in January 1921 , and posted to England for study in July . Wackett was at the Royal Naval Engineering College , Keyham , when he applied to join the Royal Australian Air Force ( RAAF ) in 1922 . Accepted by the Air Force the following year , he finished at Keyham in August and trained as a pilot on Salisbury Plain . He then took a one - year post - graduate course in aeronautics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology , London , before returning to Australia to take up his service as a flying officer with the RAAF . Wackett ' s first role was to establish parachute instruction within the Air Force . His trip home from England had been postponed at the last minute to enable him to be trained ; he began instructing volunteers in 1926 at RAAF Station Richmond , New South Wales , and made Australia ' s first freefall descent from a military aircraft — an Airco DH . 9 — on 26 May . The Chief of the Air Staff , Group Captain Richard Williams , himself made a successful jump on 5 August , to set " a good example " prior to making the wearing of parachutes compulsory for all aircrew . On 21 August , Wackett piloted the DH . 9 from which Flying Officer Frederick Scherger made the first public display of parachuting in Australia , at Essendon , Victoria . By August 1927 , Wackett had been promoted flight lieutenant and given command of the Papuan Survey Flight formed at RAAF Station Laverton , Victoria . Consisting of two Supermarine Seagull III single - engined amphibious biplanes and six aircrew , the flight was to examine and photograph the Papuan and New Guinean coasts as far north as Aitape and , if possible , Bougainville . Stripped of all equipment considered non - essential — including radio sets — to increase range , the aircraft departed on 27 September and journeyed some , covering almost of country and taking 350 photos . Wackett ' s machine ( serial A9 - 5 ) returned to Melbourne on 26 December and the other ( A9 – 6 ) on 19 January 1928 . Inclement weather prevented the expedition from reaching Bougainville , and thick jungle cover limited the usefulness of its photographic record . Nevertheless , the Air Force learned valuable lessons concerning the Seagull ' s capabilities in a potential wartime role , as it was found to be unsuited to operations in the tropics . On 14 August 1928 , Wackett married Doreen Dove ; the couple would have two sons and a daughter . In 1933 , Wackett was posted to England to attend RAF Staff College , Andover . Returning to Australia , he was promoted squadron leader and became Director of Technical Services , an organisation within the RAAF ' s Supply Branch , in May 1935 ; the appointment made Wackett the Air Force ' s senior engineer . The same year , he took charge of the Resources Committee for Electrical Equipment , Scientific and Optical Instruments , one of a number of subcommittees on the federal government ' s Defence Resources Board set up to investigate and report on the readiness of Australian industry to provide munitions for defence in the event of international conflict . World War II . Ranked wing commander at the outbreak of World War II , Wackett immediately faced major supply challenges in his role as Director of Technical Services . Spare parts for the RAAF ' s mainly British - built equipment were now in short supply , a fact complicated by the infancy of the local aircraft industry and a US arms embargo . His directorate made whatever use it could of civilian repair facilities , setting up central recovery depots to salvage spares from damaged aircraft and other equipment . He also drew on the advice and support of his brother Lawrence , who had established the RAAF ' s technical services organisation in the 1920s and now , having retired from the Air Force , headed the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation ( CAC ) . By late 1940 , Wackett had been promoted temporary group captain , and joined the Flying Personnel Research Committee . Its members , drawn from the aviation , medical , scientific and technical disciplines , were to study and report upon such factors as aircrew safety , comfort , fatigue , survival , motion sickness , decompression and hypoxia . Wackett was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1941 New Year Honours . In June , he became the RAAF ' s representative on the federal Aircraft Advisory Committee , set up to assist the Director - General of Aircraft Production . As well as members from governmental and scientific bodies , the committee included delegates from aircraft manufacturers such as de Havilland Australia and CAC , with Lawrence Wackett acting as Chief Technical Advisor . Later that year , the two brothers joined various academics on the newly formed Australian Council for Aeronautics , established by Prime Minister John Curtin to advise government , educational and scientific organisations on technical developments in the aircraft industry . Raised to air commodore , Wackett was appointed Air Member for Engineering and Maintenance ( AME ) on 4 June 1942 . As AME , he sat on the Air Board , the RAAF ' s controlling body , which consisted of its most senior officers and was chaired by the Chief of the Air Staff . His new position had been created to replace that of the Director - General of Supply and Production , a civilian post . Wackett would serve on the Air Board for the next seventeen years , a record tenure for the RAAF , his experience and intellect making him , in the words of Air Force historian Alan Stephens , " singularly adept at bringing a committee around to his point of view " . During the war , the Air Board oversaw expansion from a complement in 1939 of 246 obsolescent machines such as CAC Wirraway s , Avro Anson s and Lockheed Hudson s , to a strength in 1945 of 5 , 620 sophisticated aircraft including Supermarine Spitfire s , P - 51 Mustang s , de Havilland Mosquito es and B - 24 Liberator s ; to support this force , the RAAF had provided all - through training for 18 , 000 technical staff , and further education for 35 , 000 more schooled initially outside the service . Post - war career . Following the end of the war , Wackett contributed to " Plan D " , the blueprint for restructuring the RAAF sponsored by the Chief of the Air Staff , Air Vice Marshal George Jones . A major facet of Plan D , adopted in June 1947 , was its encouragement of local industry to design and build military trainers and produce more sophisticated combat aircraft under licence from overseas manufacturers . This policy would eventually lead to the CAC Winjeel basic trainer and Australian co - partnership in production of the CAC Sabre jet fighter and GAF Canberra jet bomber . Wackett also supported Air Vice Marshal Joe Hewitt , the Air Member for Personnel , in fostering apprenticeships as part of the " education revolution " that took place in the RAAF during the late 1940s and early 1950s . The Apprentice Training Scheme , designed to raise the standard of technical roles in the Air Force , opened early in 1948 at the Ground Training School in RAAF Station Wagga , New South Wales to provide education and technical training for youths aged 15 to 17 . By 1952 , it had been renamed the RAAF School of Technical Training . Wackett played a key role in establishing technical services as a distinct department within the RAAF , rather than forming part of the Supply Branch as in previous years . Mindful of the increasing responsibility that was being placed on scientific and technical resources in the modern Air Force , he had raised the question of a specialist engineering branch immediately after the war , and in March 1946 gained broad approval for its establishment . After eighteen months of work defining its scope and responsibilities , the Technical Branch was formed under Wackett ' s leadership on 23 September 1948 , his goals being to " to support the operational power of the RAAF by providing the most efficient technical organisation possible " and " to increase the effectiveness of air power through technical development " . This in turn led to a separate " list " of engineering personnel , as opposed to the earlier Technical List subgroup under the General Duties Branch . For flexibility , and to ensure that the flying and engineering branches had a better appreciation of their respective operations , Wackett supported the practice of some general duties officers continuing to perform engineering work , and as many technical officers as possible receiving secondary training as aircrew . He was disappointed , however , by the limits imposed by the Air Board on career advancement for his personnel . While the General Duties Branch in the late 1940s was permitted to maintain thirty - seven officer positions of group captain and above , the Technical Branch was only allowed fourteen such slots , though both departments had an almost identical overall strength of just under 400 staff . This anomaly led Wackett to submit a dissenting report on the subject to the Air Board , one of the few occasions a board member exercised his right to such a protest . His new organisation caused some other tensions in the RAAF : new airworthiness considerations frustrated pilots who found their flying time restricted by the introduction of more rigorous maintenance procedures ; supply officers feared being " outshone " by the new status accorded to engineers ; and so - called " black handers " — old - school technical officers who had risen through the ranks — regarded with disdain the prospect of an influx of " silly young blokes with degrees " . Wackett had been promoted temporary air vice marshal on 1 January 1947 ; this rank was made substantive following the formation of the Technical Branch . On 31 October 1949 , his title was changed from Air Member for Equipment and Maintenance to Air Member for Technical Services ( AMTS ) , in which capacity he would serve until his retirement from the RAAF in 1959 . Appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1951 King ' s Birthday Honours , Wackett again worked closely with Air Vice Marshal Hewitt , now the Air Member for Supply and Equipment , to introduce the concept of acquiring spare parts based on " life - of - type " , whereby the forecast number and type of spares necessary for an aircraft ' s projected service life would be ordered when it was first deployed , to reduce costs and delivery time . In 1953 , Wackett established advanced diploma training for twenty - five airmen annually at Melbourne Technical College , the graduates receiving commissions as pilot officer s . He also began recruiting university - qualified engineers to the Technical Branch , and put in place formal relationships with such bodies as CSIRO , the Council of Aeronautics ( of which he was a member ) , Aeronautical Research Laboratories , and local aircraft manufacturers de Havilland Australia , Government Aircraft Factories , and CAC . He further initiated RAAF sponsorship of a chair of aeronautics at the University of Sydney . Wackett was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1957 New Years Honours . Two years later , his wife Doreen was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her service as Vice President and , from 1948 , President of the RAAF Women ' s Association . Later life and legacy . When Wackett left the Air Force on 31 December 1959 , he was its longest - serving officer . The next year he joined the Australian National Airlines Commission ( ANAC ) , the controlling body of the federal government ' s domestic carrier , Trans Australia Airlines ( TAA ) . He rose to the Vice Chairmanship of ANAC before retiring in 1968 . During his term on the commission , Wackett witnessed the arrival of the Jet Age to domestic air routes , with TAA taking delivery of its first Boeing 727 in 1964 , and its first Douglas DC - 9 in 1967 . He was also elected a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society . Like his brother Lawrence , who wrote two books on the subject , Ellis Wackett ' s chief hobby was angling . He died in Warracknabeal , Victoria , on 3 August 1984 ; his wife predeceased him in 1975 . For his commitment to the concept of airworthiness , as an attitude to quality and professionalism that went beyond simply whether aircraft were fit to fly or not , Wackett has been described as one of the " outstanding officers of the post - war era " . The establishment of a dedicated Technical Branch , which he founded in 1948 , was a key factor in the Air Force developing the ability to successfully manage the maintenance and upgrade of such highly sophisticated aircraft as the General Dynamics F - 111 . Wackett ' s 17 - year tenure on the Air Board , which was dissolved in 1976 , remained the longest of any officer in the RAAF . He was followed by a series of leaders of the Technical Branch ( renamed Engineering Branch in 1966 ) who shared his vision , including Air Vice Marshals Ernie Hey ( 1960 – 1972 ) and James Rowland ( 1972 – 75 ) . Wackett was among those considered as possible successors to Air Marshal George Jones as Chief of the Air Staff ( CAS ) when the latter was retired in 1952 , however Prime Minister Robert Menzies ' federal government chose an RAF officer for the role , Air Marshal Sir Donald Hardman . In any case , Air Force regulations at that time stipulated that appointees had to belong to the RAAF ' s General Duties ( Aircrew ) Branch . In 1975 , Air Marshal Rowland was appointed as CAS , though he had to transfer from Engineering to General Duties before this could be formalised . The following year , the requirement for CAS to be a member of the General Duties Branch was removed .