Airservices celebrates Australia’s civil aviation heritage

Airservices has today launched a portal to help tell the story behind Australia’s rich aviation heritage and to make widely-dispersed heritage collections accessible to the public for the first time in a digital format.

The Connecting the Nation heritage portal, launched today at Airservices industry conference, Waypoint, was developed in collaboration with the University of Canberra to celebrate and promote Australia’s civil aviation heritage as the industry approaches its centenary.

Our aviation heritage has helped ensure Australia has one of the safest aviation safety records in the world and that the services provided are appropriate to current and forecast air traffic volumes.

Airservices Executive General Manager Safety, Environment and Assurance, Dr Rob Weaver, said that Airservices was committed to preserving and promoting aviation heritage for the benefit of all Australians.

“Aviation is an integral part of Australia’s national story and has both shaped and reflected our national character, and the cultural and technological history of the 20th century,” said Dr Weaver.

“This has included significant innovations in technology which have helped to ensure that whenever you step on a plane arriving or departing from Australia, you know you’re in safe hands.”

The portal provides a wealth of research into the sources of aviation heritage and links outwards to the important collections of our major museums, surviving aviation infrastructure, aircraft and technical equipment, as well as to the vast amounts of archival and pictorial material that is often cared for by volunteers or individuals.

“This has led to the development of a vibrant new approach to aviation heritage and to the development of an exciting new online digital repository that will continue to grow as community members contribute and interact with it,” Dr Weaver said.

The portal is the result of research by the University of Canberra into the nature and range of collections, archives, places and stories that make up Australia’s aviation heritage.

“We wanted to bring these unique, but dispersed and hard to find collections together and help people to share their stories, including the more than 150 oral histories that are now available through the portal for the first time,” said Dr Weaver.

The Connecting the Nation heritage portal is available at http://connectingthenation.net.au/