ANZAC Sky Bound

By Michael Flaherty

ANZAC day tomorrow will see what has become a local tradition at the Scone ANZAC Memorial Service of a flypast of four wartime aircraft headed by local man Ross Pay.

“We will have Peter Willard’s Bird Dog and his Tigermoth and I am going to have the Harvard and the Mustang,” Mr Pay said.

“I`ll be flying the Mustang, it’s an Australian built Mustang, they built 200 mustangs after the war and this one saw service with the Air Force in a training role but it was never used in anger.”

The tradition of the flyover of the aircraft was passed down from Ross Pay’s father Col Pay and Ross is carrying on his fathers legacy to the community, Col Pay obtained the Mustang during the 70’s from a farm shed.

“Dad first got it in about 1978 and refurbished it, it was up on a station up in Queensland near Jericho from a guy who bought it, put it in a shed and thought he was going to fly it but never got around to it, so dad and a couple of his engineers went up there over a 12 month period and got it good enough to ferry back to Scone and then spent another 12 months restoring it and has been flying out of Scone since about 1979,” Mr Pay said.

Next year may see some other planes grace our skies with a few projects in the pipeline at the Pay’s hanger which stir emotions and remembrance on ANZAC day.

“We have Tom Wilson’s Hurricane, if it’s still here next year it may well be in it, otherwise I’ll have my Kittyhawk going again and by then we may have one of these Spitfires going so who knows what could be flying.”

“It’s always good to remember those who gave up so much to make sure that we’re still here living free, every time you fly one of these things it’s in the back of your mind those young guys did back in the day,” Ross Pay said.

The Scone ANZAC Day marhc begins at 10:45am, with the flyover scheduled for 11am.

Ross Pay’s Mustang will fly over Scone on ANZAC day. Photograph supplied by Ross Pay.