GATTY, HAROLD CHARLES (1903-1957), air navigator, naturalist, adventurer and
writer, was born on 5 January 1903 at Campbell Town, Tasmania, son of James Gatty,
schoolteacher, and his wife Lucy Fitzjohn, née Hall. With his three brothers and
two sisters, Harold attended the state primary school at Zeehan where his father
was headmaster. In 1916 with a bursary he attended St Virgil's College, Hobart,
and next year won a place as cadet-midshipman at the Royal Australian Naval
College, Jervis Bay, Federal Capital Territory. He withdrew from the college in
May 1920 to serve for three years as an apprenticed ship's officer with the
Patrick steamship company of Sydney.
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Australian Dictionary of Biography
Harold Charles Gatty devised the ground-speed and drift indicator which formed the basis of the automatic pilot now standard equipment on most aircraft. He flew around the world with Wiley Post in 1931 and founded Pacific Airways Ltd in Fiji in 1951.
Cadet-midshipman, Royal Australian Naval College, Jervis Bay 1918-20, apprenticed ship's officer, Patrick Steamship Company of Sydney 1920-23, various jobs 1923-27, chief mate, Goodwill 1927-28, opened laboratory repairing navigation instruments, including aircraft compasses, and making air-route maps for the Pioneer Instrument Co. in Los Angeles from 1928, navigator with Rocoe Turner in a record 19 hour non-stop flight from Los Angeles to New York 1929, accompanied Harold Bromley in an unsuccessful attempt on the first flight across the Pacific 1930, flew around the world with Wiley Post in 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes 1931, senior air navigation engineer, United States Army Air Corps 1931-34, Pan American World Airways 1935-42, director of air transport for the United States Army Air Corps in the South West Pacific 1942-43, polar navigation work with the United States Navy 1943-45, South Pacific regional manager, Pan American Airways1946-48, tuna fishing industry, South Sea Marine Products Ltd 1948-51, founded Fiji Airways Ltd 1951. Commemorated by a monument to his round the world flight, erected in Campbell Town 1961.
View the full record at
Encyclopedia of Australian Science
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