Birdies

The Australian Fleet Air Arm

Sharron Spargo

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English

01 September 2025

History

Summary
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Quiet achievers in the most dangerous workplace in the world... They are the 'Birdies' – the proud members of a unique fighting force un-known to the majority of Australians whose land and lives they have long protected. This fascinating book places these quiet achievers, the Birdies, in their rightful place in Australia's naval and aviation history.

Officially known as the Australian Fleet Air Arm, they have operated as an aviation component of the Royal Australian Navy since 1947; quiet achievers in what is considered the most dangerous workplace in the world.

Their "airfields" are the decks of purpose built aircraft carriers, landing strips pitch- ing and rolling in deep blue water, far from land. Launching and landing their fixed wing aircraft in often atrocious weather and with no margin for error.

These daring naval aviators were forever flying in the face of continually changing and challenging conditions. A unique form of aviation that has been variously described as like having an orgasm and a bowel evacuation simultaneously, or as the greatest ride of your life!

From the early years of mostly seaborne activity the Birdies have evolved through search and rescue, anti-submarine warfare, and peacekeeping and humanitarian missions to global policing, anti-terrorism and anti-piracy.

Today's Birdies, as intrepid as ever, now operate squadrons of the most sophisticated helicopters in the world, often within multinational forces.

Researcher and author Sharron Spargo has close ties both to the veterans from those formative years and to those who are serving today. She has gathered their intensely personal accounts of front line action in the Korean and Vietnam wars, the Indonesian confrontation, the Cold War and the Gulf War; stories of a unique service that for too long has gone unheard and unacknowledged.

Praise:

"Sharron's writing has given the Fleet Air Arm a re-birth. Her writing brings to the surface the skills of so many men and women who served in the Fleet Air Arm over so many years. The "Birdie" branch lives on with the placement of the Helicopters in RAN ships with the same top standards still in place. It has been a privilege to have served in the Fleet Air Arm and to read that it is still functioning as great as ever. – Tas Browning, author of Where Life Falls

"Birdies Australia's Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is a revealing work on the Royal Australian Navy's FAA. Sharron Spargo uses oral and factual history to create an accurate and entertaining account of Australia's FAA. A book all Australians should be proud to read." – Ken Price, author of Kokoda Mist

By: Sharron Spargo
ISBN: 9781922958471
ISBN 10: 1922958476
Publication Date: 01 September 2025
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active