Introducing Myles Thompson, 100th Anniversary of the Royal Australian Air Force guest speaker.
Born on 15 June 1947, Myles attended school in Western Sydney at Liverpool Boys High. After completing school and a short stint in medicine at the University of New South Wales, Myles hitch-hiked around Eastern Australian, more specifically New South Wales and Victoria. Whilst in Ballarat Myles may have fabricated his age in order to get a job in the Crown Hotel.
It was upon his return to Sydney that Myles joined the Royal Australian Air Force on 26th January 1967 as an aircrew cadet. On 1st December 1967 having completed Air Defence training at 1CRU Raaf base, Myles was commissioned as an Air Defence Officer.
In his role as operational AirDef officer Myles was in charge of controlling a variety of fighter and bomber aircraft at 1 Control and Reporting Unit, 2 Control and Reporting Unit Darwin and 114 Mobile CRU at Amberley. Myles completed over 2000 live intercepts with 2FOCU Sabres, Mirage, F4E phantoms, F111, US Marine and NZ Skyhawks as well as Canberras, and even RAF Vulcan V bombers.
In 1975 Myles was transferred in to Operations category with 23 Squadron Amberley while completing a Law degree. During his time working as Operations Officer at Amberley Myles supported weekend operations, specifically F111 Ops.
Whilst serving Myles studied Law at the University of Queensland and in November 1979 was admitted as a solicitor. Myles then transferred to the Legal category and completed two years Permanent Air Force service in Canberra and then at Support Command in St Kilda Defence Centre Melbourne. Myles went on to complete a Masters degree in Law at Melbourne University in 2001 and graduated Master of Law in 2006 in International and Advanced Military Administrative and Disciplinary Law.
Myles spent six months at Defence Operational International Law, where he was appointed as Deputy Director of Operational and International Law for the Australian Defence Force along with a Navy Captain, and Army Lieutenant Colonel.
Myles later returned to Cairns 27 Squadron as an Operations Officer then back to legal where remained until retiring from the Royal Australian Air Force on 15 June 2013.
For his service Myles received the Reserve Force Decoration and retired with three bars. To this day he still practices law and “will do so until completely doddery!”.
