Header Photo: BAS Pilot Bert Conchie (Photo: Rod Pashley)
A Very Private Person – Dave Rowley
I was as close to Flight Lieutenant Conchie as anybody could be. During five years of operating with BAS together, we shared close quarter contact, sharing accommodation on ferry flights, and the cockpit on many occasions. He knew my story from day one on our flight to Toronto in November 1969 for our Twin Otter conversion course at the DeHavilland factory at Downsview Toronto.
Bert gave nothing, and I found him difficult to talk to. I thought it might be the officer, noncom thing, but it turned out that he was a mechanic like me in the Air Force before acquiring a flying course. He must have put in a request, or been recommended by a superior officer.
Bert went on to fly Canberra bombers, an aircraft that I spent hours working on as a mechanic, and knew in and out, but it wasn’t until recently, that I found out that he flew them and V-Bombers!
After flying with Bert, and living in close quarters with him for five years, I can’t give any enlightenment of the bloke, other than to say that he was a quiet unassuming gentleman who put right the reputation of the “Gung Ho”, rank-obsessed Air Unit pilots that were his predecessors.
He had a distinguished RAF career and six years with BAS . He conned me out of doing another year. We agreed to leave BAS together, but he stayed on to break in Giles Kershaw, my successor, who I persuaded the BAS Interview board to select, for which I will always feel guilty about his demise.
Bert was an enigma. A remarkable FID. As we say he was a very – extremely! private person and never offered personal info that I recall but he was 100% reliable, truthful and never complained or raised his voice.
Dave Rowley – Pilot – BAS Air Unit – 1969-1973
Bert at the Bluff – George Kistruck
(Click or Pinch to Enlarge)
Master Chef at the Bluff 
Fueling Attendant
A close encounter with Flight Lieutenant Conchie – Drummy Small
The aircraft was VP-FAP and Bert did a field landing to off-load 10 days food for geophysics Sledge Alpha ((myself and Malc McArthur) on 8 Jan 1973. We were camped to the east of the Chapman Glacier between Chapman Hump and what is now called Goettel Escarpment but was Anaconda Wall in my day. (Why did they have to change all the bloody names???) As the Twotter was more or less empty and there was a 30 kt headwind Bert decided to test the short take-off capabilities of the Twin Otter while providing the local Fids with a welcome photo opportunity.
Instead of taxiing onto the skiway he started his take-off run from the campsite in the background and headed diagonally across the runway directly towards Malc and me. I have 4 shots in the sequence showing the Twotter getting progressively closer. I suspect Malc has the best shot which will be of me flat on my face as Bert and FAP headed over the top of me about 12 feet above the snow!
Drummy Small, GA – Stonington 1972 & 1973
Bert Conchie in Pictures – A True Fid – Rob Campbell-Lent
(Click or Pinch to Enlarge)
See ‘VHF Problems – Mendoza’ below 
Hanging in the Adelaide Bar (Bert left, Dave Rowley right) 
Transport Driver 
See ‘Washing and Polishing’ below 
Beaver wing tip tank refuelling, with Bert and Dick Scoffam pondering the wheels! 
After the Christmas Football Match, 1971 
Seal Feeding with the Fox-Trac 
Bert on Seal Feed!
Notes to Photo Gallery
VHF Problems – Mendoza
The photo was taken on 5 April 1970 in Mendoza, Argentina, before our flight next day to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The radio had failed on 4 April while we were flying from Punta Arenas to San Carlos de Bariloche, and Bert and I had no direct Air Traffic Control comms for the rest of that flight. Until the main VHF radio was fixed in Mendoza, we flew with me holding the portable VHF set (the grey box seen in the photo between Burt and the Beaver main wheel), with the antenna sticking out through the window. I think we managed somehow to relay messages to ATC via Dave Rowley flying the Twin Otter.
Washing and Polishing
This photo is of Bert washing and polishing the paintwork on the fuselage which was constantly affected by the hot and corrosive gasses from the engine exhaust. He has set up a bucket on top of a portable stove to melt enough snow and make some hot water to use with some strong soap for washing the paint. Also in the photo, leaning against the aircraft nose, are the two wooden boards Bert made for Dave Brown and I to use as ‘crawling boards’ when we had to get inside the tail fuselage and right down to the end above the tail-wheel to do the rivet repairs after the tail-ski damage.
Rob Campbell-Lent – AirMech, BAS Air Unit – 1971 and 1972
Ron Ward
Bert was a very – extremely! – private person and never offered personal info that I recall but he was 100% reliable, truthful and never complained or raised his voice.
He was awarded the AFC (Air Force Cross) for the med-evac he carried out in his last season**
Bert flew six seasons for BAS, starting in the 1969 season. However at Manaus on the way down South I had to kick him sharply in the shins. Having spent over an hour at customs getting the Twin ‘into’ Brazil he started to open up by telling the Brazilian Customs that we had another aircraft!!!! Fortunately they missed it when he asked what was that for? I said, 10hr flight and over an hour here, we’ve f##**ing knackered and had enough!!!
On top of it all we found out there was no AVTUR fuel as the boat had broken down on the Amazon some 500 miles short of the Manaus, all the good hotel space was taken up with commercial airline passengers stuck-over. To top it all a Missionary ‘just’ happened to be there again according to Jim, who helped us with the pigeon English/Spanish/church Latin talk with customs. He wanted Bert to fly up the Amazon and land on the river, “only 100 miles or so” to find out if another missionary was OK as he had not heard from him for a few weeks. He would not take ‘NO’ for an answer even though we had skis fitted, not b#*##y floats!!!!
Ron Ward, AirMech, BAS Air Unit – 1969
“PILOT HONOURED
Flight Lieutenant B. Conchie, who served with the British Antarctic Survey for six years, and recently returned to the Royal Air Force as an instructor, was awarded the Air Force Cross in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. Notable among his Antarctic exploits was a flight across the continent last season from
Adelaide Island to McMurdo Station. He flew by way of Siple and Byrd Stations on November 15, and returned on December 29 to Adelaide Island by way of the South Pole.
One of the two B.A.S. Twin Otter aircraft was used for the flight. It was used for support work in a United States-British glaciological project on the Ross Ice Shelf.”
Bert was awarded the Air Force Cross for this journey**
Contributed by Ron Ward, extracted from the New Zealand Antarctic Society Bulletin, Sept, 1975
** The Air Force Cross (AFC) is a military decoration awarded to personnel of the United Kingdom Armed Forces, and formerly also to officers of the other Commonwealth countries, for “an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying, though not in active operations against the enemy”.