VALE - Barry Hughes

Head in the clouds · December 22, 2013

Barry Frank Hughes, 26th September 1936 - 22nd December 2013

It is with a very heavy heart that I must advise of the passing of my best man, best 'mate' and long-time flying buddy Barry Hughes.

Baz was a remarkable man of many achievements. Born in 1936 and the son of a RAAF officer he was raised in Adelaide in South Australia. After the war Barry's father bought the remote Birdsville pub and Baz had the enviable adventures of travelling the infamous Birdsville Track on the early mail and cargo service driven by Tom Kruse. He even travelled part of the 'Track' with the Afghan camel train on one occasion.

Baz then joined the RAAF as an apprentice toolmaker as soon as he was able and quickly became the base larrikin, a condition he retained for the rest of his life. Although he was in the RAAF to further his interest in Engineering it was during those years that he got his first taste of what became a lifelong passion with flying. The base had the usual modellers' club and Baz won many a prize for his fine scale flyers. As a result of his very evident craftsmanship he was coerced into the arduous task of fabricating the fiddly wing ribs when the base commander decided that they would build a primary glider for recreation. No sooner was the glider completed than the commander crashed it on the first flight so Baz built the ribs again. It was an early example of Baz's capability to demonstrate immense patience, persistence and determination where others might not have found sufficient resolve.

Baz's good nature paid off shortly after and one of his proudest moments came about when he was selected for the Guard of Honour for Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip on their tour of Australia in 1952. The astute will observe that Baz was only sixteen at the time, having exaggerated his age to enter the RAAF. After weeks of practice square bashing and brass polishing Baz's honoured Guard duty didn't eventuate as the unexpected and sudden death of King George VI forced the young Princess to return to London for her accession to the throne. By the time of her return in 1954 Baz had moved on and entered into a line of increasingly impressive employed positions.

By then he was a highly accomplished and well trained toolmaker but Baz sought to further his abilities in more diverse branches of engineering. Rapidly absorbing knowledge from reading and observation, Baz was the archetypal autodidact. He became a self-taught Master in multiple disciplines, any one of which would cost most of us long years in a University, and his acquired knowledge eventually saw him reach the lofty position of Chief Design Engineer for GEC, the General Electric Company.

While at GEC Baz designed and constructed what was at the time the largest single shot injection moulding die ever made. It was proudly touted by them as an example of Australia's abilities in high technology engineering and Baz was pleased but unsurprised when it operated faultlessly from the first test shot. That's quite an achievement considering that the simplest new dies usually require significant development to make them run properly and reliably. The die was for the iconic and much admired grille of the 1972 Holden LJ Torana. If my information is correct there wasn't a larger single shot injection moulding die produced until the advent of the 240 litre wheelie bin.

Baz's LJ Torana grille - the biggest die of it's time

Baz left GEC to enter his own business in Adelaide and manufactured a large variety of engineered items and particularly excelled in production machining, making dies for complex gravity die-cast items and producing press-tools before moving to Sydney, building a new business and raising a family there.

During his time in Sydney Baz typically continued with the unusual, not content with his kids just having a toy train set he built them a full ride-on track and carriages around the garden. After entering the regulation engineer's competition to build a reliable bread buttering machine - and covering the factory roof with butter sprayed from whirling knives - Baz started to receive requests from people far and wide to develop their new inventions. He was then invited to be a panelist on the first 'Inventors' TV program in the mid 1970s and from that another of Baz's personae was born - The Inventor's Friend.

Next Baz discovered autogyros, learning to fly one of the early Benson car-towed gyro-gliders by trial and plenty of error.

In the late 1970s Baz moved again, this time to the Gold Coast of Queensland and there established Hughes Engineering and Hughes Hydraulics for by this time Baz had became a highly regarded consultant in hydraulic power transmission and he concentrated on improvements to earth-moving equipment. Baz observed the trend toward smaller and more agile machinery, in particular the emergence of the skid-steer loaders pioneered by Clark with the Bobcat. Baz designed the Hughes 4-in-1 bucket as a retrofit answer to most of the needs of a small loader and very soon he had a red-hot item needing to be manufactured in quantity. He brought his young and brilliant son Tony into the business to conduct the marketing and negotiations and in a short while the manufacturing was being conducted by Miller Bros in Victoria for the Australian market and in the USA for the market over there.

There followed a time of relative financial ease during which Baz was able to concentrate on more of his own designs including his own version of the skid-steer loader and various very clever attachments for loaders, diggers and excavating machines. The Inventor's Friend also flourished with such diverse items as machines to make 'hand-made' ravioli - requiring that the mechanical control mechanism be capable of sensing the tensile strength of the pastry being employed in each batch ...

And at last Baz had time to indulge his love for flying again. On one of the trips to the USA Baz came across the Rotec series of ultralights and he established the Australian distributorship. Having taught himself to fly them and becoming one of the founder members of the AUF Baz then went on to teach many others to fly safely, all conducted with single seat aircraft by running up and down the strip and discussions in between because there weren't two seat ultralight aircraft available yet.

By the mid 1980s Baz had been appointed as the first (IIRC) Qld ultralight CFI and helped many of the early flying schools to get established and develop their training standards. It was during this time that Baz and I got to know each other so well and instantly became firm friends. He also took on the unenviable task of producing the AUF magazine for two years and followed that with a number of years as AUF Technical Manager.

Also in the mid 1980s Baz and Tony designed and built a gorgeous Rotax 503 powered single seat biplane and Tony learned to fly it with Baz's coaching.

The late 1980s and 1990s saw Baz flying untold happy hours in the Rotec Rally, Drifters, his Osprey seaplane and Tony's biplane, as well as Baz helping dozens of people by fearlessly test-flying their new planes. One such test-flight resulted in disaster and nearly cost Baz his life. He was testing a newly re-rigged Wheeler Skycraft Scout near Cairns. The wing-warping cables were adjusted unevenly and it wanted to roll one way all the time, when the engine power was reduced for landing it became much worse and threatened to invert so at the last moment Baz desperately hauled on the slack cable - but he should have pulled the tight one. He ended up with broken legs, arm, wrist and ribs but he said he wasn't too upset about that but didn't like drowning in the cane-field irrigation ditch in which he ended up. Typically Baz didn't want to put up with all the fuss they made in the Cairns Base Hospital so once he had a dozen plates and screws to hold him together he arranged a daring escape and drove most of the 2000km back to the Gold Coast using crutches on the brake and throttle - good job it was an auto transmission.

From 2003 to 2009 Baz and I established a workshop together to develop some recently invented products and I have been extremely privileged to have learned a small amount of the vast store of knowledge that Baz possessed. It was often said by those who knew him that he was the most learned person they had ever come across and his clever humour and kind nature was the stuff of legend.

Baz leaves a fabulous legacy in the form of his exceptionally high achieving children and grandchildren. His children, Tony and Tracy, have lovely partners and have excelled in their professions, and Baz's grandchildren top their school in their academic as well as their sporting prowess.

Extremely generous in all things and no matter how busy he was, Baz always had time to help anyone who asked.

Much loved by all who knew him, Baz will be sorely missed.

Baz and his Osprey 2 at Watts Bridge

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Baz's cremation will take place in Nerang, SE Qld at a time yet to be confirmed but the family are presently considering it for approximately 10 days time. Friends wishing to pay their respects are invited to attend. I will post more information here as it comes to hand. A pictorial memorial is also being planned so any scans of photos would be appreciated, please PM me if you have any, thanks.

Bandit12 · December 22, 2013

It's not often that you get to have such an insight into the fullness of another's life. Thanks for sharing HITC, and condolences to Barry's family and friends.

Head in the clouds · December 26, 2013

Hi to friends of Barry,

Here are the details for the funeral for Barry Hughes.

The family are organising this to be a happy event to Celebrate the Remarkable Life of this outstanding man so please do keep the date free if at all possible and join us all for the cremation ceremony followed by reminiscing the good old days during a wake at the Hinterland Hotel.

Following is a message from the family - Tony and Tracy - Baz's wonderful children.

Also - although we're still working on it, we've not been able to find contact details for quite all of Baz's friends so please mention and/or forward this to anyone you think of who knew him.

And - there will be a projected pictorial tribute featuring some of Baz's many Engineering projects and his life in aviation. It will be great to also see the pictures of his many friends (you) and their planes. If anyone has pictures they'd like to have included in the slideshow please forward them to me asap, thanks.

Kind regards,

Alan Clarke

Mob 0459 199 166

Email [email protected]

Hi,

My Dad, Barry, passed away on Sunday the 22nd of December at Ashmore Retreat Nursing Home. On behalf of my sister Tracy, we are writing to provide you with details for Dad's funeral and wake. Please join us to celebrate Dad's incredible life with friends and family at 10:00am Thursday January 2nd at Allambe Memorial Park and Crematorium, Nerang-Broadbeach Road, Nerang (http://www.allambe.com.au/driver.asp) followed by a wake at the Hinterland Hotel (http://www.hinterlandhotel.com.au/).

If you're thinking of sending flowers, please instead make a donation to Alzheimer’s Australia: https://www.fightdementia.org.au/get-involved/one-off-donations.aspx?state=

Here is a website that provides a tribute to Dad and please forward this e-mail to anyone who knew Dad: http://tonyhughes.com.au/BarryHughes

We hope you can join us in remembering Barry Hughes; a man who lived an amazing life.

Tony Hughes

Phone: 0418-360-510

e-mail: [email protected]

Head in the clouds · January 4, 2014

The Celebration of the Remarkable Life of Barry Hughes was a most fitting occasion.

There was a large attendance at the Ceremony which featured an audio-visual presentation with slides depicting the varied and astounding achievements of this clever man, and Tony his son, Tracy his daughter and I gave personal presentations describing him and the fullness of his life in a light-hearted manner that reflected the way he approached life himself.

We met again afterwards at the Hinterland Hotel where friends, some of whom hadn't met for many years, were able to renew their friendships and share their personal stories while reminiscing about the former times we all enjoyed together.

Below are a few of the photos taken on the day and here is a link to the Tribute Site for Barry Hughes. At the bottom of the page is an embedded video recording of the ceremony which will be of interest to those who weren't able to attend.