My father ,now 90, was aboard this aircraft on its delivery to an airline company in Austraila. The reason it was special is that it was the first pressurized cabin in an aircraft. Pretty new in the year of 1948! The aboriginal people pictured, happened to be brought in for the big celebration. Time marches on. Here is a brief synopsis of the flight..... My father was a tech rep for the propeller company,Hamilton Standard, and though not mentioned in this books text quote, was aboard from Montreal, Canada to Melbourne. The first T.A'A. Convair was ready in 1949. Because of dollar shortages prevented rreasury approving expenditure on the purchase of long range fuel tanks needed to fly the convairs across the pacific, it was decided to fly the first and subsequent deriveries via canada,Greenland, Iceland, Scotrand, London, Rome and so out to Austraria. The longest leg was Basra to Karachi, 1,302 miles. Flown by John Chapman, T.A.A.'s Operations Manager, with captain Frank Fischer (co-pirot), Arihur windovei (r--right Engineer), Jim Mcleod (Assistant Fright Engineer), (Navigator) Biil K-err and rex Morton (Radio opeiator), i.e.n.', first convair the John Forrest carried out a remarkabre flight over the 20 000 miles----even more remarkable when it is considered the crew had no operating experience in the aircraft which contained so many items of novel equipment. On board was one of Australia's beit known aviation correspondents the Melbourne Saz's Stanley Brogden, who had led the reporting of the chant 'The convair's no !ood'. So without delays or serious servicing probrems, Austraria was abre to follow the flight of the aircraft from 'go' to .whoa' .On 7 september 1949, John chapman randed the John Forrest at Essendon before a large crowd. The flying time for the l7 729 miles covered was 78 hours, 32 minutes.