Gheringhap-raised fighter pilot Flight Lieutenant Andrew Bath flew over his old primary school in an F18 Super Hornet Monday morning, to the delight of schoolchildren.
“I want boys and girls from Bannockburn to look to the sky when we fly over and hopefully show them that growing up in a small rural town doesn’t stop you from having the best job in the world,” he said.
Flt Lt Bath attended Bannockburn Primary School between 1995 and 2001. He was born and raised in Geelong and his family still owns a farm in Gheringhap.
“My father took me to the second ever Avalon Airshow in 1995 when I was five years old,” he said.
“I saw and heard the fast jets for the first time and decided that was what I wanted to do when I was older.”
Flt Lt Andrew Bath graduated from Western Heights College in 2007.
“I joined the military at the end of Year 12, completed four years of an engineering degree at ADFA before commencing my pilot training,” he said.
“I qualified to fly the Super Hornet at the end of 2015 and was posted to 1SQN in Brisbane.”
It’s the second time flying over the school for Flt Lt Bath – in 2015 he flew a Hawk jet trainer across from Perth for the airshow.
But Monday was his first time flying over the school in an F18 as a fully-qualified fighter pilot.
Flt Lt Bath has flown Super Hornets alongside foreign military jets in Guam, dropped bombs on exercise out of Darwin, and flown at low level past the Gold Coast.
