Mr Stan Schaetzel FTSE, FIEAust, FRAeS had been a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society since 1972, a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering since 1977 and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia since 1986.

He was renowned in the Australian aeronautical industry for more than 50 years from when he arrived in Australia in 1950, serving with the Government Aircraft Factories in the 1960s and later becoming Chief Designer and then Technical Director of Hawker de Havilland.

Mr Schaetzel died peacefully in March in Sydney, aged 90.

He was born and spent his formative years in Poland, then, after completing one year of university studies in wartime France, he escaped in 1943 and joined the Polish Air Force in Britain.

He graduated from London University in engineering and then completed post-graduate studies in aeronautics at Imperial College. Before migrating to Australia in December, 1950 he worked for 16 months for the Bristol Aeroplane Company and was involved in the design of the Brabazon and the Britannia aircraft.

He joined the Government Aircraft Factories in Melbourne in January, 1951, where he worked initially on the Jindivik target drone project, then conducted the project design of Malkara guided missile and became its trials engineer. Malkara was one of the earliest anti-tank guided missiles, jointly developed by Australia and Britain.

In 1960 he was seconded for seven years to the Aeronautical Research Laboratories, where he headed the Missile Design Group on Ikara, the anti-submarine missile. He was one of the proposers and then the first Project Manager of Turana, developed from the Ikara, intended to provide a parachute-recoverable pilotless target for use in gunnery and missile defence training by the Royal Australian Navy.

Mr Schaetzel joined Hawker de Havilland (HDH) in Sydney as Chief Designer in 1970 and was appointed to the Board in 1971 as Technical Director, in charge of all research, engineering and quality activities. In 1972 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society in London.

He headed the HDH involvement in Interscan navigation systems and was active in the coastal and fisheries protection area, when HDH was producing high speed aluminium patrol boats in the 1970s.

In 1980 was appointed Director of the emerging Australian Aircraft Consortium and acted as its Interim Chief Executive for 18 months. In 1982 he became Chairman and Managing Director of the first Australian company devoted purely to space activities, Auspace. As a result of Stan’s early stewardship, Auspace went on to build and launch several space payloads over the ensuing years.

Stan served two terms on the Council of the Australian National University between 1985 and 1987.

Stan records over 200 publications including 10 books listed in the National Library (see http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-587799 ), including “Post-War Aeronautical Developments in Australia”, which was largely a record of what might have been possible and opportunities not realised. Stan was invited to deliver the Sir Charles Kingsford Smith Memorial Lecture to the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1986 and the theme was based on that particular book. On a similar theme, Stan wrote on “The death of an aircraft, the A10 debacle” (1989) and with new hope on “The space age and Australia” (1989), regrettably to no avail. Stan continued to be a passionate even if disenchanted advocate for Australian aerospace and space industry.

In 1984 he was the proposer and convenor of the First National Space Symposium in Sydney, subsequently being conducted annually for many years under the auspices of Engineers Australia and the National Committee on Space Engineering.

In 1986 he advocated for a satellite launch facility in Cape York gaining the support of then Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

He retired from HDH in 1989 and established his own consulting firm in 1990. In 2001 Stan was awarded the Centenary Medal for service to Australian society in defence science and technology.

Stan kept his mind very active, maintaining a fearsome capability as a chess player and writing opinion pieces until as recently as 2014 on matters as diverse as the role and ethics of using stem cells in medical science, global warming and political science. In keeping with his passion for furthering the frontiers of medical science he gifted his body to medical science. Stan lost everything in Poland but meticulously reconstructed his family history, established his home in Australia looked to the future and always learnt from, not dwelt on, the past.

Stan is survived by his wife Maud.