Early Life
Keith Virtue was born in Lismore, New South Wales, the son of an Irish-born dairyfarmer. He was the youngest of 13 children of Robert and Jane Virtue (née Noble).
His obsession with flying started as a boy of 11 in 1920 when Edgar Percival landed his Avro 504 K biplane on a paddock on the edge of Lismore and he watched his parents embark on a joyflight. At 15, he started a course through the International Correspondence School on motor car engineering, then switched to aircraft engineering. When he was 18, he was talking of trying to build his own plane with a four-cylinder Henderson Motorcycle engine, when his father announced "Get up to Brisbane. Learn to Fly. And I'll buy you a plane". The next week he was taking lessons in a Cirrus Moth under the instruction of Captain Lester Brain at the Qantas Flying School at Eagle Farm.
At 19 he had his licence – signed in Melbourne by Coleman, the Secretary for Air, in November 1928. Soon he had his "A" licence and the Gipsy Moth promised by his father was ready and waiting.
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