Peter Langhorne

Peter was the senior surveyor in charge of the Airborne Horizontal Control Section from April 1972 until after the end of Aerodist measuring operations in November 1974.  During this period, Peter was the Aerodist field party leader for extended periods of field duty in Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.  With relief party leader Frank Johnston, Peter ran the successful 1972 field season when some 517 Aerodist lines were measured.  Peter measured the last Aerodist line from Derby on 2 November 1974.  In September 1973, Peter measured Nat Map’s only successful Aerodist photo trilaterations that fixed the positions of eight offshore features on the north-west coast of Western Australia.

Peter Handley Langhorne was born in Victoria in 1944.  After attending secondary school in Geelong, he successfully completed tertiary studies in surveying at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.  Peter was registered as a licensed surveyor by the then Surveyors Board of Victoria in December 1965.  He joined Nat Map’s then Melbourne-based Geodetic Survey Branch in 1966 and spent three field seasons on second order traversing in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia as well as undertaking some Aerodist ground marking in the Northern Territory.  Peter transferred to Nat Map’s Canberra office after the end of the 1968 field season but returned to the Geodetic Branch in 1969 to work on the high precision traverse from Thursday Island to Cairns and then on to Townville.  After the 1969 field season Peter left Nat Map to further his surveying experience and spent some time in Papua New Guinea before returning to Nat Map in 1972.  After Aerodist operations were complete Peter worked on developing a high altitude aerial photography program using a Gates Learjet platform.

Around 1977 he took up an executive surveyor position in Nat Map’s Canberra office.  Peter left Nat Map in 1979 to take up an executive position in the central office of the Department of Natural Resources.  Peter went on to complete post graduate studies in administration and to hold a number of senior executive positions in the Commonwealth public service where he dealt with several critical issues including management reviews of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service as well as being involved in resolving an export meat substitution issue.  In 1992 Peter joined the Australian Trade Commission as an Executive General Manager and was appointed as Deputy Managing Director in 1996.

Afterwards, Peter joined the office of Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson as Chief of Staff.  When John Anderson retired in July 2005, Peter became Senior Advisor to the Senate Leader and he then replaced Tony Nutt as Principal Private Secretary to Prime Minister John Howard and held that position until John Howard left office in December 2007.  Peter continues to live in the national capital where he is a member of the boards of John McEwen House Pty Ltd and the Page Research Centre.

Source : McLean, Lawrence William (2018), The Aerodist Years : Recollections of the Division of National Mapping’s Airborne Distance Measuring Program, 1963-1974.