A Trip To Museums And Aerodromes With Surprises Galore.

[sixtiesrelic]

I'm drowsily awakening on day ten and pull the sleeping bag and doona right up over my head and just have my nose out. I hate the cold.

 

I've been cold for a week now. Feet warming at around three in the afternoon … I remember why I swore, back in the sixties, that I'd never live south of Brisbane again, after five years of boarding school in the mountains of Victoria.

 

I've driven as far south as Melbourne and am half of the way back home.

 

The thread is titled, 'Trip Reports'! Ok, I've not bought a ticket for a flight somewhere, BUT this is a fortnight's trip to air museums and aerodromes to see and talk to interesting people and moan in ecstasy at marvellous historic aeroplanes.

 

I'm by myself... no wife to stand patiently waiting, so I get to feel the guilts and reckon I better head off, even though I could stay hours more.

 

I'll get up soon, because there is more adventure afoot today. I'm in the aerodrome bunk house.

 

This is as close to heaven as I'm going to get for quite a while yet. I have the bunkhouse to myself.

 

No fibro shack this... this is a well finished building with fancy plasterwork on the ceiling! There are three large bedrooms with double bunks. Beds and dining room for a dozen. The main hall has a kitchen with more gadgets than any of our homes. There's a bar, a piano, a billiard table, a large lounge area down the other end with a beaut big fireplace with a TV beside it. The Video/ DVD recorder sits ready to play the hundreds of tapes and disks on aeroplanes and aviation.

 

I could stay a fortnight and not watch them all even at twenty four hours a day.

 

The ten foot high by eight foot wide solid timber book case (I checked a chip in it... no chipboard here... she's old and solid wood) is full of books and magazines on flying. A couple of months reading there. There's Australian Aviation from the nineties, FlyPast from the eighties Rag and Tube from the seventies to Aeroplane from the forties.

 

 

The walls... they're loaded with large photos of aeroplanes and characters who flew 'em and made an impact on us lesser mortals.

 

There's a five foot by three foot frame with the maps photos and extracts from the ERSA the blokes used on a Tiger Moth trip from Luskintyre to Launceston and back in VH-AQJ, which was Launie Areo Club's first trainer, for the club's jubilee celebrations.

 

Out the windows are hangars, gable markers, painted white tyres, lots of mown grass fields and at eight AM fog down in the hollows.

 

This is Luskintyre; the home of the Tiger Moth and I'm going to stay a couple of days to soak in the ambiance. Those who love aeroplanes and hangars and the people who hang around them know what I'm feeling.

 

 

Rugged up writing stories before the fire was lit

 

To be continued...

 

 

[Guest David C]

What a great tempter to what is to come ... I wait in anticipation ..Thanks ..

 

Dave C

 

 

[Guest aviatrix27]

must be cold,you didn't rug up quite that much at my place!

 

 

[Alan Spears]

WOW,Sixties. You are living my dream. When I do finally retire,I have an idea to get campervan and tour this wide,brown,mysterious land calling in at every aerodrome,airshow,air museum. Having traversed the country in aeroplanes,I think it would be great to see it slowly,up close from the ground. Keep us updated. You are fuelling my dream.

 

 

[red750]

That photo, with the smile and the positioning of the glasses, reminds me of Benny Hill, lol.

 

.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

Your house was so cozy Kay.

 

Know what you mean Al. I flew over many interesting places in Indonesia and a few years ago when I'd made dozens of friends from Indonesia at work, they said, "Come up and we'll show you around.

 

I went and satisfied my craving for adventure and knowing what it was I'd seen and wondered about.

 

Climbed inside two bubbling, sulphur belching volcanoes, went out to an island that is all houses... the biggest slab of houseless land was the small school sports field.

 

I have one thing to say to the dreamers... DO IT, there'll be many surprises.

 

As I said at the beginning thhis is a trip report. We tend to think aeroplane trip, but as Aye said it's the dream we all have to go off and see the things we read about for ourselves.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

I intended to visit Luskintyre on a Saturday 'when there's plenty of activity' and continue north into the twenty somethings latitude where the weather is warmer.

 

There is plenty to see here and a formation of Tiger Moths is planned to fly over the funeral service of an old instructor on Tuesday. That is quite a filming opportunity not to be missed so I 'll stay a few days.

 

I'd stayed a couple of days at Aviatrix and her husband's place in the Victorian Alps, visited the CARS (The Airways Museum) and The Australian Aviation Museum (Moorabbin) in Melbourne, Temora where I was allowed to have a long examination of the Hudson, HARS where I got over an hour checking out the Catalina and most exciting of all, I rang Roy, who I looked up in the civil register to find his name and then found his phone number on the net. He is an aircraft owner I am interested in and I wanted to ask if he'd like a copy of my uncle's colour movies he took in New Guinea before the war, which have footage of his Klem Swallow. I could drop the DVD into him, as I was going to pass very close to his place on the drive from HARS to Luskintyre.

 

Roy had seen photos (a frame from the movie) I put on a site on the net of the aeroplane and wanted to find me to see the movie. He mentioned I might be interested in a couple of others of his collection.

 

I didn't know anything about this collection and was flabbergasted at what he had.

 

He's got eight of the buggers. Two are sort of common (Tiger Moth and Stearman) and the rest are either one offs or one of only two in the country.

 

He thought I should stay the night as his place and he could take me to his bit of a strip at Wiseman's Ferry where four are located.

 

Aeroplanes I'd heard about, but never actually seen, touched and smelt. One, I'd watched the Challinors of Mothcare at Murwillumbah rebuild in the seventies. The next day a dream came true when we went to his airfield in the Hunter valley and I climbed inside a Fox Moth to see what my father had experienced in New Guinea after proving he was safe in a Gipsy Moth for six months and was awarded the great big four passenger Fox.

 

When the day warmed up a bit and I could get out from under my sleeping bag cocoon, I mooched around the hangars, got sunburnt and talked to a couple who arrived and opened a hangar and with time, found out that he was world champ aerobatic pilot on two occasions, once... way back and the second time over twenty years later when he was invited to take part in some memorial year's comp.

 

They were being kind and letting one of the old blokes do a spot. He went and beat all the young blokes who reckoned he'd been over the hill for years. NEVER underestimate what YOU perceive to be just a silly old bugger!

 

He has a funny little German biplane he brought over from South Africa with him. He used to do air shows with a wing walker in that.

 

It's not put together at the moment.

 

He has rebuilt a Tiger Moth to the exact state the first one arrived in Australia with it's rego and all the 34 differences that it had to the common (nowadays) Aussie built ones.

 

His wife was flying the Tiger, so I asked if I could blue tack and tape my 'spy cameras' to the exterior to get interesting angles to add to the footage I was taking with two cameras on the ground.

 

They liked the idea and I got the raw footage to make a really interesting small movie where there are views from the ground, out the left side (stuck to a flying stay) looking at the pilot and wing, from the tail plane forwards and one up on the front dashboard looking back at the pilot and where she's been. You fly a Tiger from the rear cockpit so you don't have just a head, out of focus cause it's so close when there's someone in the front.

 

Willy weather on the net got it right. Monday we had rain... all day.

 

The strip is very wet and the chances of flying tomorrow is poor.

 

I can relay what I did last week in more detail.

 

 

[siznaudin]

The riding mechanic & I have a Luskintyre story to tell ... it involves the ULTIMATE overnight accommodation at the site: never to be repeated, I suspect - but equally, a never to be forgotten experience. Will share it with you sometime - in private. Cheers!

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

My first port of call for the trip was Aviatrix's place. That took two and a half days of fairly hard driving.

 

I went through a lot of NSW country towns and all I can describe about them is 50 KPH mark on the speedo... (gawd isn't it hard to keep that slow after 110 KPH) and the tail lights of the vehicles in front.

 

It rained most of the way... light stuff which blotted out the visibility.

 

I shot past the Canberra on a pole near Amberley and a Vampire on another somewhere else and thought, “I should stop and take a photo”, but I was suffering from get-there-itis, but just out of Narrabri, I hit the anchors and ran back in the light rain to get some footage of a beaut complete Neptune parked by a fence of a bloke who collected military equipment. The Neppie looked original, with props on the engines and aerials still attached. I took the piccies for my mate Curley who was crew in them back in the olden days and has a soft spot for the poor, added to, overloaded brutes they became.

 

Funny how the marine reconnaissance aircraft just kept getting bits added to them so they landed up grossly over the design weight. They fixed that in the Neppies by bolting a couple of Jet engines under the wings to help get them airborne.

 

 

I decided not to force myself along too much on day two and stopped at a cheap motel. It was worth what I paid … only one of the three lights worked and the radiator bar had been busted but the reverse cycle aircon valiantly warmed the room, making as much noise as a hovering helicopter. I turned her off when I went to bed.

 

Lotta big trucks pass that motel all through the night.

 

I did stop in Wagga to get a photo of a Vampire on a pole there

 

I got to Aviatrix's at lunch time and we warmed up on hot home made soup which stuck nicely to the sides. I had been pulling up and buying Chico rolls to eat on the way as lunch so far.

 

Kaye and Geoff live three thousand feet above sea level on the edge of the Victorian Alps. They have a magnificent, rapidly changing vista to look out on and sometimes the clouds would roll past below the house and a biggie would fog us in.

 

The blue ridges, stacked one behind the other, go on and on, higher to the east, with cloud sometimes hugging the slopes and in other places, resting on the valley floors.

 

Geoff and I had some interesting comparisons of our boarding school life not so far away from each other in the same years. They were both well known schools.

 

I was in a virtual prison compared to his conditions.

 

The second day Kay drove me around the district to see the strip they keep their aeroplane at and the former one, much closer to their place. Man there's mountains all around those strips.

 

We went for an hour's drive up to, maybe go for a fly in her Cheeta, but the weather was low cloud with the odd drizzle patch sagging out, it was cold and the light wasn't too good at the late afternoon hour.

 

The battery was in the workshop being charged, so that was the cruncher. We'll go for a fly some other time.

 

 

There were more Grummans parked out on the field than I think I've seen before. The engineer there is a Grumman man that the owners trust. We discovered that his uncle and my father flew together in the 727 so they probably got through enough beer together to float a Catalena.

 

 

[TAA Student Pilot]

The Neptune is just south of Dubbo, yoo gedun confussed wuth all those K's ole fella :)

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

yeah I wasdriving hard letting the GPS take me where it wanted. Won't put anything up tomorrow as I'll be on my last leg home.

 

Next installment Friday.

 

 

[TAA Student Pilot]

Bewdy

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

I went on to Melbourne from Kay's as I had an appointment with one of the blokes at the DCA museum. That was after Geoff and I had sat up talking till 1 AM and I needed to get some sleep..

 

The CARS museum is mainly about the radio equipment DCA used in communication and navigation as well as the DCA personnel, but in a small room there's a huge collection of photos and movie film and in another, shelves and shelves of historical DCA documentation.

 

The guys who were there, were bubblingly, friendly and helpful … to prove it we left an hour after closing time. What made the visit special was the thrill they got when they looked at the DVDs of old stuff I thought they might be interested in.

 

They are collecting any memorabilia people have to save it for future generations.

 

The Moorabbin museum had a couple of really interesting 'old blokes' to talk to inside. I'm a sook for the cold, but I was chuffed to see the couple of blokes who had been outside working on aeroplanes come in at about two and say it was too cold and they were going home.

 

I bought ten Aviation Historical society magazines there with great articles to read in the future.

 

I left Melbourne at 6:20AM and found the darkness at 7AM a bit of a surprise... easy to forget that I live twelve minutes ahead of the eastern time zone and they are about the same behind, but their southern latitude makes winter sunrise much later.

 

I had six hours driving to Temora with another appointment to make.

 

I find that stopping around two hours and having three plus minutes to stand and walk around does wonders for my back. No back pain so far I need to add a bit to my GPS ETA doing that though.

 

Sizanudin had told me to look up Andy. I had another contact to see, but he was away,so Andy took me I into the back hangar where all the work is done.

 

There were two Spitfires in there, one with it's tail up having work done on it. A Ryan ST-M in one corner looked ready to go. I think they are definitely boy aeroplanes. They look like an adventurous kid, full of beans who always into mischief.

 

They definitely look a sporty sort of aircraft all silver and polished with the open cockpits.

 

 

Down the back stood the tall, khaki Hudson. Unlike her war time paint job, she's shiny... not an absolute gloss finish, but the overhead lights reflected off her.

 

I climbed aboard and was hit by the austere, dark green, unlined interior.

 

 

I flew enough DC-3 freighters to not be surprised at the formers and longerons, but it was sort of stark in there. There are two passenger seats forward of the main spar box that you need to step over. They were pretty plain compared with the airliner seats of the super Electra of that era.

 

 

The cockpit is in military configuration... captain only with a seat on the F O side but no control column or flight instruments, not even a second ASI and altimeter that many aircraft have. There are engine and system instruments spilling over that side.

 

 

Except for the cylinder head temp, each engine instrument had one needle in it, making it a full dashboard. Nearly all the instruments were old style, some with thick markings of luminous paint.

 

The Sperry autopilot has the old style caging direction gyro and artificial horizon like the DC-3 and I found a Japanese wrecked reconnaissance twin at Alexishaven in New Guinea in the early seventies with exactly the same Sperry auto pilot in it... had Japanese writing on the placards though.

 

I'm comparing the Hudson with the DC-3 as many people have gotten or will get the chance to see a Three close up at some time.

 

The windscreen had an opening section in front of the pilot's face and the sliding side window. I never worked out why DC-3s and the Lockheeds had that front window's ability to be opened.

 

If you did, the next hundred times you flew through rain, till the tropical heat melted the rubber seals to the metal, had you cold and wet from water getting into the cockpit and dripping on your legs. We opened them once in New Guinea when we had a load of very overheated pigs down the back and we needed ram air to blow the stink back down the cabin.

 

The round sides of nose of the aeroplanes have a slight low pressure, which pulls the pong from the cabin past you and out the cracks and gaps.

 

It was a cow if you flew with a smoker. The cockpit would be full of his smoke and if you open your sliding side window it streamed straight past your nose. I hated flying with Captain Trembles, he'd light the next off the but of the last one.

 

Seven minutes each.

 

I used to work out how many more the old bugger'd smoke before we shut down and I could get out.

 

The cockpit was almost as wide as a DC-3s and the next day I was surprised to see the Super Connie's was not much wider either.

 

Outside, the expanse of the tailplane was bigger than expected and the engines look big on the wing. Standing behind the wing you'll see the reailing edge is higher than a DC-3. You'd need to be pretty fit to jump up on it like many first officers did in the DC-3.

 

The top of the wing seems high but that may be an optical illusion due to the aeroplane being shorter than the Three.

 

 

Out near the tips are five fixed slots in the leading edge. Must be to reduce stalling at the outer wing. Four of the five were in front of the outer aileron and the furthest was close to the wing tip airflow.

 

After an hour or so of checking the Hudson I had a quick look in the Museum and scooted east to cover as much distance towards Albion Park as I could in daylight.

 

An evening in the Binalong hotel at thirty bucks a night for a really comfortable bed in a cozy room, next to the ladies bathroom and toilet was unbeatable. I was the only person staying so was told to use 'The Ladies" rather than walk down the hall to the other end of the floor.

 

No coverage for the internet or laptop was the only drawback at Binalong.

 

 

[siznaudin]

"...We opened them once in New Guinea when we had a load of very overheated pigs down the back and we needed ram air to blow the stink back down the cabin" [ATTACH=full]1259[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]18221[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

Some more photos added to the above.

 

 

[TAA Student Pilot]

Loved the look of the Hudson cockpit, basic and functional. You can't really compare a Hudson to a Dak, mebe same engines that's about all. The Dak's load is a lot more but the Hudson goes a lot quicker (190 knot cruise compared to 150?).

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

Agreed Student, but WHAT can you compare it with that people will jump at the chance to look in.

 

Beech 18 is much smaller and how many of them are around for us to get a good look in?

 

The three is bigger but sort of similar.

 

 

[TAA Student Pilot]

Yip, agreed. They are all fine machines Beech 18, Hudson and Dak, mebe it's the round injuns?

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

This next day was to be pretty exciting. A visit to HARS and then a quick trip to Bankstown to meet a man I had gotten onto on the phone while I was in Melbourne.

 

I have movies taken before the war in New Guinea and there is footage of an aeroplane he now owns that I thought he might be interested in. He was interested alright and teed up a meeting in the AOPA hangar at Bankstown where he has 'some aeroplanes' parked.

 

I arrived at HARS after an interesting drive off the high country near Yass in lotsa fog, just before lunch, so had plenty of time before my next appointment to talk to the Catalina blokes and have a really good close examination of The Black Cat which was my reason for this visit.

 

I was accompanied into the working hangar which is off to the left of the museum area... the Connie and DC-3s which visitors go into, are in a hangar off to the right.

 

Once through the door, I noted the big silver DC-4 was parked towards the back of the hangar, with the dismantled Southern Cross replica stacked behind it against the back wall.

 

The hangar is so large that at first glance the Fokker looked like a diminutive Tiger Moth or a box down the back of a normal hangar.

 

A dark blue, Neptune was parked over on the east side and the Cat in the front by the open doors. There were a number of lighties being worked on and another grey Neptune was parked outside on the tarmac.

 

The aeroplanes have teams who work on them. My guide was an old railway man, but his love of the Cat has him happy to do any task on her, menial or otherwise.

 

We climbed aboard and again military hardware showed itself to be spartan. Green formers, longerons cables, electrical wiring and hydraulic lines are exposed for you to see the workings.

 

On the far side of the entrance, which required some callisthenics to actually get through the hatchway, which is quite small and you have climbed up a ladder to get there,

 

 

you are confronted with a great big wireless apparatus bolted onto the L shaped radio operator's desk. There is a Morse key stowed beside the set which isn’t far removed from the original crystal sets that kids built and listened to..

 

 

The bulkhead between the forward and the mid sections had a fuse box reminiscent of a battle ship or tram. It's a rather bulky affair for an aeroplane.

 

There is definitely evidence that this is a ship that flies. On the bulkhead separating the captain from the entrance, is as well as the stowed dipstick, survival beacon and fire extinguisher a cupboard with bungs stencilled on it.

 

 

The windows are round like portholes to add to the nautical feeling, as are the doorways through numerous bulkheads that you have to step over like you see in submarines and war ships. There is also the feeling of being in a tinnie.

 

For an American aeroplane, the cockpit reminded me of something designed in England. The Poms didn't seem to give ant thought to the cockpit design. They just stuck things where ever they could fit them. The Cat looked a bit the same

 

 

with fuel controls (MIXTURES and fuel cocks) behind the pilots' heads, electrical panel with switches and gauges behind the pilot's shoulders,

 

 

throttles and pitch and feather buttons hanging from the ceiling, Starter switches, (There are quite a few for round engines), magneto switches were near the captain's knee on a separate panel sitting out in space six inches in front of the instrument panel.

 

 

This hodge-podge could be because of this aeroplane’s history and the number of countries she was based in and the fact that she was converted to fire bombing.

 

After checking the cockpit we went into the centre section and up some cup style steps riveted on the bulkhead into the flight engineers cubbyhole above the ceiling. He had his own instrument panel in the pylon beneath the wings. I specially wanted to see this as my father's old mate Doug Muir (Story about his earlier days in this section of The Aussie Aviator) had told me that he spent most of the flights across the Indian ocean in the double sunrise flights to Colombo up in this compartment.

 

I imagined it to be claustrophobic stuck in such a confined space.

 

It was surprising to find the station to be little different to sitting in a Tiger Moth, a Cub or a Citabria with no windscreen above the instrument panel.

 

 

The windows beside me cut out any feeling of being closed in, even though my shoulders were close to the side of the space. I’d say the windows opened so the F E could poke hi head out and get a good view of the exterior of the aircraft after an attack.

 

A comprehensive instrument panel minus the flight instruments other than an airspeed indicator attracted my interest and there were fuel cocks and a gang of electrical switches to make it look like any other instrument panel. It reminded me of what Lindberg looked at in the Spirit of St Louis and it wasn't all that startling.

 

Maybe a VFR pilot might find it a little disconcerting having no forward view, but IFR blokes would feel at home.

 

 

I had thought that it would be a deafening place in between the engines, but it is well behind them, so the noise would be quite reasonable with perhaps more wind noise than engine.

 

The radio operator is probably the person who cops the most noise as he is in line with the props. Must have been a bit deafening during the incredibly long take off runs.

 

 

[siznaudin]

Great shots! Thanks for putting them up. Coop, VH-BDQ, had a flight in the Cat down at Wanaka, half his luck!

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

 

After descending to the deck we went through the centre compartment with four side saddle seats which backed onto the left side (Who bothers using the word port these days) hull, and a stretcher on the right.

 

 

There are portholes high up on the hull above and behind the passenger’s heads here, so it's a bit of a black hole and would be pretty boring sitting strapped in on a long flight.

 

 

Climbing over another bulkhead step you’re in the blister compartment.

 

Now here's a place to excite kids.

 

 

 

There's a big black, machine gun complete with a strap of shiny bullets on one side while just the blister on the other.

 

This area is light and roomy although you’d be slipping around if the deck was littered with bullet shells. There are shallow cones below the machine gunner positions to collect them but they must have bounced all over the place during violent evasive manoeuvers.

 

There’s a further small-doored bulkhead that leads into the aft cone from the blister compartment. This is where one is really reminded of a tinny.

 

I think I was told there is a flat pad on the floor of this tail cone where a machine gunner lay and operated an aft facing machine gun.

 

 

Outside, when we walked around, the small distance from the keel to the ground is striking. You’d have to lie on your back to check if you’d rubbed the keel on a rock, yet the hull is quite deep.

 

 

The wing, perched up on the pylon is a long way up. I’d hate to be the one who has to climb up on the wing to check the fuel caps or take the yellow exhaust cover off the exhaust stub. At least if they lost one of them overboard they could revert to the old farmer’s habit of bunging an empty can on the top of the tractor exhaust pipe we’ve all seen. There is a cup style step on the front of the pylon but it’s a long step up and I couldn’t see any hand holds to get past the leading edge. It’d be a bugger getting up there if there was any sort of a swell running and even if you fell off the wing when on the water it’d hurt when you hit. Even floating, that wing is a long way up.

 

 

The wing is interesting. Apart from being a hell of a slab of a thing, the rear almost half is fabric. Later models had aluminium cladding instead of fabric.

 

The tail with the tailplane and elevators half way up it, has a pleasing curve that many aircraft of the era were designed with.

 

I would have liked to stay longer but I was on a time limit as I had to get to Bankstown by four PM and it was the Friday of a long weekend, so I left that hangar to look at the aircraft with Connie.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

I'm going to have a week's rest before telling about the amazing aircraft collection Roy has.

 

Working and writing two stories at the same time is making sixties a bit tired.

 

Yes Siz ... lucky man. I might just have to go back on my word about not setting foot in another international terminal and go to Wanaka or Ardmore when the show is on. My cousins went theis year and loved it.

 

 

[Alan Spears]

Aww,come on Sixties....there are lots of us reading this fascinating trip. Please give up this so called 'work' and tell us another story.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

I have to go away from home for almost ten hours a day Al, so they'll pay me.

 

I have a bunch of Movies to make too.

 

One has been waiting three weeks and my niece is wanting to know when she can see it. Haven't even started on it yet. It's a complecated one to make as there are three videos capturing the action.

 

Got a beauty to make of the Tiger Moth doing some circuits at Luskintyre in which five video cameras were used for lots of angles. I haven't even looked at the footage from the main two cameras yet.

 

I've been waiting ages to get the chance to do that videoing, so making it is itching at me.

 

 

[Alan Spears]

Movies you say? Need a leading man? I can do a Bob Hawke *puts on grizzled voice,slinky eyes back and forth "My fellow Australians. By nineteen ninety,no Australian politician will be living in poverty"