The Good Ol' Days

[old man emu]

This is how aviation was fostered in the early 1950's. Interesting to see the war surplus Ansons and DC-3's as aerial workhorses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who'd a thought Tooraweenah would be an aviation hub? Butler Air Transport made it so.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Air_Transport

 

 

[onetrack]

OME - That's a great piece of historic filmwork, thanks for posting the link. Bit of a shame it wasn't in colour.

 

There's some fairly "leisurely" rates of climb with those old girls! Was that a fuel-saving move, or was that de-rigeur for aircraft of the era?

 

They really ramped up the differences with the number of horses and traps in use! I find it hard to believe there were still numbers of people using horses and traps in 1950. In the 1930's, yes, but not 1950.

 

I'll wager the huge amount of WW2 surplus aircraft made a big difference to aviation in Australia after the War. It certainly did, as regards trucks, jeeps, machinery and equipment.

 

I can recall reading of Stuart tanks going for £10 ($20) each at the Disposal Commissions Sales in 1947. 1950 was the first year since 1941 that fuel rationing still wasn't in place - along with price controls - but tyres were still in short supply.

 

 

[old man emu]

Yes, horse-drawn vehicles were still in common use in the early 50's. Not everyone could afford a car. 

 

An interesting thing is the phonetic alphabet in use. I was disappointed that no light aircraft were shown, apart from Tigers doing ag work.

 

 

[Bernie]

I was using traps in the sixties , had 100 .

 

Bernie .

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Stop rabbiting on.

 

 

[spacesailor]

War surplus.

 

Harley Davidson's 2pound, Indian one BSA's 10 bob.

 

And

 

Aircraft 20 Pound, destined for the smelter, to become Ingots for America. Dakota's, And the Big bombers were 30 pound, a lot of fabric aircraft were burnt on the airfield.

 

IF ONLY WE KNEW !.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[onetrack]

WW1 was actually worse for terrible war surplus waste. At the end of WW1, the RAF owned 22,000 aircraft!

 

Quite a number of the Sopwiths in late 1918 still had zero hours on them, and these new aircraft were scrapped without ever leaving the ground.

 

Of the 22,647 aircraft the RAF owned in late 1918, more than 80% went for scrap.

 

 

[w3stie]

Here's a look back at 1966

 

 

 

 

[pmccarthy]

The USA built a lot of aeroplanes for WW1. None made it to France in time.

 

 

[spacesailor]

They were used in Spain.

 

Very faint recollection.

 

spacesailor