Havin' some more fun.

[sixtiesrelic]

My mate Dick has been on my back to come out to the strip and have a fly in his plane with him. What with one thing and another it’s been three years and I hadn’t made it.

 

He rang the other day and asked if I’d like to come to the strip next week for the spreading of old Carl’s ashes which Mal was going to do from his Gipsy Moth.

 

As I’d have that day off, I said, “Yes”.

 

Dick mentioned he was going up to the strip soon to watch Mal do some practise runs. I invited myself along for the day too.

 

Old Carl was a bit of a legend on the strip, having built a single seater, home built and operated it from there for years. He was an old bomber pilot and a real perfectionist. I’d first met him when they were moored in Rabaul in 1972 while he and his wife were mooching around the Pacific in their beautifully built Ketch for a few years.

 

When “The Bridge Over the River Kwai” hit Australia and was being talked about, Karl had a recollection of a mission he’d done involving bombing some bridge in Siam and all the fuss that had been made in the briefing about not dropping ‘em unless they were absolutely certain that they wouldn’t hit a prison camp on the river bank.

 

They didn’t mention the river’s name… it was just a mission number.

 

“We must have hit it, cause the bombardier yelled, “Beauty”… That’s all Carl recalled all those years later when he went to the pictures.

 

We’d had heaps of rain in Brissy for days and the wind was blowing hard on the coast, but was lighter at the inland location when we got to the strip.

 

 

Mal was playing with his son’s Texan which they were going to do some circuits at

 

 

a neighbouring longer strip, so Dick said, “Lets go flying while they’re away”.

 

 

We went off for half an hour’s sight seeing in the150.

 

Dick’s one of the small band I call a “real airman”.

 

He’s thorough without any theatrics and once in the aircraft is a part of it.

 

He flies for fun and relaxation and does a pretty good job of it. Others have asked me to go flying with them, to show me how good they are and guess what?

 

They’re not!

 

They operate by rote. Lots of ceremonial flamboyance and acting out the part of a professional pilot that they’ve learned, but they’re missing a naturalness and animal cunning that sets aside the real airmen.

 

It’s always a pleasure to go up with Dick.

 

 

We used to fly together in each other’s Tripacers in the olden days. He was beautiful to watch… very smooth and knows his aircraft backwards.

 

Even his little habit of wiping the brake disks with WD40 at the end of a flight to prevent rust is done with such casualness while chatting away, that you have to stop and ask why he’s doing it.

 

“Never had to replace brake pads on my aircraft because of rust wearing them out”

 

We went up for about half an hour to enjoy the spectacle of the countryside after the real summer rains had returned and were filling the dams and greening the countryside

 

 

When we got back we left the Cessna out in case we might go up again later.

 

 

Mal and Mark arrived back and we got more footage of the Texan flying and taxiing.

 

 

After lunch, the wind had dropped, so Mal wheeled the Gipsy out and got her ready.

 

Mal’s an engineer. He Really knows his aircraft. He lovingly works on ‘em.

 

‘The Gipsy isn’t overly endowed with original parts… it’s like granddad’s axe which had seven handles and four heads”.

 

Mal certainly knows which cylinder will fire and primes her so that’s the one to pull the prop through with no effort and the old girl starts every time.

 

Gipsy’s are great.

 

 

The eight foot long exhaust pipe that runs down the left side of the fuselage has a sound of it’s own. A pipey sort of sound, while, if you’re standing in front of her on the right hand side all you hear is a quiet ticking of the tappets, sort of like Chitty-chitty Bang-bang made.

 

While idling, she blows black exhaust gas out of the pipe in puffs, but once the throttle opens to taxi she sounds like a Tiger or Auster.

 

We’d decided that on “the day”, Carl might need a little bit more body. Mixing flour with the ashes would make him more visible.

 

Mal wanted to stream him out rather than him to go off with a puff.

 

Got a couple of runs on the video camera as Mal fine tuned the oriface for tipping Carl overboard.

 

Got it right on the third flight…

 

Naturally the best laid plans don’t always go the way you want ‘em “on the day”… Carl refused to exit the bag and it took three goes to finally stream out beautifully on downwind.

 

Must have been the crowd who came to see him off. Not sure if anyone spotted that. I only realised it when looking at the footage later.

 

Because it had turned out to be such a glorious afternoon on the practise day, Mark decided he’d go for a fly in the Texan and asked if I might like to come.

 

Silly bluddy question really.

 

I answered a split second later... from the cockpit seat.

 

 

The Texan is a bit agricultural . They got lots of parts from the same place the DC-3 and bombers got theirs.

 

Being a dual cockpit the controls are ganged together by levers and cables.

 

It’s the only aeroplane we’ve seen with rods connecting the magneto switches in each cockpit. Seems much easier to have used a bit more wiring like Tiger moths and the like.

 

 

Getting in her is a bit of a mountain climb. There’s a step sticking out of the fuselage half way between the wing and the cockpit that you have to reach. Don’t wear tight shorts!

 

You sit well down in the cockpit and are warned to not drop anything out of your pockets. They’ll land up in the bilge. You’ll get ‘em back after the next major.

 

 

View forward from the rear cockpit is pretty minimal

 

No electric fuel pump, so a yellow handled lever starts going oinkeey, oinkeey, oinkeey beside your left elbow as the pilot pumps up the pressure for start... Bliddy side easier than the DC-3’s wobble pump which requires twelve PSI against the Texan’s four. Same length lever.

 

 

The Texan’s wobble pump is in a cluster between the rudder trim wheel at the back (closest to the wall) and the elevator trim wheel at the front. The flap and gear lever are close by this lot.

 

The starter is a whopping great pedal in the middle of the front cockpit’s rudder pedals.

 

 

Old blokes remember the starter switch for their cars stuck out of the firewall somewhere near the clutch. Similar era.

 

The butterfly valves for the cockpit warm air look like they were from the same foundry that cast parts for Sherman tanks. They live on each side of the starter and have saw tooth ridges on the front so your boot can move them open and shut.

 

For an unlined aircraft with a Pratt and Whitney she’s fairly quiet.

 

 

Lots of smoke and coughing on the start up.

 

Someone said, “Ah! That’s where all the oil went”. After we’d watched Mark top her up with about three gallons of oil when doing the daily.

 

Taxiing sounds great with a slow kadonka- kadonkata of the exhaust. One outlet makes her sound a lot like a Three.

 

Run-up was normal RPM but the pilot has to be very wary as the mixture is back to front and between the throttle... furthest away, and pitch... closest. Worse still the mixture lever is back for rich.

 

 

The incautious could go for the pitch lever instead of the Mixture if flustered.

 

Take off was full and throaty. I left the hood fully open to get unimpeded views for the camera and it wasn’t windy or noisy.

 

 

Flying was smooth and you hear no hydraulic noise with the operation of flaps and gear as well as no feeling they’re operating.

 

 

Cruise is at nineteen hundred RPM. I though Tiger Moths are slow at nineteen fifty.

 

She was cruising at around one thirty knots, which is at a nice economic speed. That is still one litre per mile.

 

I didn’t really take in the surroundings as I was busily trying to get good footage.

 

 

The camera didn’t like being shoved out in the airflow at arms length and played up. Possibly too much wind noise. I kept getting strange massages about the hard drive being not available and it was trying to recover files.

 

Didn’t do much of a job of it. I found on looking at the footage on the ground that much of what I took was missing.

 

Have to go again, won’t I?

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

I added a couple of better photos to this.

 

 

[siznaudin]

Sixties - my 'puter monitor has just taken on a nice shade of green: envy green.

 

You lucky, lucky fellow - and I just love that starter pedal! :biggrin:

 

 

[Guest OzChris]

Mate - awesome!

 

Great report and excellent pictures - loved it!

 

 

[Guest g_i_jack029]

great report sixties! looks like great fun!

 

 

[Guest Glenn]

Top stuff as always

 

 

[Guest 757GB]

I really enjoyed starting the day reading that report.

 

Thanks so much for sharing!

 

Regards,

 

GB

 

 

[Guest Chainsaw]

NIce Den...again. Thanks for sharing mate.

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

Don't know if I've mentioned it before ... The red Tripacer was Dick's and the Blue was mine. The Photo of mine was taken with the new owner in front of it. It was such a good photo I got it blown up to poster size and laminated for him.

 

We'd landed on a mesa which stuck up a couple of hundred feet above the surrounding country. Looked a bit like landing on an aircraft carrier.

 

 

[Guest Chainsaw]

Den, don't ever stop these stories mate. They really are wonderful. You have the gift of the 'keyboard letter arranging'

 

 

[Scottw]

G'day Sixties and all

 

Nice story, and keep them coming. I would love to hear more about your experiences when you owned the Piper, and your aviation career in general.

 

Mark and Mal did a great job on that T-6. I remember the day that Mark picked the T-6 up here in Toowoomba, it left on a back of a truck. Just a wonderful restoration job. Mal and Mark are great people to talk to and both have contributed immensley to the advancement and promotion of Warbird/vintage and classic aviation in Australia.

 

Kindest Regards

 

Scott

 

 

[Scottw]

I have located some images of the T-6

 

One image is a copy of an old 35mm image from a number of years ago.

 

And the other two are of the old girl getting ready to go to her new home for some TLC. great Job

 

[ATTACH]17871[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

[Coop]

Delightful story, sixties. It's amazing how quickly one can move when a ride in a classic aircraft is on offer, eh?

 

What's behind the starter pedal? A huge electrical switch? A clutch? Something hydraulic?

 

Coop

 

 

[Guest Darren Masters]

Brilliant report...as always. Please keep them coming