sixtiesrelic

I'll be at Bankstown next month... good chance we'll meet each other then. It's nice to meet up with people with the same interests, you get talking to on the net. This is a good site because no one slangs off and every one is pretty friendly. Chainsaw and I have spoken on the phone and will probably meet up when I'm in Sydney. Sixties

Well... in 1960 there were fewer aircraft types available. Most of us started in Tiger Moths. A few may have entered their aircraft through a DOOR in Austers and others started at the higher end climbing over the side of a Chipmunk. Many at that time started in the Tiger and later during training stepped up to the complicated Chippy. Tiger Moths... You FLEW them. They don't take you where you want to go. The only time the slip needle (forerunner of that little ball) was in the centre, was as it passed from one side to the other. You're working the rudder all the time. In Melbourne it was BLOODY cold doing your flying lessons in the mornings. There was a gale rushing just a couple of inches past your shoulders. Lots of noise... no mufflers on those engines. You'd go out to your aeroplane carrying the required number of cushions. They were in two standard sizes, "ordinary" and "half". It depended on your height. The Tiger Moth's seat was an aluminum pan, so the pilot sitting on his parachute wasn't too high when strapped in. The aero clubs, lousy buggers, didn't give us Civvies parachutes, so we all knew how many cushions we needed. I was "a two and a half cushion man"... er sixteen year old youth. There was one poor bugger, a great beanstalk of a bloke who was a "NO cushion man". HE learned to grease 'em on real quick... didn't like bein' whacked in the bum by a plummeting Tiger. Communication:- the artisans who manufactured your tailor made, leather flying helmet, which cost more than an hours flying, were of two minds when it came to which type of tubing was best. There were, according to the metal flexible tube men, cheapskates who used plastic tubing from your ear cones to the metal "Y" that pushed into the plastic speaking tube from the other cockpit. The metal flexible tube proponents claimed, "They'd had university tests done on both mediums" and the findings were, plastic tubing absorbed two and three eights percent (or some other authoritive figure) of the sound passing along it?. I got metal tubing. To communicate, one jammed his mouth into the sort of squashed speaking funnel, poking tiredly out of the dashboard and shouted. Shouting came natural to many of my instructors. They often reeeally needed to get the message across... "PULLLL back NOW" ?.Open the throttle... ALL the way!!! I thought plastic tubing might be better, as my ears were ringing a bit after some of the louder commands. Back then we were under a different syllabus. Forty hours for a private license. No such thing as restricted and unrestricted. We did a three hour dual cross country then a three hour solo one as part of the syllabus. Glide approaches were the norm back then? only used powered ones on short field landings. Pilots who needed to put on power on an approach were noted and were condemned as poor judges, unless it was a mate, then he'd have been caught out. We tended to close the throttle a bit late and get rid of the excess height on final be side slipping. "Gees! THAT was a GREAT side slip I saw you do out there" was received with smug, pleasure after you'd rammed on full rudder and opposite aileron and shoved the nose hard down... Could be a bit of a bugger if you had a cold and runny nose doing mighty side slips... you know how noses really run if you get in a cold wind? Well! when you side slipped, that gale passing close by your shoulders suddenly came in the cockpit past your face. Nose started gushing... lots of turbulence around your goggles... suddenly you can't see for viscous liquid on ya goggles. Mad wiping with gloved hand managed to smear snot ALL over the goggles, so as soon as you straightened up out of the side slip you needed to whip your goggles up so you could see where you were going. Maps. Many maps that weren't treasured enough landed up in farmers paddocks and alarmed pilots somehow found their way home. This was a good reason for, ?No loose objects? in the pre aerobatic check. It wasn't all bad in Tigers. Spins were POSITIVE. Whoosh over you went. No mucking about having to really try and spin 'em. Came out positively too. The feeling of the tail rising early in the take off roll and you could see where you going over the nose. The most pleasant memory of flying a Tiger in Melbourne was returning to earth from seven thousand feet out in the aerobatic area in winter. You?d climbed above the inversion on the way out and hadn?t noticed you were breathing pure air. On the return you?d enter the inversion layer and the smells of the earth would hit you. Flowering wattles, eucalyptus, brown coal smoke were the most pronounced. Great as you soared like an eagle homewards after the exhilaration of a few stalls, spins and a couple of illegal loops for the fun of it on your way back to the circuit. Chipmunks:- Out of the wind! Scary for upgrading Tiger Moth blokes? had lots of modern stuff in them. An electrical flight/ground switch (Master) This was a beaut substantial thing with a big spring inside so it flicked into either position with a satisfying positive clunk. I think Massey Ferguson had an over order on them and flogged them off to DH Canada at a knock down price. They did match a ground power plug you still see stuck in the belly of Boeings to-day. Chippies had brakes, two fuel tanks with a gauge that told you how many gallons in white for the air and red for the ground, mixture control, flaps, a canopy you could slide open in the air or have closed, and a wireless with five crystals in it for talking on The five channels were A, B, C, D, and E and you carried a little note book in your flying suit with translations of what frequency and what aeradio station or tower used that channel. Moving up into the Chippie meant additions to the checklists you?d managed to finally learn so the old mantras were often heard being repeated by the family while you fitfully slept. You didn?t wear your expensive flying helmet in Chippies, you grabbed a pair of headphones and throat mikes that were usually in a beaut tangle. Throat mikes were two oblong brown Bakelite things you strapped each side of your Adam?s apple with mutinous straps that some designer thought people would understand what you were saying as your voice box made noises? lots of educated guesses. At least in a Chipmunk, when dim-witted students failed to obey instructors by not listening, instructors could bang students on the head to get their attention or if students forgot to look over their head back at the horizon in a loop the instructor could grab a handful of the errant one?s hair and position the head in the correct place. Spins in Chippies were quite different to Tigers? they didn?t want to go in, so you spiral dived for a turn and a half before popping into the spin. The steep dive angle suddenly decreased and around and around you went with the nose down angle decreasing the longer you spun. You needed a concentrated effort to get them out. You needed to look at the stick to make sure you were pushing with twenty six or more pounds force. Twenty five felt like you had the stick full forward but it wasn?t and you continued goin? round and round. A number of people spun into the ground in the early sixties, so lots of people got scared and wouldn?t fly ?em. The next aeroplanes up that you could fly were Tri pacers of Cessnas. Man they were really scary? TWO wirelesses to talk on and a bloody great dial operated three band radio compass that you had to tune roughly to the required number on the dial then twiggle back and forward listening for the screech to null in the BFO tone oscillator to get right on the frequency ?but they did have a steering wheel like airliners. They were the stuff of nightmares. Remember that nightmare we all had. Up in a strange plane trying to work out where you were and how to fly it. Mine was the Tripacer with a fishing reel attached to the ceiling. It had the HF wire trailing aerial wound on it and there were a requisite number of turns of the reel to send out the correct length of wire with a tiny windsock on the end for the frequency you were using. More info for your little book ? ?twenty seven turns for 3460 kc seventy four turns for 5460 (or whatever) I?d wake up in a sweat not knowing how many turns of the handle to use or what speeds to fly at and remembering ya? gotta? wind the trailing aerial in before landing or the CFI?d get up ya?. By the time I flew those cabin monoplanes the trailing aerial had gone ?. Replaced by a switch in the ceiling that tuned the aerial in automatically. Channel one on the HF in the dashboard and channel one on the aerial switch. By 1963 the Cessnas and Cherokees were the flying school line up and all that old technology had been sold to enthusiasts or crop-dusters. What?s my favourite aeroplane ? hard to say! Flown many and they all have their attributes. I prefer high-wings for mooching about the country in looking at the scenery. A Fairchild Argus or Cessna 195 are gentleman?s aeroplanes? masses of room and a WIND DOWN window beside the pilot? now that?s CLASS! I suppose the dreaded Tri-pacer or a One seven two would be where I gravitate to.

Good on ya' Many people are "gunna go back to flying" and don't, others go away but the day they mooch around an aerodrome they're hooked again. I think the RAA is the way to go. They seem to be concentrating on flying planes rather than operating them, pretending they're flying jets or preparing students to fly them. You DON'T fly modern airliners, you operate auto pilots and monitor systems (I did it long enough to know!) There is nothing as good as poling a plane around the sky and being part of the old brotherhood. We're more comfortable than Kingsford Smith was but we're doing much the same. Get out there and enjoy every moment of your love. Sixties

I got up early yesterday and went surfing at Noosa. Heaps of schoolkids on holidays made it a bit crowded. Decided I'd had enough and left in disgust ... roll on the new term. To make it all better, I went to Redcliffe to talk to aeroplane owners and have a bit of a mooch around. Went up to the eastern end of the aerodrome and a sort of deja vu feeling came over me when I looked at this sorry sight. Took a couple of photos to check out with yours here and ah ha ... recognise the trees behind the poor old thing... No wonder my mates at work couldn't remember it at Archerfield. Being Friday afternoon, no one was at arena for me to question. Next time I go down there I'll see if anyone is in Arena's office.

Yes Welcome. There is a good cross section of interests here, so you'll find people who will talk on most facets of aviation, from spotting through to flying skills. Sixties

Well that first one was being a bit naughty. The starter cycle is 1 minute trying to start. one minute rest, another maximum of one minute starting and five minutes cooling. This old girl took 45 seconds to kick over, so one minute would seem like an eternity. Second one. Gives you a good idea of why you need to get in front with a tripod and set the camera on infinity. Great clips tho.

Grass, because of the tail skid.

Here's a few photos I have "captured" from the video I took from the Gypsie Moth a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately I couldn't get "print screen" to work with Paintshop and landed up with a bunch of black pictures, so I ran the video again and snapped the computer screen with my still camera, so they aren't the clearest. The other problem is, the screen is a wide one and the photos are wide. I've squashed them in but it is a guess as to how far. The wing strut Air Speed Indicator... accurate [ The Captain on climb. Note how much rudder is used during climb. It's faired on cruise. Looking along the wings to the Glasshouse Mountains. Note the angle if incidence of that top wing. Looking at the exposed rockers. Closer up of the whizzing rockers. You can see the ghosting of them going up and down Checking in the turn, Looking along the nose Down wind passing the boat harbour. The slats never quite closed right up ... too slow. Short Final. Lots of rudder during landing mote the beaut exhaust pipe along the port side.

OOOOh yes! try http://www.pirep.org/forum/viewforum.ph ... d934334bcb Ya gotta watch us poor old buggers. We don't mean to tell lies.

I put the photos on posting.php?mode=reply&t=2142 and there's a lively interesting discussion going on there about the aircraft.

Is it VH-EIN check the VH register over on the left of this message

Don't know. My cousins will be at Bk sometime soon. If they don't know now I'll get them to check.

This is a Bf ME-108 Taifun. The photo is in Darwin in 1937. It was put on the Aussie Register as VH-UZI and was used by Guinea Airways as a charter plane for over a year.

Now, there's a WIN. Wonder how long the cows'll take to decide to stop THAT? They'll lose money on the people who don't continue flying.

I don't know how long they've been at Redcliffe. I hadn't visited the place in over fifteen years. There's a flying school and I've seen two Tomahawks there. By the way... I used to go to A.C.Kilmore for five years back in the fifties and sixties and we went over to Romsey a number of times. I remember a strip south of Wallan a bit north of that big round grassy hill beside the road to Pretty Sally. Is that where the "graveyard" is. It had a Tiger Moth and sometimes an Avro Cadet crop duster parked there in about 1960 on many occasions.

Are there any? Ask your father ALL about those great flights... there's so few left who were there. It'd be interesting to hear the report.

ASIC card It's only MY point of view... You shouldn't really need one till you do solo cross countries. Ask at the flying school. Seems to me you will be covered by the school in it's tarmac area and when you're with an instructor. I'd wait till closer to the time you are going to do solo cross countries. If you find you don't like flying as much as you thought you'll have saved the money the stupid things cost. Murphy's Law .... if you don't get one at the start, there's more chance you'll require one later because you continue with your training. You're going to learn ALL about CASA and their ambiguity and total disregard for common sense.

I don't go anywhere near Af. I live on the opposite side of town. One of my workmates who frequents the place thinks it may have reached it's 12000 hour shelf life. I went for a ride in one once in about 1987 ... don't remember anything about it.

It's been at Redcliffe for probably fifteen years. Not sure of it's age... it's sort of forties. The most magic thing about it is, it has WIND UP windows... Real class! I think the Fairchild Argus (Looks similar) has them too. I'll have a look when I'm home for other pickies. The engine is back on now... he bought a nice new zero hour engine, new prop and undercarriage legs for her.

I DIDDDN'T do it! I just saw it and felt sorry for him and took his photo. It's a Cessna 195

I felt sorry for the poor little bugger

This Simmonds Spartan was the most hated dog of a thing in New Guinea in the thirties. It crashed and was rebuilt and crashed again and again to become one of the longest serving planes in pre war New Guinea. The Japs murdered it in the end. Nearly every pilot detested it and one bloke on being shown it as the first plane he was going to fly on his arrival in N.G. said to the boss, "I was employed to fly a Moth (It had crashed a couple of days before and the Spartan had been found and cross hired) NOT a bloody Spartan" , packed his bags and returned to the ship he'd arrived on to sail back to Australia. Another pilot, Tiny Messenger, who was a bit of a lad, sat so high in the cockpit, (he was over six feet tall) that he probably slowed the thing down quite a bit, had a load of spuds to carry up to miners. He told the natives to empty the bags into the other cockpit ... could get more in that way. Off Tiny went bouncing along the Lae strip for rather a longer time than normal, with spuds bouncing out and rolling along the strip after the retreating aircraft. Tiny coaxed her into the air and oozed along our into the bay and then it fell down. She was dragged out and rebuilt. Many years later a Catholic Priest tried flying wounded out to Mt Hagen when the Japs were getting close, but the poor old Spartan and her engine wasn't up the the job of actually climbing to six or so thousand feet and was hidden in a banana patch and left by the retreating blokes. After the war no one could find any evidence of her. I asked an old friend who was an engineer up there before the war why it was such a maligned aircraft. He said the wings were cambered on upper and lower surfaces... good for aerobatics but crook for real performance.

This was one of two DH-66 Stephens bought for the New Guinea gold rush in the mid 1930's. Major Norman Brearely of West Australia Airways dumped them onto the New Guinea operators. These were fairly tired aircraft when they arrived and were hardly suitable to the sort of loads required for mining in the tropics. Both crashed... one in the jungle and couldn't be found for four days. It was left apart from the engines The other crashed into the sea at the edge of the Salamaua Isthmus. It was rebuilt and operated for two more years to end up destroyed by the Japs. This is the only frame in a sixteen second clip that came out. The film must have jumped off the sprocket or something and all we see of the clip is a ghosty negative something going backwards. As he released the trigger on the movie camera the iris must have closed rapidly and this frame came out right. They lost the wings in the impact by the looks.

Typical Pommie stuff. Antique Airways has the right idea... I think he said they have 12 spare engines ... here's some in the boxes Computer's bogged down I'll post more tomorrow.