sixtiesrelic

Continuation of Hilda’s letter to her sister in Sydney… 24th: No more news of Bill and Co. I’ve just finished a letter to mater telling them Bill is missing. The morning paper mentioned G.A.’s Lockheed is missing, the air force is searching and everything is being done to find them. They had rifles and ammunition, food and water, so if they got down OK they would be alright for awhile. Their wireless being in the undercarriage would be useless after landing. The last message received from them, they were making a crash landing near some fires – lights. The bad weather made page 4: it difficult to receive them well and their bearings couldn’t be received too well either. Oh well we can only hope they are safe and sound and won’t be long before they are back here again. It’s very worrying, but I feel they got down OK. I’ll write you or Bet. when I know he is found and give you what particulars I can. You understand I may not be allowed to say very much but I’ll try and give you something to understand and as soon as I hear. Charles is away and Tess is staying with me. Some of G.A.’s pilots and engineers have come and asked if there is anything they can do for me but of course there isn’t. They have all been very nice and thoughtful. One of the wives brought a bottle of brandy thinking I'd need some to put me to sleep at night. But I don’t need it. We have a warm drink before going to bed. Hope Alan is back again at Randwick and you see him more often now. Hope all’s well with all of you and Bet and family. Well Al I don’t seem to be able to write any more my mind is elsewhere. And it’s 10.45 so I suppose we had better go to bed. The children are well and look so well. Hope I can send you word very soon so give my love to all. love to yourself yours, Hilda Mrs. W. T. Gray Interesting sign off to a sister. They were the days when neighbours might live next door to each other for fifty years and still call each other Mrs Whatever over a cuppa.

There was a story about "The Black Baron" out Quilpie way in the eighties. Got her off the ground and then realized he'd never really watched what the pilot DID when landing. He finished up in the town dump and full of remorse left it there and walked into town to admit he'd been a silly lad to the cops. When he arrived, he had difficulty getting a word in because of a number of excited witnesses fighting to tell the cops what THEY saw.

It's surprising how quickly you start thinking clearly and go back to the training. Good work! You didn't start thinking "I'm THE man who can pull off something better than just landing straight ahead." Most walk away from a bit of a bent machine doing what they were trained to do.

24th April 1942 Doreen Mc Allister was the newest girl to be put on in Aviation House Melbourne. She was sixteen and three quarters years old; a pretty girl, who’d ‘developed’ early. She was excited to get a position with the Department of Civil Aviation, ‘safe government employment for life' if she didn't marry… not quite as excited as her mum though, who told anyone she could button hole in the street about Doreen’s coup. Doreen was the office girl, but would soon enough, become a typist when a position became available. She was going to night school after work, doing an advanced shorthand typing course, so was loose end between five thirty and her six thirty class. She took sandwiches to eat for her dinner, usually walking to Spencer Street station to sit and eat them while she watched all the people passing by, especially the handsome Yanks. Mr Johnston called her to his office just as she was leaving and asked if she could file some telegrams in the ADY file. Doreen was trying to get her head around all the letters they used for everything… DCA, ADY… ‘Mr Johnson was nice. A real gentleman… always well mannered and courteous… not like that miss ‘Oldmaid’ who was nasty and spitefully threw her weight around when out of earshot of the men. Poor Mr. Johnson, he seemed tired and sad. Always in his office before and after Doreen arrived and left. (He was a mate of Cameron so naturally, was worried after two days of searching an no word) Doreen took the telegrams to the file room, she wasn’t overly interested in what they said, half the time they were in code. She had her mind on other things. She wasn’t going to typing school tonight… she had a date with a cute American Naval Lieutenant and he said he may be able to get her some silk stockings because she had been ‘nice’ to him last time and she’d let him kiss her goodnight before she got to the tram stop to go home.

08.50 In the cockpit of USC “There’s someone near the fire…. Bloody turbulence… I can’t hold the binoculars steady on them .” 0851 “There’s one… no two men by a fire.” 0851.5 Captain “ Note the time ... we’ll descend from search height and circle.” 0853 They’re stockmen by the looks and if they were survivors they’d be waving like mad, not just standing looking at us… false alarm.” There were no telephones out in the area, so most stations didn't know there WAS a downed airliner. 08.23 In the cockpit ofVH-UYB. Captain resting his eyes; second dicky flying and sees a flash just in front of the nose. "Something there just went under the nose!" "Right we'll turn and have a look." Second dickey starts turning. "No! maintain your heading for one minute then do a proceedure turn, so we have a minute lined upon it to spot it, rather than trying to see it in a three sixty turn son." Nothing sighted. Another proceedure turn and they continued on the search leg.

Conversation in VH-USC at 8.34 CST. "Hay Skipper. over there on the lft about three miles away... Smoke started rising from near that creek line." "Got it. I'll continue this leg and we'll be closer on the next one to see if we should break the search pattern.... should pass by it in .... er eight to ten minutes. "

I was wondering if any one was really interested. Next installment lunchtime tomorrow.

THE SECOND DAY OF SEARCHING. Everyone is pretty flat after spending a fruitless day searching to no avail. here is a telephoned telegram from Collopy who was in charge of the search in Darwin to Department of Civil Aviation head office Melbourne. NO SIGN ADY TODAY RECOMMEND AS MANY CIVIL AIRCRAFT AS POSSIBLE JOIN SEARCH (.) AEC UZF USP AT BATCHELOR NO WORD ANY GUINEAS HERE LET ME KNOW IMMEDIATELY WHAT ACTION TO TAKE. COLLOPY Initials of Repeated to A/DG who dictated Receiving Officer ………… reply attached. There is obviously a lot of difficulty in communications. DCA is using internal and PMG telegram services but there is no mention of phone calls from Melbourne or Adelaide to Darwin. This is obvious from the facsimile of a letter that was sent today from Guinea Airways to the search centre in Melbourne. Charles Gray and his captain arrived in Darwin in the afternoon after having engine trouble yesterday and landing at Oodnadatta to have repairs done to the daily Lockheed ten flight to Darwin. Charlie wasn't too alarmed at the news that the search hadn't been successful. Bill had come down three times in aircraft and walked away. He had been a boy scout into his teens, who had prided himself on his bushcraft and was very handy with his hands around machinery, so everyone tended to look on the bright side. Charles was given leave to go out on the third day of searching as an observer. He would be needed to crew the flights for the rest of the week though. It can be seen that they were working hard from these pages of his logbook. Of course the newspapers didn't take long to get onto the story.

My father knew him and intraduced me to him.... unless there were more airmen who did the same falling down a snow drift. I was too young and dumb to be overly impressd and ask questions.

This is the text of a letter written in pencil on Wednesday, 22nd April, 1942 by Hilda Gray (wife of W.T Gray) to her sister Alice in Sydney.The letter was continued in ink, starting the middle of the third page (on 24th April.) Here we see a side that isn't normally covered in crash stories... those at home. This letter to a sister in Sydney (all her family were there), is an insight into the wives contending with husbands away flying airline flights and other secret ones. Hilda had been snatched from a house with at least two servants, in New Guinea to a flat in Adelaide. She was lucky that she sailed just before the forced evacuations that Tess, her sister in law, and all her friends were subject to. The evacuees were allowed only one small suit case and a pillow and were crammed into unlined, noisy freighters, to cross the mountains hiding from attack inside the cloud, to Port Moresby, then put on a ship that scuttled south with the threat of attack from the Japs all the way. They at least had the chance to put their valuable mementos in the suitcase. Hilda thought she was returning after leave, but the sudden movement of the Japs south stopped that, so everything was left behind. Many Happy Returns of 19th love, Hilda Dear Al, Your welcome letter received the other day and so glad to get it. It was your birthday the other day and not being able to get to town as often as I’d like to am sending 10/- (ten shillings) – buy a pair of stockings or something for yourself. Wrote to Betty and sent some snaps to her and here are some for you. Don’t you think it’s a nice one of Lyn hanging over the back of her pram. Then Ann in front of my bicycle ready for school. She has on a canary brushed wool beret, fawn jumper and brown pleated skirt. The sox are fawn with tartan colours at top and black shoes. Then we are aboard and about to go off on the bike and daddy snapped us. At first Ann didn’t feel too safe on the back with me but now is quite OK. Then the other one. She has an Easter egg in one hand and Topsy in the other. And does she love Topsy. At present it’s 9.15 pm and the two of them are in bed, my bed seeing daddy is away. She sleeps with me when Bill is not home. Bill went away Sat., was supposed to be home tonight but they were forced down somewhere near Darwin last night. G.A. (Guinea Airways) sent me word and one of the pilots came and said when they find out some more news of them he will let me know. Ran out of juice and bad storm at page 2: Darwin couldn’t land there so had to put down somewhere. The RAAF are looking for them. I think they would be alright but its not so good is it. Charles went away the other week and then Tess got word he wouldn’t be back for a week or two. Arrived back eleven days after he went away. He went off again this a.m., don’t know when he’ll be back. GA are doing some extra work here there and everywhere – it’s best not to mention what and where they are going. – I’ve never been settled in this house. – It’s nice and comfortable but I haven’t any interest in it. – I’m hard to please, aren’t I. Well a couple of streets away there’s semi-s and we went and inspected them and like them so will move (won’t be finished for a month.) It looks like we’ll be here for the duration so we may as well be settled and satisfied. How we can get our things over I don’t know. Received a letter from Mr. Gray (Father-in-law ) stating the mater has appendicitis. He says the Dr. is not operating. Poor little thing, don’t know who is going to look after her, suppose Caroline. Have been thinking of Auntie Hil and wondering how she is. Give her my love and I’ll write to her. Got a letter from Mar[??]. She wrote to Auntie Ann and Auntie got my address from someone I don’t know. There’s two more letters to write and one to Auntie Al. Am having some snaps printed same as I’ve sent to you and Beaut and will send a few in the letters. Suppose you and Beaut have had Robert and Ian in to be blood grouped. I’ve got to take Ann and Lyn but page 3: will wait till Bill can come with me. Everyone tells me the winter here is very severe so the children will want plenty of warm things. If you have some scraps for making into little coats for Lyn around the house and sleeping in, would you send me some, please Al. Lyn is wearing Ann’s old woollens but of course I had to buy some woollen vests for her and got some nice little ones with sleeves. Am taking the calcium once again, got the big jar. If you look closely you’ll see I have a new perm (one of the snaps). It’s a [????] ends and wave. Seems OK and easy to manage, has been done five weeks now. And gone back to the side parting to cover up all the gray hairs on the right side. Well I’ll have to finish tomorrow, it’s late and time I was in bed. All the search aircraft found no sign of ADY on the 22nd. No smoke signals or smoking wreckage. Heavy rain last night and low fuel could mean that the aircraft came down reasonably intact and the fuel tanks didn't burst into flames. The aircraft carried emergency rations and a rifle and the Yanks also had their fire arms with them, so they should be able to shoot some food if they are uninjured.

The morning of 22 April in the office of Guinea Airways Who will we send round to tell the families of the pilots that they force landed last night. Better tell Charlie too when he signs in, before he hears the scuttlebuck. Can we get another aircraft up there to search and which aircraft can we use to replace ADY on tomorrow’s courier run to Darwin. We want all relevant details including all the radio logs for our own investigation. Darwin… people running for cover, telegrams heading to DCA Melbourne, RAAF headquarters back and forward. Phone calls to various commanders to get search aircraft.

!0 PM on the 21st April 1942. The wheels are in motion. DCA is madly typing out all the communications logs. Everything on them was written down, sometimes in personal code. The RAAF is having people write out reports. Telegrams are flying between Darwin and Melbourne (DCA head office) and Adelaide … Guinea Airways management, 48th Fighter Group of the Fifth Air Force for just some Phones are ringing to organise the search tomorrow. See it wasn't our fault they got lost!

This was a repeat of the page above.

AERADIO MESSAGE. Office of origin … Darwin 18 words Time 1724 …………………………………………………………………………………………… All Civil aircraft must arrive Batchelor in daylight today or return to Daly Waters. Weather doubtful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Commonwealth of Australia- Postmaster General’s Department TELEGRAM PRIORITY IMMEDIATE 5-30 PM AVIAT MELBOURNE Ref 5:18 WEATHER DEFINITELY SATISFACTORY MET REPORT AS FOLLOWS. OVERCAST 1000FEET CLOUD BASE 6000 FEET TWO TENTHS RAGGED CLOUD BETWEEN 4000 AND 5000 FT VIS GOOD … AVIAT --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The flight was uneventful till well into the last leg, when the Katherine aeradio operator sent them a message (Morse code) to remind them that they were not to land at Batchelor after dark, but to go down to Katherine. They replied… what time is it dark. No daylight and darkness graphs to look up, so the operator noting the dimness of his windowless office, because of the heavy cloud outside, said, “In quarter of an hour.” The aircraft was twenty five minutes from Batchelor, so they turned back towards Katherine. It was in fact, forty minutes to last light. Seventeen minutes later at 18:23 CST, Cameron asked that the rotating beacon be turned on at Katherine.There had been a NOTAM to say it was out of service. (They weren't turning it on because the batteries that powered it had been getting depleted by the hospital) At 18:30 they asked Darwin for a DF bearing to start establishing their position. HF radio at sunset is bad, Add thunderstorms and HF radio waves are real bad. Direction Finders were pretty primitive in good conditions. The civy pilots didn’t particularly trust it and the RAAF pilots used it only as a back up to their navigation… THEY had an early warning device that was better…radar. The operators of the direction finding unit had a near impossible job, but came back with a bearing. They were over the other side of the aerodrome and had to communicate by telephone (through recent bomb-damaged lines to the switchboard) with the aeradio operator in contact with the aircraft, so couldn’t talk directly to the aeroplane. It took four minutes to get the bearing. The operator calculated they were east of Darwin. They reckoned they were over a hundred miles south of Batchelor or around one fifty south of the DF station. They queried the bearing and told him to have another go. Again… east of Darwin. The first bearing at 1835 was 103 degrees. The second at 1840 was 100 degrees. Darwin asked’ “Are you coming here?” Cameron asked if the weather was OK and was answered yes. They were asked for an ETA and ADY sent “1915.” The radio was crackling with lightning and many times WT Gray, the second pilot, had to have words repeated. 18:48 ADY sent a message, “Coming to Darwin …another bearing please … “099 degrees”. They asked for a continuous watch on the HF/DF because the early warning device wasn’t available and they asked that the aerodrome rotating beacon be put on as well. Tired pilots. “Well, HE’S sure, but I’m buggared if I know how we could have gotten this far north … too tired to try and work it out, but Darwin here we come. I think Captain Cameron was pleased about not going back so far south in heading to Darwin. To me it makes sense, as the aircraft was on a government charter and normally did the daily Adelaide Darwin, or Darwin Adelaide flights. Why land at Katherine and have to take off at or before first light the next morning, to drop the soldiers off at Batchelor, then go on to Darwin to start the courier flight to Adelaide hours late, when the soldiers could get a truck ride the hour or so from Darwin to their base that night and the pilots could get more sleep. To have given an ETA of 19:15 CST for Darwin, they had to have found themselves out along that bearing line, to be able to work the ETA. More educated guesses on my part… They glimpsed a couple of rivers through the rain and towering Cumulus. Guestimated them to be the East and South Alligators. I work this out from their applying the estimated fifteen miles they ran between bearings and marking it on a piece of paper then running the paper out from Darwin, aligned with their heading of probably 275 degrees, till the fifteen mile points they’d run, were on the bearing lines. 1900 ADY was told they won’t get bearings for about ten minutes as another aircraft on a different frequency wanted one. 1906 A bearing from Darwin of 095 was given to ADY. 1914 Aeradio asks for their ETA… ”Possibly fifteen minutes.” They couldn't see much in the murk and darkness now. They didn’t see Darwin at the ETA and maintained their heading till they crossed a coast line, showing gloomily through the rain as a lighter area of sea westward and dark land to the east. 1923… They circled for fifteen minutes in the darkness and drizzle, working out where they were (Boyne Harbour… about seven minutes past Darwin.) and then their track back to the Darwin designated lane of entry so the Ack-Ack gunners didn’t start blazing away at them (The Japs had been coming unannounced and dropping bombs on the boys, so they were keen to do them damage and the Civil pilots knew they weren’t always waiting till the whites of the pilot’s eyes were in sight . While circling they asked for a DF bearing and were told 095 from Darwin. ADY sent, ”Check sense!” No wonder they found trusting DF a difficulty… it could be one eighty degrees out unless the operator was on the ball. After all, they had over-flown Darwin and out over a western coastline and here they were being told they were still east. 19:25, 19:27, 19:34, 19:42, 19:43,19:48, more Q code messages requesting bearings and answers of 288 ,302 284 288 … all second class or doubtful. 19:49 while returning to Darwin, Cameron asked for the QNH ‘in plain language‘, so he thought he was pretty close and was preparing for a landing. 19:53 … ADY sent, “Ask army for searchlights please” … Darwin answered “OK wait”. 19:56 You are 288 degrees second class. 19:58 “Are the search lights ON?” He was advised, “In a minute.” 20:01 He reported he was six hundred feet, There were a couple repeats of the transmission required for Darwin just to ascertain the altitude due to static. 20:04 ADY tries voice transmission… it was poor … again they were given a bearing of 283. 20:08 Darwin sends QRK (Are you receiving) … no answer. 20:09 ADY is asked to “listen to the phone again’ (I guess that was VHF) 20:11 ADY was given a bearing of 282 first class. 20:12 Darwin sends, “One light is north and the other is NNW of the drome.” ADY asked them to repeat and on the second transmission got it all and answered OK (Search lights on nineteen minutes after asking for them. That equates to around forty miles of flying) 20:16 ADY is asked to transmit for another bearing but only answers “Is it raining?” Darwin answered, “No” and gave a bearing of 277 20:23 ADY asks for another bearing and “check sense” so the crew is really confused they’re in heavy rain… consider that most of these messages are going backwards and forwards in q code … eg QAA is ETA, QAL … what is your landing time, QTE is bearing, QRK…. Are you receiving, K … go ahead. Imagine Morse code with the extra clicks of static. --.- .-. -.- ..---- ---.. …-- could come out --Z- .-.-.ZZ.- .zzT-zz---- …-- 20:29 Darwin gives a bearing of 278 and ADY replies OK we have the beach again. GET OUT A MAP and plot the above from 1840 and see how confused you are. Groundspeed of say 140 knots. You aren’t tired, dehydrated or as totally bushed from the confusing info you have been supplied with as Cameron and Gray were. 20:32, 33, 38, 43, 46, 50, 51, 53, 54 more unanswered calls and calls for bearings which when calculated were around 270 with the last being 238. 20:56 ADY reports it is over some lights and in heavy rain. There were mines south of Darwin … perhaps they were the lights. The north coast was blacked out, so the Bettys couldn’t have an easy time navigating to their bombing runs. 21:00 They are told that their last transmissions couldn’t produce a bearing “but you were over East Point seventeen minutes ago. ”ADY asks them to repeat that info and then answers OK. (The Port War Signal Station had reported the sighting of a white light near Point Charles at that time and shortly before that, they had seen red flashes in that same vicinity. 21:08 Darwin sent, “You are over drome now. Come down now you are over drome. “ 21:10 ADY sent “You are over where?. Send one word at a time and I will repeat it. Darwin sent the words one at a time but ADY was unable to read it. The aeradio operator held his Morse key down so the pilots could wind the loop aerial around to get a bearing. 21:18 Darwin sent, “You were over the drome ten minutes ago.” ADY didn’t reply. 21:21 ADY asks for a bearing and that it be repeated back six times. 21;24 ADY makes signals that are unreadable. 21:27 Katherine aeradio contacts Darwin and relays a message they received from ADY, “We are going to try and land beside some lights. What is going on in the pilots’ heads? They are told there’s light rain falling on Darwin and yet their windscreen is white with rain that is hissing crackling and making conversation difficult. They are unable to talk on the radio or be heard and are having to use Morse. Where are the search lights. HOW could they have been over Darwin and not seen something and more… not been able to talk on the VHF. They are LOST and need to land while they still have fuel and control of where they crash land. Landing Super Electras (Civilian version of the Hudson bomber) in rain is a bugger. DC-3s were the same. If you peer forward out the open, sliding, side window you see better than through the windscreen. The hydraulically operated wipers weren’t too flash. Cameron would have done this and most likely have to do a slight turn to the left to see where he could bung her down. His plan ??? I’ve been to the area and reckon he knew the country well, having flown over it time and again, on the daily courier runs. Grassland with anthills, gumtrees about two feet thick … and rugged hills. He was looking for a light patch ahead to denote lots of grass while flying very slow with the gear down and takeoff flap in readiness to chop the power and apply full flap as he plopped her down. Landing lights … better to be off, till the last moment, as they wouldn’t be illuminating where they’d touch down at this stage. 21:28, 21:33 and 21:38 CST, Darwin sent QRK, QRK, QRK… (are you receiving?) No answer ………………………………continued tomorrow………………………………………

The pilots… D.G Cameron. Cameron was an experienced captain who had transferred from Australian National Airways to become chief pilot of Guinea Airways. He was chosen to fly the flagship VH-ADY over from England in company with VH-ADW in the record time of 65 hours in 1940. W.T.Gray. I have learned more about, because the family has given me much information. He was born the first son of a doting father. He had a strong ability to do well at what he attempted and with the backing of a father who had stars in his eyes, was able to hone his self confidence and competence to a high degree. He had been flying in in New Guinea for seven years, flying over the last couple of years, mostly Ford Tri-motors and Junkers G31s... the tri-motor that led to the development of the larger JU52 we all know . He had organised a job for his young brother, Charles, two years previously in New Guinea. They had been evacuated with their wives around Christmas 1941 and were based in Adelaide at the head quarters. W.T was mad as hell because he had been made a first officer. His belief was, he should have been a captain, seeing as he had more time with Guinea Airways AND more command hours than the many of the captains he was to fly with … on larger aeroplanes too. He was a person who wanted to keep up with the latest developments in aviation and paid out the same amount of money for a technical book printed in the USA as the Guinea Airways office boy earned in a week. He picked the pilot’s brains in New Guinea when they flew the Lockheeds up there on mail runs He had also picked Amelia Earhart’s brains when she stayed in Lae . He taught himself Morse at night, practising with Charles, even though there were no radios in their aircraft, knowing they would have to know it sometime. They sat the exams for 20 words per minute at a post office exam site. In January 1941 W.T was agitating against many unsafe practices he saw in the Adelaide to Darwin run. His aim was to do as he had in his seven years in NG and move up into bigger better airlines. He had ANA in his sights in January. In New Guinea he had started with Ray Parer (Battling Ray of the London to Sydney air race fame in 1934). He left Ray to join Stevenson Aviation who had bigger better aeroplanes. From Stevensons to Carpenters, because THEY had modern aeroplanes and more money behind them. When he had Dragon time, he was able to get into the biggest and richest airline… Guinea Airways Limited. He had crashed twice in NG and walked away and then to top it off, had an engine failure in a Fox Moth on the way to Streaky Bay and fixed the problem himself in January 1942. He was a tool maker prior to learning to fly and that enabled him to hold an aircraft engineer limited license. We have two strong willed captains in one aeroplane flying to Batchelor. They were tired from the extra hours required of them. W.T's log book shows he flew 125 hours in January, 131 hours in Febuary,107 in March. His brother Charles did 120 in April and 60 in the first eleven days of May .

Weather 70 years ago as the aircraft flew up to Batchelor ... how many warm fronts have you seen? Weather at the destination is a bit murky.

I've researched this and can see the holes in the cheese match, the wheels going into motion when contact is lost with the aircraft, after they radioed they'd have to do a forced landing. (Why put radios in wheelwells?) The search unfolding, then the investigation uncovering mistakes and omissions, inter service rivalry, Captain Manwaring (of Dad's Army) syndrome, where little people have high opinions of themselves and make strange and blockhead decisions. There are highjinx of young blokes not thinking before they do naughty things, people wanting and expecting things, so thinking they happen. There's the stress levels rising, and tired people not sleeping because they can't stop wondering 'why?' or 'should I have...' I'm going to feed you this in real time, because the records enable me to. Air crash investigaton compresses months of tedious re-construction and investigation into an hour's show. Things were quicker and simpler then. Telegrams flitted, accusations arose, attitudes changed and in the end the captain got the blame. A sanitised report was made, but because it was war-time, the records got a big red 'SECRET' stamped on them and they were bunged into a vault for sixty years, to cover up minor things like inter service rivalry and the 'Captain Manwarings' . The interesting thing about this story is the knowlege of the official information, as well as a knowlege of the family of one of the pilots and how they contended in the middle of war time. Daddy went to work in his airliner, sometimes coming back that night, and sometimes eleven days later and he didn't say where he'd been or what he did. 'It was the WAR'. .............................................................................................................................................................. At about 6 AM on the 21st of April 1942, three airliners took off on 'a secret operation'. They were transporting over thirty US servicemen from a teletype course in Brisbane, back to Bartchelor in the N.T. The lads were a bit pissed of, because some lousy officer had shortened the course and they had to leave the comfort of Bris-bayne and all those galls to return to dust flies and tents in the tropics where they were close to bombing raids that they had been forbidden to mention while in the metropolis. Our Lockheed 14, under the command of Guinea Airways chief pilot Duncan Gordon Cameron and Captain Bill Gray as second pilot, got off at 0622 EST on the first leg to Charleville where they'd refuel. The next stop would be Cloncurry then the last at Daly Waters before the final leg to Batchelor. The other two aircraft were Lockheeds of Australian National Airways. They spread out so they weren't waiting too long on the ground during refuelling operations... flies and the stinkin heat. Gray had been away many days and would arrive home tomorrow night, or so the family thought.

Yeah their patience and perfectionism has to be admired. I wouldn't be game to fast taxi mne if I made one. That yellow Tiger Moth looks like what it must have looked like out of Moorabbin tower when I was trying to mine back down fifty two years ago.

The guys who tried to fight our famous Australian authority in getting the DC-3 operation going in Perth some years ago, came back from NZ and the Wanaka airshow recently. To see what the New Zealanders do with old aeroplanes in their 'Dangerous terrain' (compared with poor old flat Oz) is a joy. What a shame we have such an enterenched, ostrich-like, bunch of old sheilers controlling what can fly here. They said the $350 gold pass to the airshow was worth every cent, as you can get up close to the machinery each day and get 'close-ups' of tiny interesting bits as well as gave a comfortable spot to park yourself. Naturally they went for a fly in a "3" for old times sake.

I reckon I'll be goint to the next one on seeing THAT line up.

And even MORE extra points if it's a Oister Coop. Has the sliding window fallen out? My mate's vindictive old cow, Charlie Dead Shoot, (Can't print the real four letter word here can we) kept spitting hers out, regularly littering the countryside with squares of perspex. Liked to suddenly dance in the long grass beside strips too. She was like one of those matrons built like a sherman tank who keep young blokes on their toes with their unexpected pompous ourbursts. Real aeroplanes... Austers. I suppose that mob who protect their job by grounding real aeroplanes like the Goonie will be after Austers soon.

Buried in the tropics... won't be much left now

Geday Killianaero, Now that's the sort of thing we like to see. Isn't it magic now, with all the 'spy cameras' we can tape or blu tak here and there to get the difficult shots that we couldn't a couple of years ago. It's not that long ago that I hung onto my video camera out of the window to get 'the not just inside shots'. Of course I then had to cut out the seconds that the camera was still and use them. Tape cams were OK but hard disk ones would not like the jerking and wouldn't save the footage. Lost lots of great stuff in interesting aeroplanes with the Sony HD one. I have bought a number of small cameras with the idea of attaching them outside ... GoPro, helmet cam , yet a 20 aussie dollar, keyring, spycam taped to the outside or dash or cabin roof is pretty good for short clips inserted here and there. Keep going with the photography and experiment. sixties

Weird things happened to this as I pasted it here... all sorts of hidden commands appeared but didn't perform them . I've sorted most of them (took half an hour) but I'm not re doing any more, so there is a different font later in the story . Sixties I had a number of flies of the first minimum aircraft to be allowed to fly in Oz. Ron Wheeler (who lives near Yamba last I heard), fought the department of transport (CASA) for years in the early seventies, to have an engine driven, flying machine with an all up weight of 180 KG approved for unlicensed pilots to take aloft. A mate of mine asked me if I’d go with him and his friend who had bought one and learn to fly it and tell them what to do. They were airport firemen, Keith had a private license and Col the owner, had never flown. Always on the lookout for adventure, I agreed. It was around 1976 We met at ‘Old CabIoolture’ strip one balmy autumn day and I was introduced to the Skycraft Scout. It was indeed a MINIMUM aircraft! A couple of sails threaded from the ends of two aluminium boat masts and stiffened with thin ally pipe battens, gave the ‘wings’ and their camber. You pulled them together at the roots with nylon cords and tied them together, to give them their tautness. The ‘airframe’ was a rounded cornered, extruded, aluminium box section, about four by two inches, that the wings attached to with stainless bolts. The empennage was made up of three triangular flat surfaces made from sail material and edged with thin aluminium half inch, pipe. They had a throw of about thirty degrees either side of central. A Victa lawn mower, single cylinder, engine was bolted on the front with a beautifully crafted, pretty, laminated, three foot six, wooden prop free-wheeling on a pulley not in-line with the engine. There was a wide belt that connected the engine to the prop. Hanging from the airframe, under the wing, was a pyramid made up of more one inch pipe that the golf buggy wheels and a plastic ‘pub chair’, seat were bolted to. There was a thin, aluminium pipe, bow attached below the tail with an extension of the rudder post sticking down with a tiny, four inch, solid aluminium, tail wheel on the bottom. The whole contraption was held together with a hundred or so, yards of stainless steel cable with eyes swaged on the ends. Lots of stainless nuts and bolts held the cable ends in place. It took twenty minutes to assemble it AND ensure ALL the nuts had been tightened, especially after a flight where we found we’d forgotten to use a spanner on the nut on top of the Jesus post. Luckily it stopped the wings falling down while they weren’t under flight load and everything was nice and tightly rigged, so the wires from Jesus post, to well out along the wings, only sagged slightly, while aloft. Col bought her second hand, so Ron Wheeler had no input into his learning to fly the machine. Old Caboolture was a cow paddick with a rusty, war surplus, igloo hangar, a dunny you could smell from the train line crossing, a couple of hundred yards away and a stack of rusty corrugated iron ready for aerodrome improvements. There was a seven hundred foot, good main strip and a five hundred foot cross strip that was mostly shallow swamp in the height of the rainy season and had a million tenacious thick, high, grass clumps growing on it that played havoc with nose-wheels and I never saw used. Farmer Sampson was the fairy godfather of aircraft owners and allowed us to keep aeroplanes on the property NO CHARGE! He slashed the strips periodically for us too. Owners and close mates needed a key for the lock on the rail crossing into the property. Railway locks in those days, were machinery… manufactured in heavy industrial workshops and the keys weren’t something you misplaced… ya tripped over them. There were only four aircraft on the property then, a Tri-Pacer, Tiger Moth, Luton Minor and either a Cessna172 or the Cunnamulla station owner’s car, one of which was parked in a new corrugated iron lean to, attached to the end of the igloo. The Redcliffe aero club used Old Caboolture as a forced landing strip for commercial trainees but only did a touch and go landing as it was hideously short. We would fly over to Redcliffe to load the Tri-pacer if we wanted to take more than two aboard. The minimum aircraft had to keep clear of houses and weren’t allowed to cross public roads, so Caboolture was adequate to take off, fly ahead and land before coming to grief in the barbed wire fence at the end of the strip. Tall gumtrees on the south side of the strip stopped any turns that way and there wasn’t the room for a turn over the paddock on the north side, it being only a couple of hundred yards wide and potholey. I was first go in the Scout to get some feel for her. Wearing shorts and T shirt and a motorbike helmet I threaded my way through the cables and got a foot on the ground in front of the seat. Dragged my other leg through and was able to sit down. Lap seat belt was the safety equipment. No windshield, dashboard… no instruments … just a lawn mower throttle attached to the triangle side on my left and a stick between my legs. I put my feet up on the bottom of the pyramid when they weren’t needed as brakes. Keith hand swung the prop a couple of times and broom. Lots a smoke for a moment. View through the motorbike helmet a bit foggier than before. I let her warm up and the boys got away (so they could photograph the inaugural trial). There was that delightful thrum some fabric aeroplanes have, drumming through the wings as the engine RPM, exhaust and prop set up their harmonics. The other aeroplane that has that magic sound of numerous notes harmonising is the R1830s on a DC-3. They sing to you. I opened the throttle and moved forward bumping across lumpy grass tufts. The undercarriage legs were one eighth thick, maybe one and a quarter inch wide, spring steel strips with a shaft welded on the end for the golf buggy, plastic wheels. There were only two axes that the aircraft was controlled in, by the stick. Stick forward and back … elevators. Side to side … RUDDER! The tail wheel was responsive to stick input and she turned nicely. I lined up and opened her to three quarter throttle. She accelerated and I was trundling down the strip at about twenty K. and she responded to turn. I pushed the pole forward and the tail came up. And I continued towards the end before closing the throttle and seeing how long the tail could be kept up with elevator. No wind, so I gunned her again with full throttle back down the strip and pushed the pole full forward… nothing. I leaned forward as far as I could to move the centre of gravity a tiny bit forward and the tail came up. I accelerated till I got to high speed and lifted her off and let her bounce back down. Keith’s turn. Took the helmet off and wiped her on me shirt to get the oil off and handed her over. Keith stumbled in, looking like a kid playing on a jungle Jim in a playground. Older readers remember THEM… they’re too dangerous for little kiddies now. He did some feeling and hops and handed over to Col and we told him what we’d discovered. .My next go was to take her aloft and see how she flew. . Full throttle, lean hard forward and push the pole forward and off. Whoops… she was a bit like a lady passing a shop window. Had a tendency to unexpectedly turn… either way. Didn’t get airborne on the first try, till well past half way because of the long grass on the edge of the strip interfering with the wheels. Got her in the air a couple of feet up and didn’t like the nasty feeling in the seat of me pants as we dawdled along. Lots of lurching. Closed the throttle a bit and she quickly sank to the ground with steady movement of back stick. Keith had a go. Off into the boonies too, so it wasn’t me. She was a bit unforcastable in her direction whims till in the air. We were tightly confined with a barbed wire fence to the north and tall gums to the south. Keith and I got her airborne with uncomfortable sailings left and right. We stayed a foot or two above the ground, as that wasn’t too far to fall down. Reducing power to three quarters had her settle gently onto the tufty runway. On our second day I talked my old man into coming for a go. He had thirty seven thousand hours and had started out flying, when Gipsy Moths were the mighty performers of the day for learning on. Being almost seventy he was stiff and groaned a lot as he ]intricated himself into the cockpit. With all our gained knowledge passed on to him, he opened the throttle and sedately oozed over towards the barbed wire fence with the rudder jammed opposite to counteract the unexpected turn. Closed the throttle and taxied out of the long grass and had another go. Must have been a magnetic field set up in the Scout, because once again she was attracted to the barbed wire fence. He’d had enough. Turned her around and taxied back to us, turned the engine off, staggered out, tripping over wires, ripped the helmet off, chucked it down in disgust and declared, “Bloody thing’s dangerous” and stomped off to his car and went home. We persisted with flights down the runway, only a foot up till we had her sussed out. Col was given his briefing on his first solo… gun her to get her off the ground and hold her there, then slowly close the throttle applying back stick to keep her up till she can’t fly any more. We’d dispensed with the helmet. Extra WEIGHT and you were enclosed in a foggy bubble. A pair of goggles for the wind in the eyes and your ears were used, to listen to the airflow whistling past. This was a much better indication of speed. Col did his pre-take off check and gunned her Aeroplane gunning… (smooth opening of the throttle… not flooring it like some of our young road knights). Col forgot to push the pole forward straight away and kept straight till he remembered to ease her tail up. Careering along the runway at almost full speed, Col applied back pressure to lift her off. Full back stick and up she went, sudden … looked like a helicopter. Wing dropped a bit and Col got frightened, he was ten feet up and oozing towards the trees. Pushed the pole forward to reduce height and she took on the path of a refrigerator falling out of an upper story window. Bo-ing… Still lots of speed (full throttle)… collision with the ground had all wheels bam down and she had angle of attack and speed. Whoosh, up again to ten feet like a helicopter again. Col got his thoughts together and half closed the throttle. Ten foot drop in about thirty feet forward travel and she alighted in the long grass. Luckily Farmer Sampson was a tidy farmer and didn’t leave fallen timber lying around. Keith and I ran down to Col who was scrambling out of the intact flying machine and started jumping around like he might have squashed a ball or something. It was jubilation. He felt like the rest of us after OUR first solo. He was just a lot more demonstrative and absolutely STOKED. We decided Caboolture was too restrictive, so I asked a mate at Villeneuve with hundreds of flat acres if we could fly at his place. We flew together in the Friendship and were good mates. ]He slashed a big wide strip on the flat for us and only Col and I drove up for the big day. Keithy was on duty ready to put out fires and save people at Eagle Farm. To transport the beast, Col had a trailer on which the tied down, dismantled bits were taken to fields. We tied the prop vertical so it didn’t spin freewheeling all the way. We got to me mate’s place and when we stopped he asked, “What happened to the prop?” We looked around and the top half was a foot shorted than the bottom. Nasty jagged edge on the stump like that prop on the Southern Cross replica. We hadn’t noticed the cross bar made from a whacking great gumtree, sitting way up on the tall gate posts. The prop was one inch too high on the trailer. Took three weeks to have another hand crafted prop carved and delivered for three hundred bucks. Thatty was always tied horizontal when on the trailer. On a trailer, the airframe on its wheels with the Jesus post sticking up was waaay above head height. The first fly at Villeneuve was still pretty scary as the strip was on a big bend in the river and the trees along its bank were too high to climb over. We were in a basin of river trees on three sides and the steep slope from the river on the fourth. Turning towards trees for a down wind in a high wing aeroplane wasn’t an option Me mate reckoned we should go to an Ag strip out at Toogoolawa. It was a beauty. An old war time one. He gave me directions how to get there. We went there after I drove out to ask the owner of the property if we could use it. It WAS a beauty. Two long strips in an L shape and country roads on the opposite sides to the strips in the forty or so acre paddock, meant we could sneak right round in a circuit. We could fly just inside the fence line beside the road and wouldn’t be breaking the law .The road would be a forced landing strip if we needed it. We found out later, it was bitumen roads we weren’t to fly over. We all had great difficulty with direction control on the ground. My captain wouldn’t give up and hung in there, careering into the long grass, so only the red wings could be seen darting about and suddenly the whole machine appearing, to shoot across the runway into the grass on the other side. The wide spoon drains along the edges, added to the keystone cop quality of the scene with lots of bank angle making her look like she was rolling over We had a sandwich and coffee from the thermos flask and discussed the waywardness of the little bugger on the ground and it suddenly came to us. We were using the Tiger Moth technique of pushing the pole forward at the beginning of takeoff that we’d learned at the beginning of our careers. As we accelerated the elevators raised the tail off the ground and the tail wheel was clear while we sat blanketing the whole rudder which was ineffective till the tail was fairly high. The tail took time to come up because there was plenty of drag from full down elevator. While there was no directional control she was steered by the drag on the wheels as we hit tufts of grass. We held the stick back till we were pretty close to flying speed (wind note in the wires and passing our ears), then smartly raised the tail into the airflow. No more directional problems. NOW we could fly really high … like four feet up. We started discovering many other interestingnesses in the design. Remember learning about flat plates in airflows in theory of flight? Sixteen degrees come to mind? The elevators, or more correctly, the flying tailplane and the rudder (no fin) could move thirty degrees into the airflow and they suddenly were spoilers. We also found it a bit alarming when we tried climbing a bit and she’d descend. More back-stick and more descending. We used to get her up to maximum altitude of perhaps fifteen feet so we could make it round the ninety degree turn onto the cross strip. We met a couple of other Scout owners who joined us at Toogoolawah. They were car mechanics with the same company. Young guns with plenty of adventurism. Man did they have some stories of interesting crashes they and another bloke had experienced. The crash champ's most spectacular one was, the day he decided to fly over the heads of the audience who was standing close to a hangar. Champ wasn't aware of his wingspan and managed to collect the corner of the hangar with his wingtip. Strong turning force that. He immediately did a split arse, ninety degree flat turn, smack into the hangar wall. Prop flew to bits and zinged hell west and crooked past the diving spectators and the aeroplane turned into a parachute and gently descended to the ground with the engine now unfettered with the drag of a prop screaming like a Banshee at some unbelievable RPM. They had never learned to fly, so with the approach of the unskilled, did things we were never would have attempted and they got away with it because they didn’t know, you can’t do that! One thing that one didn’t get away with was, when going over a fence you need speed. He was flying along about three feet and climbed over a four foot barbed wire fence and landed up with a nasty scratch down one leg. He was pretty lucky not to have put the prop into the ground as the tail bow snagged the fence. That was when we discovered the progressive stalling characteristic of the Scout, so always dived a bit before the fence, to balloon over it and save the day over the other side by trying not to bam down on the ground and leap back into the air. We continued meeting up at the strip and staggering around at altitudes of two to occasionally ten feet and learning things like don’t try a one eighty turn in any sort of wind. Cart-wheeled her. Dug the wingtip in the ground and got a lot of grass and dirt jammed between the wheel and the rim. She showed us that her strength was the stainless cables. A real aeroplane would have folded up… the Scout just went boing , bounced, danced around the buried wing tip and raised a lot of dust. We decided to give flying up that day. We went to a Fun in the Sun fly-in at Kingaroy. We had a turn at using the runway with minimum aircraft and were all ready to go when there was an engine snag. Couldn’t get full power so she wouldn’t even stagger into the air. We were trying to find out what the problem was, when some cove who was one of the spectators wandering around the aircraft, said to me, “That won’t fly!” Well! We’d flown her plenty of times and what would HE know? I said as much … luckily kindly. His answer was one you read about. “Because I’m Ron Wheeler and I designed and made her.” I became humble and shook his hand and told him how I was very impressed that he’d beaten DOT (The department of transport) who didn’t want minimum aircraft flying. He explained that we didn’t have the wings pulled tight enough together so she wasn’t giving her full lift, with drag coming from the tiny flapping of the trailing edge for one. We said we thought the six inch gap between the sails’ foot was about all they could take. He said, “No they need to be only three inches apart to give the full lift.” Hurts ya hands pulling them that tight I can tell ya. Unfortunately we couldn’t find the fuel fault so I didn’t get to fly her and never did again for some reason. The mechanics went in for attaching floats and I heard they flew in Moreton Bay and did well. I later was given a go in a Mark two. That was the improved version with wing warping to raise a wing rather than the yaw needed to get it up in the original. Never liked that old idea of just rudder for raising a wing. Spins can come of that. That was why we stayed very close to the ground and would have continued doing so with the sails pulled in real tight. The wing warping was another nasty experience. You had a few ounces of pressure in pitch and about five pounds on roll. Hard to turn smoothly. The one I had a go in, also seemed to have the engine pointing down a bit, so when you closed the throttle, the nose went up. No other aeroplane I’ve flown does that and it is quite disconcerting. In all, I’d say flying the Scout was the most exciting and invigorating flying I’ve ever experienced and I’ve had LOTS of great experiences in DC-3s in PNG, Jets in Indonesia and owning a Tri Pacer. You were out in the air … nothing around you for protection. No instruments, so you had to be very conscious of the theory of flight. You titillated her and encouraged her to fly with gentle inputs. No radio, no other aeroplanes to worry about … low flying where sixty two KPH was flat out and ya bum was less than two feet from the dirt scooting by. In our search for performance to get up a hundred feet we even arrived at the frosty strip just as the sun rose, so we were in low density altitude. That got ya nose running, sitting in wind a couple of degrees above zero. We were probably overweight wearin’ leather gloves and two footy jumpers. That strip later was gotten a hold of by the SAAA and they named it Watts Bridge. We were the first to fly minimum aircraft there. The only other aircraft that used it back then were crop dusters and a mate when he ran out of options and spotted it in the rain years before in an Auster, or maybe it was a Leopard Moth. Ron Wheeler… we really need to thank him for what we have now. He opened the ANO 95.10 that got us funny things with engines that we can fly without at least a private license. Hang gliders were the only other aerial conveyances one could fly and after seeing one of them doing about seventy knots as it screamed into the treetops with the deflates wings flapping, I decided I was too much of a squib for them. That attitude was reinforced when another airline mate told me about the bones he broke flying his.