barryhoc
23rd Sep 2005, 01:02
below is a message which has seen some limited email/postal circulation over the last month or two - initial response has been encouraging to say the least - it was widely discussed at the very successful TAA/ANSETT-NG reunion last sat night and suggested i should post a copy on pprune so here goes - pls bear with me as the msg was not prepared for this forum and may be longer than normal
Subject: TAA-NG (1960/1073) book:
G'day all - and especially those who hopefully end up getting this msg and whom I haven't seen or had contact with for many years - my wife (Suzie Ryan) and I have recently returned from a most enjoyable (and tiring) w/end with Tom and Jenny Glasgow and John and Patti Coutts at the Glasgow's property in the Brisbane valley - (the spirit continues to be willing but the flesh is weak) - as usual there was much re-telling of many old stories from TAA-NG days which has prompted me to get started on something I have been thinking about for quite a while - and that is a book on TAA-NG hopefully covering the whole era from the hand-over from Qantas in 1960 to the formation of air niugini in 1973 - I was around from 1965 to 1972 but there are obviously many who were there before and/or after and some for a longer period - I was fortunate as an ops bloke to be centrally involved with most depts and ports/agents on a daily basis and that will be a plus - and I managed to accumulate and retain some work papers which will be useful - but I'm going to need all the help I can get and I hope you will all give me that where you can - altogether my own time in aviation spanned 37 years (1965/2001) with several breaks doing other things but like many addicts I kept coming back - employers were TAA/BNE-TAA/NG-TAA/BNE-TAA/MEL followed by Bushies/Bpa/AirQ'land then TNT Air Couriers/Hazelton/Lloyd Aviation/Northeast/Sungold/Air Niugini and finally MBA/Airlines of PNG - most positions were middle to senior mgmt ops with some skeds planning and some gen mgmt - plenty of variety with lots of ups and downs and always interesting - but nothing to compare with taa/png - what an era it was - a nucleus of professional pilots/hostesses and engineers supported by a generally young and enthusiastic but disparate group sometimes with little or no aviation experience (such as yours truly) - thrown together in a country very reliant on but equally hostile to aviation with regard to geography and weather - a network of often marginal airstrips to be serviced with a mix of aircraft - some wonderful - but some also relatively slow and underpowered - after taa/png I didn't think I would ever see more suitable airliners to service png than the venerable DC3 and F27 - but when I went to air niugini in 1989 there was the "pocket-rocket" F28 - and later on at mba/airlines of png the dash8 - what we would have done with that level of equipment in the 1960's - the continually improved twin-otter (DHC6) was still the leading charter/commuter aircraft but unfortunately apart from aeroplanes not much else had improved - in fact generally the opposite applied - anyway back to taa/png where we certainly made the best use we could of what we had at the time - often far from easy and under considerable pressure - with the inevitable associated confrontation sometimes mixed in with the normally high levels of co-operation - but we generally got the job done - and pushed the limits both at work and socially for well over a decade - as usual people made it what it was for better or for worse and that is what I want my book to be about - the corporate history of taa/png is documented elsewhere as is the coming and going of various aircraft types and registrations - I will use that as a base but I want to tell the human story behind all that - who were the crew - who despatched it - what was the payload - where did it go u/s - what was wrong - where did we overnight - how did we rescue - how did they change that engine at some outport with no facilities - who was that ferry crew - how did they get the job - why did ops do whatever we did that seemed crazy to those without the big picture - most of us have at least one great story to tell along similar lines - some will have many - they deserve to be told and should be told and put down in writing for future generations - I'd like to try and do that with your help - once we're gone (some sadly have and the rest of us are getting closer) those great stories will be lost forever - I haven't done any formal research as yet but here are some random examples of personal story lines from my early days in lae which occur to me as I write this and think back: - (limited names at this stage till we get all the facts right)
1. following the sun to Brisbane and getting a job as a "bag snatcher" with taa - within about 3 mths on my way to lae to work in ops - no training - no experience - "what did ops do ???"
2. arriving to be told they had also employed a bloke locally for my job - put on joint-probation for about 3 mths - I got the nod and the other bloke went to finance
3. got involved with 1 of 2 bands in lae at the time - pretended to play guitar with one a couple of times - only knew 2 chords so had to mostly fake it - 2 bands eventually amalgamated into 1 very good one and managed them for a few months - highlight was playing the gka show ball (1967 I think) - black tie affair with vice-regal patronage(G.G.(later Sir) Roden Cutler) - ****** baron charter from lae return - accomm at the Collins and Leahy mess - do you remember the band ??? - JOHNNY DIWAI AND THE SPLINTERS - very good band - great name - diwai being the pidgin word for wood and the band leader's name was john wood and john wood was a carpenter
4. spent much of first few mths passing msgs re a/c movements and crew rosters via single side band and tele-radio to/from ports - initially had no idea what I was talking about and am surprised anyone else did - one day the fog just cleared and I finally u/stood some of what I was saying
5. promoted to senior roster clerk after about 6 mths - weekly rosters in those days - heaps of charter work certainly before the highlands highway - rarely enough aeroplanes - never enough crew - training was watching 1 roster prepared by previous officer - it's called the “deep-end” system
6. as a very inexperienced w/end duty officer was aggressively queried by an afap officer about a planned air drop from a single-otter - from memory and incredibly I think he threatened to let the air out of the tyres if I didn't cancel the operation - I can't remember the grounds for sure but think it had to do with whether the pilot/aircraft was approved to do drops - the operating pilot didn't seem to have a problem - I had no idea what was going on but fortunately was able to refer to FOS and we eventually went flying as planned - I assume there was some history to this of which I remain unaware to this day - maybe I'll find out
7. I digress from my time line but a few years later we tried to air-drop some 44 gallon drums of fuel onto a lake (name escapes me for the moment) - might have been lake trist (since confirmed it was) - initially we tried a dc3 freighter - two of our finest up front - couttsy and I were the drop crew - rear door off - safety lines a couple of pieces of rope tied to the fuselage oppposite - first run low - and slow - we pushed the first drum out end over end - only to see it burst on hitting the water - second run lower and slower - this one we rolled out sideways - same result - third run even lower and slower - not much margin for error by now - thinking like dambusters this time we rolled the drum out as close as possible to the direction we were travelling - success at last - but to get the drums into position one had to do the manhandling while the other held a safety rope with one hand and the back of the other bloke's jeans with the other - I doubt it was in the safety manual - at this stage we decided one out of three wasn't an economic success rate - not to be beaten we did have another go in a twin-otter - even lower and slower - but same result - and we had to give it away with considerable disgust - I think the drums eventually went in a couple at a time slung under a chopper
8. taa social club dc3 charters - day return to finschhafen with trailer ride behind the agent's tractor to the waterhole - w/end to the trobriand islands - a long way in 32 side-saddle plus 4x4 hi-density seating (a 6-stubby trip) - boat trips to salamaua and busama - rumours of skinny-dipping persist to this day
9. another black-tie affair was the annual taa ball - we used to bring a load of staff over from pom for the night - one year the plan was to send a dc3 to merauke to p/u some croc skins drop them in pom and p/u the staff for lae - murphy's law applied and there was a delay at merauke but comms were poor and it was late when we found out - no night-flying in those years and last light looked like beating us - we had a dc3 on the ground in lae and a check and training/management pilot just happened to be in the office - he got organised while we grabbed a first-officer who was wandering around in civvies and was taxying as the f/o chased the dak across the tarmac - launched himself thru the rear door - pulled it shut behind him and got to the r/h seat in time for the take-off run - I wouldn't say it was strictly according to the book but we did get the pom staff to the ball - (edit) i was reminded at the recent (170905) TAA/ANSETT-NG reunion that the croc charter eventually made it back - to lae not pom (no ball in pom) - and we sent the pom staff home next morning on that a/c with heavy hangovers and very smelly croc skins still loaded
10. there were a couple of rivers we could get to by road just east of lae - you crossed the butibum just a km or so out of town - after that we called it busu rd and I think the busu river - perhaps 15 kms out - was where we used to do some death-defying surfing tricks - there was another further out - I may have only got there once and I forget the name - there were lots of large boulders in the river beds and when the rivers were really running swift rapids would form - the fairly dangerous game was to launch yourself from the old war-time bridge in a sort of swan-dive/belly-flop and hope you skidded and didn't kill yourself on the rocks - if you survived you could then body surf the rapids for a few hundred yards downstream where a mate (preferably a good one) would throw out an inflated tube (gumi) tied to a rope which you had to grab in order to be hauled in - if you missed you just tried not to drown before the rapids subsided and you could get to a bank - preferably before you got to salt water where there might have been other perils - followed by a long walk back to the bridge - ah to be young and silly enough to think we were immortal
so - enough preamble - first step is to get this out to contacts I/we already have and hope that leads to a reasonably comprehensive list of all those who worked at taa-ng - pls come back to me ASAP with any contacts you might have or know of or just forward this on - tell me who you were - what you did when - who were your workmates - who were your bosses - who did you socialise with - initially just names and contacts where poss will be great - email is best - I can do fone-fax but need a call first so I can switch over - as they say in the classics "lukim yu" - cheers and regards - Barry Hockings
Barry Hockings,
P.O. Box 64, / 3 Tharra St.,
Coolum Beach. Q4573.
email: [email protected]
phone/fax: 07-54463339 best time is 1030/1530 mon to fri
Subject: TAA-NG (1960/1073) book:
G'day all - and especially those who hopefully end up getting this msg and whom I haven't seen or had contact with for many years - my wife (Suzie Ryan) and I have recently returned from a most enjoyable (and tiring) w/end with Tom and Jenny Glasgow and John and Patti Coutts at the Glasgow's property in the Brisbane valley - (the spirit continues to be willing but the flesh is weak) - as usual there was much re-telling of many old stories from TAA-NG days which has prompted me to get started on something I have been thinking about for quite a while - and that is a book on TAA-NG hopefully covering the whole era from the hand-over from Qantas in 1960 to the formation of air niugini in 1973 - I was around from 1965 to 1972 but there are obviously many who were there before and/or after and some for a longer period - I was fortunate as an ops bloke to be centrally involved with most depts and ports/agents on a daily basis and that will be a plus - and I managed to accumulate and retain some work papers which will be useful - but I'm going to need all the help I can get and I hope you will all give me that where you can - altogether my own time in aviation spanned 37 years (1965/2001) with several breaks doing other things but like many addicts I kept coming back - employers were TAA/BNE-TAA/NG-TAA/BNE-TAA/MEL followed by Bushies/Bpa/AirQ'land then TNT Air Couriers/Hazelton/Lloyd Aviation/Northeast/Sungold/Air Niugini and finally MBA/Airlines of PNG - most positions were middle to senior mgmt ops with some skeds planning and some gen mgmt - plenty of variety with lots of ups and downs and always interesting - but nothing to compare with taa/png - what an era it was - a nucleus of professional pilots/hostesses and engineers supported by a generally young and enthusiastic but disparate group sometimes with little or no aviation experience (such as yours truly) - thrown together in a country very reliant on but equally hostile to aviation with regard to geography and weather - a network of often marginal airstrips to be serviced with a mix of aircraft - some wonderful - but some also relatively slow and underpowered - after taa/png I didn't think I would ever see more suitable airliners to service png than the venerable DC3 and F27 - but when I went to air niugini in 1989 there was the "pocket-rocket" F28 - and later on at mba/airlines of png the dash8 - what we would have done with that level of equipment in the 1960's - the continually improved twin-otter (DHC6) was still the leading charter/commuter aircraft but unfortunately apart from aeroplanes not much else had improved - in fact generally the opposite applied - anyway back to taa/png where we certainly made the best use we could of what we had at the time - often far from easy and under considerable pressure - with the inevitable associated confrontation sometimes mixed in with the normally high levels of co-operation - but we generally got the job done - and pushed the limits both at work and socially for well over a decade - as usual people made it what it was for better or for worse and that is what I want my book to be about - the corporate history of taa/png is documented elsewhere as is the coming and going of various aircraft types and registrations - I will use that as a base but I want to tell the human story behind all that - who were the crew - who despatched it - what was the payload - where did it go u/s - what was wrong - where did we overnight - how did we rescue - how did they change that engine at some outport with no facilities - who was that ferry crew - how did they get the job - why did ops do whatever we did that seemed crazy to those without the big picture - most of us have at least one great story to tell along similar lines - some will have many - they deserve to be told and should be told and put down in writing for future generations - I'd like to try and do that with your help - once we're gone (some sadly have and the rest of us are getting closer) those great stories will be lost forever - I haven't done any formal research as yet but here are some random examples of personal story lines from my early days in lae which occur to me as I write this and think back: - (limited names at this stage till we get all the facts right)
1. following the sun to Brisbane and getting a job as a "bag snatcher" with taa - within about 3 mths on my way to lae to work in ops - no training - no experience - "what did ops do ???"
2. arriving to be told they had also employed a bloke locally for my job - put on joint-probation for about 3 mths - I got the nod and the other bloke went to finance
3. got involved with 1 of 2 bands in lae at the time - pretended to play guitar with one a couple of times - only knew 2 chords so had to mostly fake it - 2 bands eventually amalgamated into 1 very good one and managed them for a few months - highlight was playing the gka show ball (1967 I think) - black tie affair with vice-regal patronage(G.G.(later Sir) Roden Cutler) - ****** baron charter from lae return - accomm at the Collins and Leahy mess - do you remember the band ??? - JOHNNY DIWAI AND THE SPLINTERS - very good band - great name - diwai being the pidgin word for wood and the band leader's name was john wood and john wood was a carpenter
4. spent much of first few mths passing msgs re a/c movements and crew rosters via single side band and tele-radio to/from ports - initially had no idea what I was talking about and am surprised anyone else did - one day the fog just cleared and I finally u/stood some of what I was saying
5. promoted to senior roster clerk after about 6 mths - weekly rosters in those days - heaps of charter work certainly before the highlands highway - rarely enough aeroplanes - never enough crew - training was watching 1 roster prepared by previous officer - it's called the “deep-end” system
6. as a very inexperienced w/end duty officer was aggressively queried by an afap officer about a planned air drop from a single-otter - from memory and incredibly I think he threatened to let the air out of the tyres if I didn't cancel the operation - I can't remember the grounds for sure but think it had to do with whether the pilot/aircraft was approved to do drops - the operating pilot didn't seem to have a problem - I had no idea what was going on but fortunately was able to refer to FOS and we eventually went flying as planned - I assume there was some history to this of which I remain unaware to this day - maybe I'll find out
7. I digress from my time line but a few years later we tried to air-drop some 44 gallon drums of fuel onto a lake (name escapes me for the moment) - might have been lake trist (since confirmed it was) - initially we tried a dc3 freighter - two of our finest up front - couttsy and I were the drop crew - rear door off - safety lines a couple of pieces of rope tied to the fuselage oppposite - first run low - and slow - we pushed the first drum out end over end - only to see it burst on hitting the water - second run lower and slower - this one we rolled out sideways - same result - third run even lower and slower - not much margin for error by now - thinking like dambusters this time we rolled the drum out as close as possible to the direction we were travelling - success at last - but to get the drums into position one had to do the manhandling while the other held a safety rope with one hand and the back of the other bloke's jeans with the other - I doubt it was in the safety manual - at this stage we decided one out of three wasn't an economic success rate - not to be beaten we did have another go in a twin-otter - even lower and slower - but same result - and we had to give it away with considerable disgust - I think the drums eventually went in a couple at a time slung under a chopper
8. taa social club dc3 charters - day return to finschhafen with trailer ride behind the agent's tractor to the waterhole - w/end to the trobriand islands - a long way in 32 side-saddle plus 4x4 hi-density seating (a 6-stubby trip) - boat trips to salamaua and busama - rumours of skinny-dipping persist to this day
9. another black-tie affair was the annual taa ball - we used to bring a load of staff over from pom for the night - one year the plan was to send a dc3 to merauke to p/u some croc skins drop them in pom and p/u the staff for lae - murphy's law applied and there was a delay at merauke but comms were poor and it was late when we found out - no night-flying in those years and last light looked like beating us - we had a dc3 on the ground in lae and a check and training/management pilot just happened to be in the office - he got organised while we grabbed a first-officer who was wandering around in civvies and was taxying as the f/o chased the dak across the tarmac - launched himself thru the rear door - pulled it shut behind him and got to the r/h seat in time for the take-off run - I wouldn't say it was strictly according to the book but we did get the pom staff to the ball - (edit) i was reminded at the recent (170905) TAA/ANSETT-NG reunion that the croc charter eventually made it back - to lae not pom (no ball in pom) - and we sent the pom staff home next morning on that a/c with heavy hangovers and very smelly croc skins still loaded
10. there were a couple of rivers we could get to by road just east of lae - you crossed the butibum just a km or so out of town - after that we called it busu rd and I think the busu river - perhaps 15 kms out - was where we used to do some death-defying surfing tricks - there was another further out - I may have only got there once and I forget the name - there were lots of large boulders in the river beds and when the rivers were really running swift rapids would form - the fairly dangerous game was to launch yourself from the old war-time bridge in a sort of swan-dive/belly-flop and hope you skidded and didn't kill yourself on the rocks - if you survived you could then body surf the rapids for a few hundred yards downstream where a mate (preferably a good one) would throw out an inflated tube (gumi) tied to a rope which you had to grab in order to be hauled in - if you missed you just tried not to drown before the rapids subsided and you could get to a bank - preferably before you got to salt water where there might have been other perils - followed by a long walk back to the bridge - ah to be young and silly enough to think we were immortal
so - enough preamble - first step is to get this out to contacts I/we already have and hope that leads to a reasonably comprehensive list of all those who worked at taa-ng - pls come back to me ASAP with any contacts you might have or know of or just forward this on - tell me who you were - what you did when - who were your workmates - who were your bosses - who did you socialise with - initially just names and contacts where poss will be great - email is best - I can do fone-fax but need a call first so I can switch over - as they say in the classics "lukim yu" - cheers and regards - Barry Hockings
Barry Hockings,
P.O. Box 64, / 3 Tharra St.,
Coolum Beach. Q4573.
email: [email protected]
phone/fax: 07-54463339 best time is 1030/1530 mon to fri