It was all better back then... [Archive]

sixtiesrelic

19th Nov 2010, 22:08

It’s because we started at the bottom and gradually crept up!

1. Learned to FLY. Started in a Tiger Moth or Auster with no wireless set to have to operate. We concentrated on learning flying skills with only five light signals and two coloured flares to keep an eye out on the tower for.

2. When we upgraded into a Chippie we learned about wirelesses with five VHF channels and then later Cessnas with a HF radio with squelch and volume nobs and another four or six crystals in that. Some had a fishing reel in the ceiling whith the rtrailing aerial wound on it you had to remember to wind back in or you lost her on the aerodrome fence. Cessnas or Tripacers had a great big radio compass with it’s three bands and a great round dial full of frequencies and a BFO switch.
Air Law and CRM what the hell were they.

3. Controlled area was above ten thousand. Who got to ten grand in one of those old girls… too bloody cold. The control zones just were around the capitals and we went into them when we were well into our Commercial Nav training… maybe.

4. Student pilots were learners who said WOW! when they met a Private Pilot. Commercial trainees were up there with God. They sometimes flew in cabin aeroplanes and wore suits when they did.

5. Student Pilots, including Commercial students were going to be flying like an Airline pilot in a great big DC-6, one day in the future… when they had learned all their stuff.

6. Bars on shoulders were respected. One and a half meant, “He’s made the airlines and is a First Officer in a great big DC-3. He’s learned his stuff, proved it to the interviewers and the bars are the proof.
The bloke with one and a half, looked up to the bloke with two, who looked forward to the gruelling training had proving he’d get to do to wear two and a half and be in command of an airliner.

7. The Captain had been honed by fellers who learned how not to kill themselves in primitive collections of sticks ‘n pipe covered in rag from Kingsford Smith, Horry Miller, Aub Kosch and the like or had come back after the Germans and Japs had tried knockin’ them down with tons of red hot steel for years. They had learned all the tricks and rules of thumb and they slowly and generously passed the knowledge on to us. We knew we were in the presence of real pilots and maybe we could become a bit like them over the next ten years. There was a bloody lot to learn.

8. Most captains were humble and didn’t strut round quoting buzz words like, "responsibility", "command decision" etc, to impress themselves when they had an audience.

9. Hosties respected pilots and didn’t think they were more important than the young FO because THEY’d been in the company longer. They got chucked out at thirty or when they were married

… oh for the old days.

Now, Instructors with no experience have to toe the line and teach students (out of the book) to think they're just like Jumbo Captains from the start.

sms777

19th Nov 2010, 23:55

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.....:E

ForkTailedDrKiller

20th Nov 2010, 00:25

Geez, where did I put my violin?

Dr :8

PS: You fellas are talking about stuff that even I don't remember - and I took my first flight in a C150 in 1966!

But I do remember when the hosties who plied me with red wine and caviar enroute Isa to Brisbane were "hot"!

harrowing

20th Nov 2010, 00:56

To think I was told twenty years ago I was too young to know that Frank Ifield classic. When music was real.:D

tinpis

20th Nov 2010, 01:31

There ya go...I dont remember Caviar being available on the 72?

Unhinged

20th Nov 2010, 01:44

As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress

Should be more of it :E

das Uber Soldat

20th Nov 2010, 03:53

http://www.google.com.au/url?source=imgres&ct=img&q=http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/kotaku/2010/10/500x_500x_500x_500x_500x_500x_500x_500x_weekincomments_01_01 _04-1_01.jpg&sa=X&ei=OVPnTMC6B4qGuQOfraTCCA&ved=0CAQQ8wc4MQ&usg=AFQjCNHHqXAJScXMoMVwCKUFus-B8nBjqg

Classic thread.

Why hasnt anyone complained about walking 20 miles to school through the driving snow in Mt Isa, up hill both directions yet?

Peter Fanelli

20th Nov 2010, 04:00

Get real, everybody had kangaroos to ride to school in Mt Isa.

PLovett

20th Nov 2010, 04:03

"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint... As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress."
Attributed to Peter the Hermit, AD 1274

My bold. How the bleedin' 'eck would he know! :}

Brian Abraham

20th Nov 2010, 04:30

The complaints go back a bit further than Peter the Hermit, AD 1274 Lester.

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277
(1953)."

And you could have this without all the PCers getting knickers in a twist.

_IqEMPYS9XM

troppo

20th Nov 2010, 05:07

dUS classic post. Wasn't it better back when the old crouchers went to the retirement home to eat mashed veges and play bingo? Where's the gratitude to the younger generations for Viagra and internet. If the old fellas embraced pay for training back in the day, they all could have flown what they wanted. :E

EBCAU

20th Nov 2010, 05:53

Viagra and the internet have been around so long I don't think they can be attributed to the young generation any more.

Tankengine

20th Nov 2010, 05:55

Tinpis,
Those Hosties are still there!:E

literally!:eek:

frangatang

20th Nov 2010, 06:05

Not in Birdseed Airways they are not. Why only the other day l am sure l heard someone calling capn ahab man the harpoon. How can you make a uniform that ferking large.

Another Number

20th Nov 2010, 08:09

Word to the young.........you bitch about old equipment.

Too bloody right they bitch, don't they!

What's the average age of GA aircraft these days? 40 years?

My memory's not what it used to be, but I'm sure you're right ... I'm sure all Hero students in the sixties drooled at the prospect of earning negative income for years for the chance to fly shiny 1920s era passenger aircraft! :ok:

Jabawocky

20th Nov 2010, 10:13

Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households.

Not in my house!

Hey sixtiesrelic..........You should write a book! :ok: ;)

Tmbstory

20th Nov 2010, 11:36

They were good days when the Main Computer was your own brain and good Airmanship was a thing to achieve.

The young pilots of today will be the older pilots of tomorrow ( we hope ).

Tmb

Peter Fanelli

20th Nov 2010, 11:53

Word to the young.........you bitch about old equipment.
Too bloody right they bitch, don't they!

What's the average age of GA aircraft these days? 40 years?

And yet a mature pilot will lust after the opportunity to jump in something even older like a Tiger Moth or DC-3 and take it for a fly while the foolish yoof think a C208 is the bees knees.

Slasher

20th Nov 2010, 13:58

Pilots back then had an overwelming urge to stop talking just to watch an aeroplane take off. I still do (esp DC3, DC9, 727 etc if Im lucky to catch one) but the i-kids dont.

You could personaly get tough with pax making @rseholes of themselves without fear of it being posted on Utube one hour later

Smoking seats

Get a face-to-face brief from the Metman and have a very clear picture of what to expect.

The captain took the fuel HE wanted, not what a armchair beancounter dictated

An assumed temp takeoff was merely an option if you felt like doing it

You felt a real satisfaction getting the beast from Sydney to Perth on a ****ty night after "howgozing it" all the way to Kalgoorlie

Susan Jones (she wasnt with my mob as I was a Whispering T-Jet boy but in both outfits the panash was there)

No worrys about PEDs interfering with nav equipment

Public observation areas atop terminals

Passengers actualy dressed up for their airline flight

The biggest acronym was "DCA AIP RAC/OPS"

Flight engineers! :ok:

No bloodey handphones

You could tell the hostie she was the most beautiful woman youve ever met without fear of a sexual harassment charge

A320s werent invented yet! :ok: :ok: :ok:

frigatebird

20th Nov 2010, 18:22

From yesterdays local rag, - 150 Years Young..

1947
PLANES BANNED
The Department of Civil Aviation has declared Maryborough Airport partially unserviceable, meaning nothing heavier than a De Havillland Dragon can land. The Lockheed Lodestar, which lands here four times a day, can use the grass alongside the runways unless it is raining when planes can get bogged. Even worse, the Department has decided to bypass Maryborough and build a modern emergency landing ground at Bundaberg.

yet two years later....

1949
TAA service
The first aircraft of a new service will land at Maryborough's airport on Monday. Trans Australia Airlines, TAA, has arrived and the local agent, Mr. Allan Strong, says flights will be on the north and south schedules.
A 21-passenger Douglas aircraft will land twice a day, seven days a week from next Monday.

Flew a Club one privately in '68, then did Commercial training in a 1967 H model 172 in '69, so it was still a new aircraft then. Now that I have one, with less than 4,000 hours on its clock, I still think of the H model as a modern aircraft, as it is as familiar as an old friend.. The 1959 model 182 Skylane first flown as a company aircraft in '71, didn't seem old technology then, and would be quite happy to climb back into a well maintained one again now.

RAC/OPS

20th Nov 2010, 18:37

Who are you calling a big acronym!!

Peter Fanelli

20th Nov 2010, 19:26

My memory's not what it used to be, but I'm sure you're right ... I'm sure all Hero students in the sixties drooled at the prospect of earning negative income for years for the chance to fly shiny 1920s era passenger aircraft!

Well you can't blame the older generation for that, it wasn't us who started happily bending over and paying for various jet training.

ROKAPE

21st Nov 2010, 12:13

Pete

It was your generation that was in charge while enforcing the "bending over" antics to junior pilots AND the baby boomer generations have been in charge of every major f*&k up since WW2....

Aero Mad

21st Nov 2010, 12:41

I'm a young pilot who loves old equipment! Especially the Trislander, which in my opinion is Britain's rather fitting revenge on the Empire ;)

tinpis

21st Nov 2010, 18:08

Especially the Trislander, which in my opinion is Britain's rather fitting revenge on the Empire

They got their revenge much earlier hanging Darts off things.

http://airukreunion.co.uk/images/herald.jpg

Many an Ozzer got a start in Pommyland on these and other DiDartsters

Fris B. Fairing

21st Nov 2010, 20:57

Slasher, add to your list ...

The loadsheet was brought to the aeroplane by the traffic officer who compiled it.

Rgds

Peter Fanelli

21st Nov 2010, 21:06

It was your generation that was in charge while enforcing the "bending over" antics to junior pilots AND the baby boomer generations have been in charge of every major f*&k up since WW2....

Surely you're not suggesting that it's the older pilots who are asking young pilots to pay for their own training.

Brian Abraham

22nd Nov 2010, 02:13

Surely you're not suggesting that it's the older pilots who are asking young pilots to pay for their own training.Well it's certainly none of the youngsters responsibility that the industry has descended to the levels that it has. That is all down to the people who already had a seat in row 0, and shot themselves in the collective feet back in ..... Not that would have stopped the rot. We now live in a time where industrial relations (?), no matter what the industry, consist of dictatorial pronouncements from management and the PAYE have little or no avenue available to push back.

You be wanting one of these then tinpis?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c3/HPR.3_Herald_Farnborough_1955.jpg/800px-HPR.3_Herald_Farnborough_1955.jpg

das Uber Soldat

22nd Nov 2010, 02:30

This thread started out funny, but now its stupid.

Young pilots today are no different to young pilots of yesterday. Old pilots today are no different to old pilots of yesterday. You're an idiot if you think for the first time in human history some genetic alteration has occurred turning the younger generation into a mindless pack of self centered idiots.

The only thing that changes are perceptions, and those are shaped by your age. Older people have been complaining about younger people since time immemorial and if you are unable to recognize that pattern and its 'coincidental' similarity with your own complaints regarding the current younger generation, you're a muppet.

I enjoy poking fun at the relevant stereotype of pilots both older and younger than myself, but to actually assert that the regrettable situation aviation finds itself in today is literally the fault of one age group or another. Bleh!

bushy

22nd Nov 2010, 05:02

There IS a generation gap. And it is HUGE!
That is as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be.
We can live with the generation gap. Thank god we do have some new thinkers in the industry.

But pilots have been ****ting in their own nest for decades, and the accumulation of this has degraded the industry.

GA has never been financially sound, except in a few small pockets. There was a time when large tax concessions were happening for aircraft purchases, and there was a lot of oil exploration in this country. So there were new aircraft and some good work for them. GA aircraft were improving rapidly,with new models coming. Light aircraft were running RPT services. Pilots were in the industry for the long term, and only a few went to Airlines. There were lots of experienced pilots.

But it was temporary and false, and gradually died. Our regulator helped kill it.

We can and must improve GA, but no-one seems interested.

So we will go back to discussing "how can I get a bigger aeroplane, and lots of money" And "why doesn't my dumb boss spend a squillion and buy me a flash plane to fly, instead of this clapped out bucket"

That's as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be.

tinpis

22nd Nov 2010, 08:58

Ah Brian, the throb of four 14 cyl. Alvis Leonides unless I is mistook?

HarleyD

22nd Nov 2010, 23:27

Is this a D&G JB thread??

The old days were better, and I'm not THAT old.

the Light Aircraft Handbook (keep it away from the compass), and then, the VFG the size of a western paperback and bound (no amendments).

NAAFI send you a pile of free charts regularly for all of Australia, FOR FREE!!, and we complained about it!

DCA had a great wings logo, although no-one had heard of the word - logo.

Heaps of the blokes around the aero club were WWII fighter and bomber pilots , or WAGS etc. they had REAL war stories.

There was an alcohol fueled piano in every aero club lounge (see above)

The Tri Pacer was considered to be a real aeroplane

Powered flight had only been around for a bit over 60 years and had gone from rickety bird cages to high speed domestic and international flights where all passengers (not customers) were not required to turn up several hours proior to departure for a ritual humuliation by security staff.

The RAAF had supersonic jet fighters that were good for M2.2 and were about to order a state of the art supersonic jet bomber.

Television news was full of images of a war that the USA was waging in a remote country where the locals were not too happy about being liberated.

Some aero clubs were just receiving their brand new cessna 172's

the most scary ISM was communism

Winston Churchill died

Elizabeth II was Queen of England (etc..)

space flight was the new thing and there was talk of travel to...MARS

Australia was a not insignificant player in the whole space thing with our own world class rocket range.

When you needed a WX briefing you made an 'airmove priority call' ( melb 902023 got you the moorrabbin met office), where you would talk to a real met man who could guess (just a bit better than a supercomputer model) what the weather would do for the next few hours.

Skyphone (6 channel?) VHF radios, which you didn't even turn on unless there was an AFIS or control tower that needed talking to, terminal radar was skin paint and only airliners had transponders.

It was not neccessary to hold a public crowd and traffic contral hazard analysis with the local plod prior to organizing and 'air pageant'

Public liability insurance??? wha is da ??

Wow, variable pitch propellors!... drool

You could sit up front and have steer of the DC3 if you were an aviation besotted kid, "steady boy , we don't want anybody getting sick do we?"

you could buy real WWII leather flying helmets and goggles at army disposals for a few bob.

Your bedroom cieling was covered with badly painted Airfix models hanging from bits of cotton thread and gathering dust, much to your mums annoyance.

You joined the ATC so that you could win a flying scholarship and dream of becoming a fighter pilot.

Cropduster pilots were heroes not environmental rapists....

Ahhhhhh those were the days

HD

Aye Ess

23rd Nov 2010, 02:22

Ah Harley,the memories.

Every aerodrome,strip or airport had a public phone with scrawled phone numbers on the wall,for SARWATCH cancellation,local taxi,refueller,met briefing,flightplan submission. Yes,'Air move priority call,can I have Bankstown'. 'Airflash' was only to be used for emergency. Checking the HF radio in the morning,unable to hear FS 2km away,but getting 'reading you five' from a station 3 states away.

Arriving in the GA parking area at Sydney,Bankstown,Brisbane or Archerfield & taxying up and down rows of aeroplanes looking for a parking spot.

A Navaho or Aztec was a very sophisticated aircraft. A Twin otter was a mini airliner because it was a turbo prop.

SpyderPig

23rd Nov 2010, 05:44

Great reading! But please stop. Im starting to feel like a kid who snuck out for a party only to get there and find the cops broke it up 10mins ago:(:ugh:

Kharon

23rd Nov 2010, 06:19

When Pat (N) used to have dust ups with night freight pilots on the tarmac at Mascot, (cash bets only) and the only 2 'ASIC' were worn by him and his black Labrador dog (interchangeable). It was rumored that the dog had the air side driving ticket, not Pat. The two of them steaming down the taxi way to tug home a sick ship from the middle of 25/16 on a wet 2 am.

Max Flutter used to do unpaid overtime to brief and teach silly young buggers at the BK met office, and always had a tip for the Saturday race.

Cup of coffee ready at Dubbo, taxi booked at Broken Hill, (called flight service if I remember).

The smell of 100/130 (Green) and noting that the Wasp Junior had leaked 10 drops instead of it' s customary 22 and enjoying discussing it with the 'grown ups' at the end of a long, lovely day (or night) over couple of beers. Heigh Ho

Stationair8

23rd Nov 2010, 06:39

In the good old days we had Flight Service, always good for a coffee and a chat, a good FSO always knew which company was going broke, who was recruiting, who was moving onto the big airlines etc.

Aye Ess

23rd Nov 2010, 06:45

Indeed Stationair, Flight Service & refuellers were the pilots' rumour network long before internet pprune.

Kharon,I seem to remember Pat was employed by Flt Facilities & was a refueller. I remember the labrador wandered all over the apron area,never seemed to get in the way & everyone knew it. Someone must remember the dog's name?

troppo

23rd Nov 2010, 07:03

Being the only passenger on NAC F27 from Timaru to Wellington and the crew inviting you up front for the flight, likewise Mt Cook HS748 from Christchurch to Rotorua. Being the best behaved kid on the flight and getting to hand out the boiled sweets at TOD and a few extra in the pocket. Going to school with the sweets with the koru on the wrapper and your friends saying wow you've been on an aeroplane. Being paged on the pixie airbus by name from POM to AKL to go to the cockpit because one of the other pixie pilots that you were drinking with a couple of days earlier left a note in the crews pidgeon hole.

Skynews

23rd Nov 2010, 07:21

Most companies were owned and operated by aviation enthusiast/entrepreneurs, not bean counters with no practacle knowledge, and quite frankly could give a rats. Hazilton, kendals, Aeropelican, masling, Talair even Ansett, were started and built up by individuals

Kharon

23rd Nov 2010, 07:56

The dog's name was 'Nigger', rumor had it that W. Lazarini (Billy the Pig) picked it up in a pub one night and it never left. The dog knew the pilots, (not biblically; well ?) was always well mannered about aircraft and yes, generally had the run of the place. One airport 'security' guy had a wife that used to make 'snacks' for "Nig".

I miss the pure fun we had; stuff ups were just that, swift boot or encouragement as and when required, from ATC, DCA, Chief Pilot, mates, Engineers, or even Pat's big brother Mick. No criminal charges for being young and dopey.

Learned more on the ramp and about the traps, had more fun, buried some mates, was best man for others. Yup, for me, those were the days. Where' s the love??

weloveseaplanes

23rd Nov 2010, 08:08

Fences and security were for prisons while airports were magical open places of adventure. The spitfire outside the gate was a a real one, the airline pilots you bumped into always had a smile and enough time for a chat.

At international airports you could park your Hillman Avenger on the grass next to the apron, stroll across to the lines of planes, all with keys in then, pick one, preflight it, take the keys out to show she was yours and then search inside the aeroclub for an instructor . . .

Picking strawberriers, sweeping floors, working in a fish and chips shops, cutting your neighbors grass and cleaning their cars was enough to pay for your lessons.

A c-cat instructor was a god, you felt lucky to be asked to wash the aircraft after the flight, every hangar had a cat, when it rained the old aviation magazines were always a good read and it made it better that the pool table was on a lean and the 6 ball was missing.

You felt like each flight was an adventure and you were part of something grand where a snotty nosed teenage student pilot, a crop duster, jumbo driver and home built eccentric were all brothers of the sky. You didn't worry about getting a job as just getting a flight today felt like you were living.

Aye Ess

23rd Nov 2010, 08:09

Imagine calling a dog that name now....you'd be up racism charges. The ASIC card you speak of was,in those days,just called an ID card. Nigger had his picture on his around his collar. In fact no one else had security information dangling from them. No locked gates in those days,just park the car & walk through the gateway to the GA aircraft. Many years before even hi-vis vests were even thought of.

Briefing office at Sydney was standing room only every early morning, a line up to submit flightplans to a real person who pulled out pages of notams & stapled them the flightplan.

Skynews

23rd Nov 2010, 09:38

For some reason all the met men were Indians, probably won't be long and we will be speaking to their children. This time in a Mumbai call centre when briefing is outsourced.

$25/ hr when I was learning in 1976.

I used to sell newspapers before school and do the lawn mower round on weekends, and loved every minute of it. It all meant I could go for fly.

Do people still spend the weekend at the local aeroclub, or is it in, have your lesson and out?

tail wheel

23rd Nov 2010, 10:45

Harley, I resemble that! :=

It was shortly after the first TV broadcast in Australia, between the Melbourne Olympics and the time the local club upped the price on a Chippie to £4/10/- an hour, dual, including briefings.

We were all "the younger generation" once. Today's youth haven't changed, they are what we were 40 or 50 years ago.

We've changed, we've all grown older.

SOPS

23rd Nov 2010, 10:47

Spending ALL weekend at the aeroclub..sharing flights with each other, doing "hanger patrols" talking and learning from each other...then to the bar at night...those were the days:ok:

tail wheel

23rd Nov 2010, 10:52

Yes and if the local Copper thought your driving looked a bit crook, it was "Hop in son. I'll park your car where its safe and give you a lift home."

Ah, my first car - a 1929 Standard 10 I bought for 25 quid. So proud I'd give it a wash and bit of a polish before going to the aero club on a Saturday afternoon. The CFI had a brand new Vanguard Spacemaster, with column gear shift! Wow! :ok:

"Melbourne" and "Sydney" replaced their Sea Furies with their first turbine aircraft, the Fairey Gannet - never mind the Double Mamba needed an overhaul after every flight - and seeing one up close as a wide eyes kid!

War surplus, anything from a gas mask for 6d, to a BSA motor bike for £5 or Jeep for £15.

"Superman" with Leonard Teale. "Life with Dexter". "Hopalong Casidy". And Mother's infernal "Blue Hills" by Gwen Meredith, episode number 3,451.

Daisey air rifles - you can be gaoled for owning one now. Bottle of cordial 4 1/2d and threepence back on the bottle. School Cadets and endless cases of live war surplus .303 ammo for the Lee Enfield, Vickers and Bren.

Plume, Vacuum and Golden Fleece. If you don't know what they are, you're far too young.

Ah, they were the days.

tinpis

23rd Nov 2010, 18:44

Tearing about with other yoof in search of leaflets being dropped from AC Tiger Moth advertising up and coming AIRPAGEANT
Lucky draw on one of them for flight with Club CPL hero type in Tiger

A "Management Pilot" was generally the boss that flew the same ****ty equipment you did day in day out.

Aye Ess

23rd Nov 2010, 20:46

Wow,reading what you guys say makes ME feel I'm not so old.

Skynews....yes,the met guys at Sydney were all Indians,& very knowledgeable. Their culture of efficiency usually meant they greeted you with "What do you want?" We Aussie pilots thought they were gruff & unfriendly,but they meant "Hi,where are you off to & what forecasts would you like?"

Skynews

23rd Nov 2010, 20:52

I didn't imply anything about the Indian met men, and I always found them friendly, more commenting on the fact that a lot of met men were Indians.

( back then I wouldn't feel I had to explain why I mentioned an individual ethnic group)

There were few PC police.

Aye Ess

23rd Nov 2010, 20:58

Yes Skynews. Once we got to know them, they WERE friendly. But some of us were a bit taken back at first. On thunderstormy afternoons they would have the weather radar screen set up so pilots could get even more frightened. Something we can all do from our smart phones now.

osmosis

23rd Nov 2010, 21:30

Memories. A student pilot wet behind the ears idly floating around the flying school on the weekend being asked to take the ute into town and pick up a drum or two of engine oil waiting at the fuel depot for the school's aircraft. Big 44 gal drums he was expected to find, load and unload on his own.

What about rural flying clubs being open to all visitors. Go into the clubhouse, make yourself at home with tea coffee and snacks from the fridge and freezer, leave the money in a biscuit tin and everything else cleaned up before you go. The honour system. Does that still happen?

How many times did I fly around the place with a carnet card not matching the aircraft and was still able to purchase avgas to get home.

Needed to do some major engine repairs to my car so early one Saturday morning moved the aircraft out of the hangar and moved the beetle in under the gantry and helped myself to the tools nearby. No-one looked sideways.

Working beside the LAMEs in the hangar one got to learn their likes and dislikes of the top and bottom ends of various engines, not batting an eyelid when they have to rebuild an entire wing from scratch, their ability to sense an engine has either done more time than the hour meter says or has been worked hard; working with people who really knew their trade.

What about the kid who went to school with what looked like nicotine stains on his fingers but was actually brass from reloading his fathers empty cases so he could go chuteing with dad on the range. That same kid was given a ute two years before legal driving age so he could do deliveries for dad.

What about Teepol, the detergent your parents used to get in a blue bottle refilled from a 44 gal drum while you waited at the fuel depot which cleaned everything from cars to greasy hands to dinner dishes to babies.

Geez, I'm sounding like an old man.

bushy

24th Nov 2010, 02:20

I remember my brother and I flying a tripacer the length of New Zealand and back without once using the radio. We both had PPL's, and I was a radio technician, but we did not have that little peice of paper. We circled Wellinton airport until we got a green light from the tower which meant we were clear to cross the 20 odd miles of water to the south island. Then landing at Christchurch international airport without using the radio.
Later, at Alice Springs, dropping leaflets over the "Henly on Todd" dry river regatta. I had to get a "permit for littering" from the local council. Each leaflet had a number, and one of them was a prizewinner, so they all got picked up.
Landing RFDS aircraft at night by the light of burning toilet rolls. (we solved their medical problem, but created a toilet problem)
Staying overnight at Docker River. When we asked where the toilet was, we were told "anywhere on the other side of that creek"
Sending an aeroplane out on a 500 nm trip, to pick up an aboriginal man who had tried to fix his own teeth with a file. I was told "it is not a medical emergency, but it will be tomorrow"
And 1600 hours of flying at 200 ft agl survey flying in the middle of nowhere. I had two navaids. (My left eye and my right eye) No GPS then.
And lots of wonderful interesting flying.
Hours and hours of boredom, interupted by moments of terror.
And going home at night satisfied that we were gradually making the outback a better and safer place to live.

kingRB

24th Nov 2010, 02:24

Plume, Vacuum and Golden Fleece. If you don't know what they are, you're far too young.

Did Golden Fleece used to be a servo chain? I have very vague memories from being a kid in the 80's and seeing a yellow sheep on a sign out the front of a servo? Became less and less common seeing them.. The last ones I ever remember were those kind of servos in the middle of no where that were falling apart and no one ever used anymore.

Did Vacuum have something to do with Mobil? I remember seing a restored Stinson Reliant here in Oz somewhere which had Mobil insignia on it plus something that said Vacuum as well. I assume since on a Reliant it was something that disappeared well before I was even born.

No idea what Plume was / is.

Peter Fanelli

24th Nov 2010, 02:26

Plume, Vacuum and Golden Fleece. If you don't know what they are, you're far too young.

What about Total, Ampol and Neptune.

Aye Ess

24th Nov 2010, 02:53

Indeed Golden Fleece was a large chain of service stations. The TV ad featured a smiling Stanley who filled the car with petrol,checked the oil, water & tyres,then cleaned the windscreen. All while the driver sat in the car. That is why it was a SERVICE station. Excellent viewing on YouTube of the old ads of fuel & airline companies.

LewC

24th Nov 2010, 04:10

Yep.While still at school I scored a weekend job at the Lions Head Service Station on Parramatta Rd. at Ashfield doing my very best Smiley impersonation.They had seven pumps which included those mentioned above but I'm buggered if I can remember the one that's missing.I do remember that being a Smiley didn't pay all that well but being a slow starter and only 15 I didn't drink or smoke so the modest remuneration eventually got me an old MAC Velocette which provided very flash transport between Ashfield and Bankstown Airport.

Aye Ess

24th Nov 2010, 04:19

LewC.....maybe AMOCO ? Their selling point was it had a final filter.

In those days service stations gave kids cards,games & small novelty toys. end of year & they gave out free calenders. Now we're flat out getting 'see ya'

LewC

24th Nov 2010, 04:36

Aye Ess...I think I might have been around a little before AMOCO came along.After another half glass Wynns(Shiraz that is not Injector Cleaner)) I believe it might have been PURR-PULL Petrol.An interesting feature of that service station was that the underground tanks(tank?) were all filled through a single fill point.Another brand that was around at the time was ESSO which became MOBIL but I think they ran their own stations.

Kharon

24th Nov 2010, 05:03

The young' ns are the way they are. On mature reflection, I say there is not too much fun to had these days; not of the really, truly really type anyway.

For example:-

The "Ampol Servo 2' approach to Hay at night in a Twin Bomb Flasher.

A load of freight up to Gove in a Pig, no auto pilot, drum DI and roll your own ADF, empty baked bean can taped to the column for an ashtray. (If you bend it, burn it son).

Load of Chooks to Adelaide in a Beech 18 then home via Essendon, Launceston and Sydney.

Trislander to Perth, 40 gallon pylon tanks, the beloved the rear view mirror, you could get the mixture on the middle donkey perfect any time after about 1600 o'clock.

Top it off with a win at the streamer cutting competition at the club then fly home in a borrowed 200 hp Arrow, sunburned, happy, tired and full as a goog of Lions Club Steak sangas.

These days the work is routine, the 'Nanny State' ensures tedium, the aircraft deadly boring, a PA 31, C402, (nauseating would be the Be. 76, PN 68), and are a doddle to operate. Now the mighty C 337, 200 miles out to sea chasing Blue fin (of course the front one was stopped), or down amongst the Tumut hills on bush fire patrol, or carting corporate big shots in the elegant Tin Comm (a real 'blokes' aircraft) or the peerless Baron was in a class of it's own, and it was great fun.

I feel the dreaded 'booze bus' has taken it's toll on air safety, who can hang about on Friday night, chew the fat with the local DCA guy, the CFI from over the way, the other guys or the Chief Engineer.

Do they still even hold flour bombing, streamer cutting and spot landing competitions?. Never could beat the bloody Tiger Schmidt's, except in a Chippy or a Ryan, even then only on a good day.

I much miss the Aero Club culture, private flying and the freedom to do pretty much anything that didn't scare the horses.

Milk shakes in a dewy aluminum container and the hamburgers, real honest to God snag sambo's and the mighty aero club frozen meat pie.:D

osmosis

24th Nov 2010, 05:45

Ampol. Did one of you young blokes say Ampol? That was around for ages AFTER I got my license. My earliest memory of fuel purchase is from one of those bowser/pumps with the large glass bowl on top. You, the customer, had to manually pump a handle to get the petrol from a tank directly below into a large glass bowl of 4 or 5 gallons then let that drain into your car. If you wanted a full tank then you did this two or three times. All this at the backdoor of the local supermarket.

And in more recent times, I'm talking the '80's now, the only place in Bribbaree NSW to get fuel was in the backyard of the place next door to the pub. This guy had a bowser in his backyard; used it.

What about all those roadmaps the oil companies to sell at their roadhouses? They would even have little places like Bribbaree marked on them. What, you haven't heard of Bribbaree? Not far from the metropolis of Quandialla. Look it up on a Golden Fleece roadmap.

tinpis

24th Nov 2010, 06:22

Kharon A load of freight up to Gove in a Pig,

Ray shaking your hand and giving you a little envelope with your pay in it
Black Jack loading up his NIGHT EROPS kit, a bar of black chocolate and a bottle of rum...

tail wheel

24th Nov 2010, 07:00

.... and in later years, a box of stinking Kumul twist tobacco and last Friday's news paper to roll it in.....

Slasher

24th Nov 2010, 07:24

I still remember all these....

When it was the Whispering T-Jets -

http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/itemimages/329/550/329550_large.jpg

http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/1/4/0/6/8/4/9/webimg/422236465_tp.jpg

And the V-Jets -

http://www.qfom.com.au/images/vJet.jpg

And the Fan Jets (Eagle farm 1971) -

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/2/7/1/1264172.jpg

Flight tickets were REAL tickets made out by REAL staff, and you handed it to your HOSTESS! -

http://www.aussieairliners.org/misc/w.015.jpg

DC-9 Adelaide airport 1967. I was a kid at the airport fence there back then -

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Adelaide_Airport_Tarmac_1967.jpg

But that was all back in the days when airline travel meant style and panache.

Fubar_x

24th Nov 2010, 08:15

Paper, You got paper.

I was given a box of matches and the same instructions as Kharon.

Long before Black Jack (RIP) Billy the Pig was the man then.

Ray, ah Ray. What can be said, kept a lot of guys going through the terrible days of recessions, and pilot poverty. Always a helping hand, except, a lift from Ray involved stopping on Parramatta Road to pick up whatever he fancied to put in the boot (cans, spark plugs, and once, 8 Kg of lead as the truck was backing up to collect the swag, go the purple Monaro).

Long live the midnight spares market. If only spark plugs could talk. http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/thumbs.gif

Ixixly

24th Nov 2010, 12:40

As i've always said, I was either born 50 years late or 50 years early, either way i'm definitely missing out on some interesting times!!

HarleyD

24th Nov 2010, 22:15

I remember standing on the rails of the back fence of my great uncles new house in Niddire and looking across the empty paddocks to watch the viscounts whistling (screaming) in and out of melbourne (Essendon) airport.

I remember my grandfather talking about the crazy 76 sqn kittyhawk pilots at milne bay and the daily liberator flight from Jackson that would spend a couple of hours at 30,000 ft with a load of beer, so as to cool it down. my second cousin was a bomber and transport pilot, WWII and berlin Airlift and he had some pretty good stories too! Uncle Gordon was with a spitfire squadron in the pacific and he owned a Norton Interstse motor bike, because it was the fastet bike you could buy.

Life was chock a block full of potential for the kid hanging over the airport fence.

'Progress' was an exciting thing as the world was embracing post war infrastructure and technological advancements, the transistor radio for example. NIMBYs were not invented yet to doomsay and howl down every attempt to improve anything, although some were not happy about their houses being bulldozed to create the new freeway to the non existant new airport near sunbury, they were just whingers, the good of the many outweighed the good of the few.

Going to RAAF airshows and seeing USAF RB57, U2, RAF V bombers, meteor NF, RAAF neptunes, canberras, mirages (WOW!), the incredible shiney new A model Hercs that would 'soon replace the DC3 and Caribou'

Zig and Zag were just a couple of young clowns (subsequent revelations confirmed my fear and distrust of clowns).

Bush air padgeants with Mustang, comper swift, westland widgeon, klemm swallow, wackets, Casey's collection of old planes (that were younger then than most cessna 152s of these days), going flying in RVAC chippie with my dad, joyflights in a dragon. Flying into the paddock airstrip of a young(ish) Joe Drage who was busily collecting similar aircraft that were generally regarded as old tat. The Bunn Brothers at Avondale and their moth minor (amongst other planes).

Most collecters were not rich boys but enthusiastic everymen who had a few spare bob and who followed up every rumour about an old plane, most hoping to discover that elusive mineshaft/cave full of hidden spitfires and harley davidsons, still in their packing grease.

Mind you, if I knew about the fairer (hahaha I crack myself up) sex then, that i know now, i would have made much more efficient use of my time as a teenager, and would have kept my shed full of vintage and warbird parts and boxes of WWII uniforms and flight gear etc. One lives, but often does not learn, about such things until too late.

As someone has already said,

Even nostalgia is not what it used to be.
HD

ozequestrian

24th Nov 2010, 23:30

HarleyD you bring back some great memories. I grew up in Airport West when there were more cows than houses. Our next door neighbour worked for TAA and took me into the cockpit of an Electra at Essendon Airport and that was it, hooked from then on. As a kid we'd wonder up to the airport on a Saturday morning and just walk through any open gate we could find to look at anything and everything that was parked there. The DCA guys would drive up, ask us what we were up to, tell us not to break anything and leave us to continue our exploring. The biggest thrill was hanging over the 3 foot chain link fence not more than 50 feet away from a 727 as it started and taxied off.

Rose_Thorns

25th Nov 2010, 08:24

Aitrucks, 300 horses, Wilf and the Winfield banners tows, bull ants at Maitland as the dropped banner was retrieved, beers with Burnie after it.

Ray Whitbread firing up the 'Stangs, while the big iron Aztec went out on a mysterious IFR mission (it was raining and everything).

St Mary's with Grahams dog biting you as you stepped out (wheels on before the green lights or you'll hit the bloody pipeline), and don't taxi off the bridge.

Alan Savage, pipe only works well at 8000 cabin altitude and that fool approach to Mittagong using SY DME/VOR, terrify a stone idol.

Home Joyce, I wax maudlin.

Tee Emm

25th Nov 2010, 12:26

You could tell the hostie she was the most beautiful woman youve ever met without fear of a sexual harassment charge

And the captain had the authority and the guts to personally go down the back and sort out the drunks instead of cowering behind the terrorist proof door and letting the young hosties take the abuse and fists..

Peter Fanelli

25th Nov 2010, 15:23

How many of us here spent time in the TNT caravan at Melbourne?

HarleyD

25th Nov 2010, 21:24

It's not just that there is us (over 50's) and them (spotty 19 year olds), remember that there is a whole other demographic in between, and they too have their own story, though without the rose tinted ray bans:

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears

With their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When
they were growing up; what with walking Twenty-five miles to school
every morning

... Uphill... barefoot.

BOTH ways

Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up,
There was no way in hell I was going to lay

A bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it

And how easy they've got it!

But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of
Thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of
today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my
Childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it but you kids today you
Don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we
wanted to know something, We had to go to the damn library and
Look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write
Somebody a letter, with a pen!

...Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put
it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to
Steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and
shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and
the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you
Were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy
signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either!
When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be
your school,
Your mom, your boss, your Bookie, your drug dealer, a
collections agent, you
Just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your
chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video
Games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600!
With games
Like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. Your guy was a little
square! You
Actually had to use your Imagination!! And there were no
multiple levels or
Screens, it was just one screen
Forever!

And you could never win. The game just kept getting
Harder and harder and
Faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a Little book called a TV Guide to find out what
was
On! You were screwed when it Came to channel surfing! You had
to get off
Your ass and walk over to the TV to change the Channel and
there was no
Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons
On Saturday Morning. Do you Hear what I'm saying!?! We had to
wait ALL WEEK
For cartoons, you spoiled
Little rat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat
Something up we had to use the stove ... Imagine that!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids
Today have got it too easy.
You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted
Five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

spirax

25th Nov 2010, 21:41

Not to forget how flying standards have fallen!

"With only a few exceptions someone passing a CPL today would not have passed a PPL twenty years ago".

Say no more!

Outcome based training does not work.

you want proof? Go down the airport and if you can see thru the fence (once upon a time you could sit on it!!) observe what the landings on a day with a good cross wind are like..... oooch!

sixtiesrelic

25th Nov 2010, 22:46

"Not to forget how flying standards have fallen!"

Yes, I was appalled at what a Pre-commercial test candidate didn't know when I went for a fly with him BUT...

The plethora of bulldust they have to try and cram into their heads in the hours they need and struggle to pay for is pretty rediculous.

We learned to fly an aeroplane.

They have the pumped, up oom-pah band, marching girl, flag waving curriculum full of all sorts of politically correct, fancy trappings filling their heads.

Their peers, who’s fathers have deep pockets, stroll around the aerodrome wearin’ uniforms with golden bars on the shoulders, dreamin’ of the flight around Australia they’re gunna do in the Bonanza with two GPSs to get up hours when they’ve completed themulti engine Command instrument rating.

The fathers are skitin’ to their mates that, “Young Ashley is studying full time to become an airline pilot in fifteen months”.
David Clark headsets, Rayban sunnies, eleven buck a piece VTCs that are out of date every coupla months are regarded as necessary as wearin shoes.
The poor bugg*rs putting themselves through... themselves, have this “crock” as “normal”.

I went for a ride with that Commercial trainee when he was doing his last ten or so hours converting to Constant Speed Prop and retractable gear.
What a shemozzle… We spent most of the three quarters of an hour lookin’ for a couple of bandits (rich boys from another country who’s understanding of the international air language was a bit minimal) who were lurching round the training area, getting in the way while my pilot tried to get in a number of forced landings.
They didn’t seem to understand my pilot and I didn’t have a clue what THEY were sayin’.
Paid for an hour and a quarter and did two forced landings and two or three circuits.

Trying to learn to fly now… thank God I don’t have to.

HarleyD

26th Nov 2010, 00:12

sixtiesrelic,

do i detect just the faintest whiff of cyicism there?

HD

ps. BTW i heartily concur,

once was i time when you would avoid having to operate the huge blue box in the panel of the scaretourer so that you did not have to listen to the horrendous hash that accompanied the FS operators who seemed to delight in talking too fast for us noephytes. god alone knows how much that skyphone handicapped the climb of a 100hp 'concrete sparrow'.

these days you cannot shut the little b@stards up, they seem to think that an aircarft is powered by circuit speak, stuff the lookout, bugga the accurate height and pattern position, forget about the stabilized speed, attitude and descent on base/final, just jibber relentlessly and tell evryone that you are 'number one' (save looking obviously) and then smash the poor old cherokee onto the middle of the runway, richochet back into the air and set off on the next leg of the GPS guided tour of the state. all this talking is bad enough, but it would work better if it was in EEENNGGlish and if they could actually tell east from west, be actually AT the altitude that they specify or even be at the near position that they specify, inbound or even in the circuit.

aviate navigate communicate worked back then, and it will still work now!!

Phew, I do agree don't I... i even surprised myself a bit there, but the whole airmanship thing seems to rate waaaay down there with round instruments and paying for your own lessons to these guys. skill not important, white shirt, sunnies and a future as a co-pilot beckons.

and another thing....

when i was a young bloke you got a job and saved up to buy a car, usually a holden, and proceeded to hoik the engine out and put new rings and shells in it, a yella terra head, a wade cam, a couple of SU's, some genie extractors and a two inch straight through system, put the widest tyres that would fit on your rims (or dished rims, or even rims of a completely different car - alloy wheels, or Mags were for racing cars) 'lowered' it with an oxy torch, painted the grill black, put some aircraft landing lights on the front bumber, installed a radio aerial, so as to have somewhere to put the fox tail, whacked a stripe up the bonnet and you were off to impress the tarts with your 'hotted up' motor. Not only could you get an evenings entertainment at the drive in, but you learned all about how things work (and why they sometimes don't work)

The kids today get dad to buy them a late model Honda, get the ugliest CNC wheels ever seen put on it, get a 4 inch chrome outlet tip put on the muffler, get the windows tinted and get a blow off valve, and pay someone to install a sound system capable of launching a saturn V rocket in it, turn their designer cap sideways and they are proud owners of a 'custom' car from which they can tour the neighbourhood selling ekkies and getting deaf from the incessant doof doof. the only thing that they learn is how to put stickers on the back window, that the tarts are now called bitches and..... weeeel that's about it really. that and they have some how learned to defy gravity with their trousers, which should really be worn at wiast level (over 50's) or hip level (under 30's), but not actually below the buttocks.

FAAAARCK that was a very big afterthought ps..I really am getting old aren't I!!!!!

HD

Aye Ess

26th Nov 2010, 02:27

Does anyone remember the times when the only ones with tattoos were ex Navy sailors? And the ladies NEVER used the 'F' word?

Brian Abraham

26th Nov 2010, 04:11

I really am getting old aren't I
Nah, yer just a whippersnapper Harley
If you
Were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy
signal, that's it!
They were just somebody joining in on the coversation - party line.
We had the Atari 2600!
With games
Like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. Your guy was a little
square! You
Actually had to use your Imagination!! And there were no
multiple levels or
Screens, it was just one screen
We had marbles an played cowboys. Doctors and nurses once too (you'll have to use your imagination - as we did, being all of 7 or 8 at the time).
You had
to get off
Your ass and walk over to the TV to change the Channel
TV, TV??? Hows about a valve radio. Still had to get up to change stations but.
You had
to get off
Your ass and walk over to the TV to change the Channel and
there was no
Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons
On Saturday Morning. Do you Hear what I'm saying!?! We had to
wait ALL WEEKI feel your pain. We had to wait a week as well, but Sunday for us - in the paper.

osmosis

26th Nov 2010, 04:49

Keys/locks so worn out one could use just about any key to turn the mag switch and starter. It worked. And gently push the glass on the A.I. to stop the leaking hissing air. Not to mention the ever present smell of avgas.

What about real outdoor dunnies, the ones with the can underneath? If you lived in town the nightman emptied yours once a week; otherwise it was up to you. Once, when our regular nightman was away, his replacement hoisted our can onto his shoulder only to collect the clothesline with it on the way back to his truck.

What about condies crystals fer snake bite? A matchstick wrapped in foil for a replacement fuse? Us kids having to forever turn the handle of the butter churn, it took ages. Water tanks. What about water tanks? We had three 1000 gallon tanks, each with no lid. It was our job to clean them out occasionally. Each was filled up to the first sheet with mud, sticks, dead birds, possums and frogs and more mud so we would be standing waist deep in it when we started. And to think we were drinking this stuff.

The youth of terday, no idea.....................H.T.F.U.

kingRB

26th Nov 2010, 06:28

"With only a few exceptions someone passing a CPL today would not have passed a PPL twenty years ago".

Say no more!

Outcome based training does not work.

actually it is competency based training. You have to demonstrate that you can (repeatedly) achieve what is required in the CPL training syllabus, unaided.

I'd genuinely like to know what has changed / removed from the CPL syllabus by CASA / CAA in the last 20 years to have caused what you claim? Or are you talking about airmanship?

ForkTailedDrKiller

26th Nov 2010, 06:47

Not only could you get an evenings entertainment at the drive in, but you learned all about how things work (and why they sometimes don't work)

...... and you learnt some stuff about cars too! :E

Dr :8

tinpis

26th Nov 2010, 09:25

I remember one trick, a lengh of nylon rope fed down the plug hole on a Conti. Then turn 'er over to relieve stuck valve...

frigatebird

26th Nov 2010, 10:58

Ahh,.. growing up and learning how things worked, around home and in the wider world.
Bending an end of a sheet of galv. iron up and using it as a toboggan to learn about gravity and controlled landings after sliding down the sawmills sawdust pile. Billycarts down hills were good for experimenting with too, later, when the terrain was more favourable. The smell of breaking out the bales of new jute bags, all so stiff they had to be spread out in the sun to soften, so that the bag-sewers could stitch ‘em. - (before bulk wheat handling on the Downs.) As a nipper, having to carry the tea billycan, pumpkin and potato scones, and lamingtons, through the stubble to where the harvesters, sewers, and carters were working. Seeing the paddock of ripening wheat or sunflowers in flower as far as the small eye could see. Turning the handle of the separator to get the cream, and the one on the churn to make the butter – then disassembling them to clean them thoroughly. Helping preserve cases of stone fruit, and just about anything in season, into the Vacola glass jars for later. Passing the spanners to Dad as he pulled the head off the K5 truck, the army Duck, Willys jeep, or Sunshine autoheader, or the tracks off the TD 35 to get them ready for planting or harvest. Seeing Charlie Russells funny butterfly-tailed Bonanza just up the road, and not knowing then that it would be another fifteen years or so before actually being able to do more than look at one. Nostalgia…. better stop now before I get to…. Aviation….

Peter Fanelli

26th Nov 2010, 11:11

What about real outdoor dunnies, the ones with the can underneath? If you lived in town the nightman emptied yours once a week; otherwise it was up to you.

Can underneath???
What kind of modern crap is that?
Traditional Long Drop is the way to go!

601

26th Nov 2010, 12:44

You have to demonstrate that you can (repeatedly) achieve what is required in the CPL training syllabus, unaided

That is what I had to do in 1963 for my PPL and CPL and then throughout my flying career.

All CASA have done with CBT is put a name to it and write thousands of words to describe it.

Aye Ess

29th Nov 2010, 07:52

I wonder how many young pilots know how to lay a flare path. The filling of the flares with kero in the afternoon. Light them at dusk. Then see 5 have been blown out by the wind & always right down the other end of the runway.

Extinguishing them by jogging along the runway with a wet mop. Then as soon as the half scorched mop was back in the club house,the sound of an aircraft circling overhead....uh,oh!!!!

osmosis

29th Nov 2010, 08:18

As far as I know, the long drop was only ever used in mining country; the dunny usually being dragged over a disused mine. Apparently there were many such things when seasonal opal miners would leave their diggings only to return many months later to find a dunny over where their precious undiscovered gems lay.

Only once was I ever involved in lighting up a strip at night. Pine View north west NSW hosted a visiting RFDS flight to pick up an injured motorcyclist light years ago. How many others on here have had to light up a strip?

Siphoning. What about siphoning? How many you young fellas have syphoned fuel? And I'm not talking about modern-day one-way valves either, just a lump of old garden hose and gravity... or is that atmospheric pressure?

Checkboard

29th Nov 2010, 11:33

Ah yes - things aren't what they used to be (http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/360003-few-flying-stories.html). :)

Centaurus

29th Nov 2010, 12:44

I wonder how many young pilots know how to lay a flare path.

Now that's something I remember. As a 17 year old at Camden drivng a WW2 jeep out across the foggy airfield at 0300 carrying a whole lot of kero filled pots to lay along the runway and light with a flaming taper. Then standby to act as fireguard when the Sydney Morning Herald Flying Service Hudson started up to fly the newspapers to Northern NSW doing air drops. Fire in the carby after big back-fires and had to climb a ladder on top of the engine and squirt the CO2 down the throat of the carby burning my hands. Sometimes viz (RVR nowadays) down to 30 yards in thick fog but still the Hudsons and DC3's took off.

Or a few years later as a 21 year old in the RAAF walking down the hill at Nowra Naval Air Base and asking about the possibility of having a fly of one of the Navy Wirraways on the tarmac. The flight commander Lieutenant Colin Wheatley saying what are you flying at the moment and the answer was second dicky on Lincolns but have some hours on the Mustang. The Lieut sez "Mustangs?" Forget the Wirrway, Sergeant - Here are Pilots Notes Sea Fury. Come back after lunch and take that Fury (920) over there". And I did, too.:ok:

tail wheel

29th Nov 2010, 20:04

I'm relieved to find there are people older than me that post on PPRuNe.... :hmm:

osmosis

29th Nov 2010, 20:24

I have a copy of "PILOT'S NOTES FOR SEA FURY 10 & 11"; bought it for $7 if I remember correctly but have only ever drooled over them at Point Cook. Lucky barsted Centaurus.

sixtiesrelic

29th Nov 2010, 22:24

actually it is competency based training. You have to demonstrate that you can (repeatedly) achieve what is required in the CPL training syllabus, unaided.

I'd genuinely like to know what has changed / removed from the CPL syllabus by CASA / CAA in the last 20 years to have caused what you claim? Or are you talking about airmanship?[

Well King, so far no one has answered you.

I went on some navexes with a friend and paid for accommodation in a couple of places, and we stayed with mates on their properties for other overnights.
The idea was get him to the remoter area and some high strips. Some CTZs and some ALA’s.
I couldn’t believe what he didn’t know… on reflection it wasn’t his not knowing… it was his lack of thinking it through.
So much to know but very little of it ready for application because the poor buggers are swamped with an Encyclopaedia of larnin’. This bloke was pretty life experienced, having been in one of the services in which he was what most dream they’d like to be.
He also has been an officer of the law, so he’s not an airhead; he applies common sense and safety to most things he does, having seen enough blood ‘n guts from stupidity.
The instructors told him he was ready for his Commercial test… just needed to get up to those minimum hours.
He was NOT ready for the test I took back in the olden days.
Too much fluffing around with the silliest little things (things he’d been taught were important)
Seventeen minutes taxiing and preparing for his first take off. Calculator commin’ out for the most basic mental arithmetic. Six inputs into a calculator to get say 3.123456 litres.
It wasn’t him; it was the system. Rods and calculators for MATH in primary school where we got caned for, four outa ten f’r mental ‘rithmetic.
We don’t need computers for multiplying or dividing by seventeen for some rough figurin’ on the run. Seventeeen’s ‘bout half way between fifteen and twenty; both are easy to do in your head and get the average for your answer.
We old dodderers flew everywhere for commercial ‘full reporting’. ETAs had to be plus or minus two minutes. We had to know where we were to do that. Needed to be able to read a map AND keep an accurate log.
My boy kept forgetting to note his departure time till well under way.
“**** I forgot to note the take off time… have to guess it”.
“Why not check the VDO meter… you noted that before start up, or what about the stop watch we’ve taped to the yoke and you’re finally remembering to hit as you apply take off power. “Takeoffs in most aircraft take about twenty five seconds … know what speed you should be at, at the fifteen second mark so you know if she’d bogged down and maybe the fence’s gunna be too high”.
The habit of turning onto heading from take off. Sometimes those upwind legs were long and he was already two miles off track at the start.
Yabber, yabber, yabber in the circuit with height fluctuations in the turbulence.
“There’s no one here, to hear ya” . Yes someone may be and ain’t talkin’ but every leg??
Map reading?? … “Well I won’t be able to see that pipe line… it’s underground”.
“Look at the beaut straight line of different coloured dirt in the paddocks about where it could be”.
Censar weren’t too happy with a couple of missed cancellations of SAR till some time after ‘the time’. They are used to it. Happens every day.
Hell we were petrified of a 225 (incident report). If they started proceedings we were in for it and we didn’t have mobile phones for them to ring us… no siree bob we had HF that skipped over the Flt service station and needed to find the phone on the airport... “Oh it’s busted! OK mad taxi ride into town and tellin’ the operator thissy isn’t an ‘Airmove priority call’ it’s and ‘AIRFLASH priority call’ and the silly cow not knowin’ what to do because ‘she’s not had one ‘er them before’. “Who’s payin’?”
Radio calls… Dunnow why the instructors thought he was ready.
There was more, but that was lack of experience, we all did those things initially.
He went and did a low flying course after the commercial and that old crop duster taught him in three hours as much as the boys with the rich dads had in fifty. Specially engine handling.
It ain’t the student’s fault. It’s the silly bloody system and the big headedness of that part of the industry.
They’re flyin’ Cessnas and Pipers, NOT bloody Jumbos.
The proof of we silly old bugg*r’s claim is... the RAA. Those who just wanna fly a plane are going there where the bulldust is a bit lighter on.

HarleyD

29th Nov 2010, 23:08

Ha Yes,

laying a flare path with kero lamps, sitting down the back of the special trailer while being towed down the strip behind a fergy with one pathetic headlight, no PAL back then.

can remember long drop dunny at great uncles place in rural NSW, and our place just over the border in modern Victoria was down the back yard, with a can, backing onto the lane. A dart out the back gate and down the lane to my mate's place where we would while away hours shooting Broken airfix planes with his gekardo slug gun. we were about 10 or so and a slug gun was common at that age. Illegal for all ages now of course, far too dangerous for humans.

at that age we also used to go on long all day bike rides with a cut lunch wrapped in greaseproof paper, stuffed in a brown paper bag, carried in a brown leather school satchel buckled over the cross bar of the single gear, back pedal braked pushie, with the upturned ram's horns. mine was handed down from my uncle and the paint was almost completely faded off to bare metal in places. We would go looking for WWII crash sites, and occaisionally find them, bringing home small bits of tristed and melted alloy and rusty bit of steel fittings. I found the dried out leather sole of a shoe one time among the tiny metal fragments and was very very excited at the time, though on reflection it is more sobering. Our tiny rural school was almost hit by a wirraway during the war (it crashed about 500 meteres away), though the site was well picked over by other boys in the intervening 20 years there were still bits and pieces, though I never found the complete ruddder that i desperately wanted for my bedroom wall.

At school we stood and sang "God Save Our Biscuit Tin" while the flag was unfurled by the flag monitors. At 'playtime' (not recess) we played war in the huge school sandpit wearing real german and english tin hats smuggled out of the granfathers house, and lobbed inert morter rounds at each other. the school bell was a real bell, outside on an arch that was rung by the bell monitor, untill it was relaced with a (seemingly huge) hand bell that the male teachers yeilded at the designated times.

Every town had a war memorial (The War, the Great War) and a couple of WW I german artillary pieces that were climbed all over, or down to the RSL where there was a more modern 25 pounder and a bofors to pull the levers on and crank up and down.

Every plane that flew over was of the utmost interest and arguments would break out amongst the 10 year old cogniscenti.
every holiday was an adventure and dad was easily enticed to stop at every rural aerodrome that was sighted, so we could wander around and at look at what ever was on view, or peek into the hangar doors. A dirt strip delineatd by white painted old tyres, a tattered windsock on a bent pole, a ramshackle, tiny 'terminal' with peeling paint and flyspotted windows and unlocked doors, (and sometimes also an operable phone with pencilled weather reports and phone numbers - 3 and 4 digits on the wall), a longdrop dunny surrounded by long dry grass full of rusty implements, old cars, snakes and redbacks completed the scene.

I loved scrap yards and remember hughes trading in coburg where me old dad used to buy bits and pieces for his homebuilt project. you could have built a squadron of spitfires and a couple of liberators from the piles of stuff that had sheep wandering around, what is now the middle of suburbia.

Carbon paper, gestener duplicators and secretaries was an entireley better office environment in the days before the PC revolutionised our world with the promise of the 'paperless office of tomorrow'....hahahaha...as seen on the inventors on the ABC, one of the two channels available, both of which were on air for a few hours each day (yes children, telly used to close down at 10 o'clock at night and not start until late in the following morning, and it was only available in black and white)

The Goon show was on the wireless, now that was a funny show, no nasty misogynous gansta rap, just neddy seagoon, peter sellers, spike milligan and a voice cast of hundreds. music was boring, so you went outside to play when the goons finished. find a fruit tree and climb up and gorge on what ever was in season.

I gotta stop this soon, I want to go back, it really was a simpler world when we were living under the threat of atomic obliteration from the commo's.

HD

chimbu warrior

30th Nov 2010, 00:16

For that matter, how many younger pilots even know how to refuel an aircraft today? You might be shocked to learn that in the past everybody used to refuel their own aircraft, and at some airfields there was an "honour box" where you left the $15 or so required to fill up the Cherokee.

I also recall doing my own 25 & 50 hour oil changes, and the GA award had provision for an allowance for doing this. I thought it was a pretty easy way to make $8.

For me, the first sign of decline was when I was working as a charter pilot in western NSW and a NASA Cherokee pulled up with the 2 occupants asking me to direct them to the local American Express office. We all looked at each other and wondered WTF they wanted to book a train trip in the US!

Aye Ess

30th Nov 2010, 02:32

Refuelling:

Early career....rolling a 44gallon drum of 100/130 along in the mud. Wrestling it up onto a trailer,drive it to aeroplane. stand it up,use hammer & screwdriver to remove the blasted bung. Paste on a stick,check for water. Unwrap the hand pump from the greasy rag,insert into drum,screw it on,get a chamois for straining. Then pump for ages til both arms ached, listening to the fuel slop into the tank.

Later career....tell the FO to advise the refueller to put so many tons,while we sit in airconditioned comfort in crisp white shirts.

OK,so maybe this is one area that wasn't good about the old days.

Dogimed

30th Nov 2010, 03:28

Or a few years later as a 21 year old in the RAAF walking down the hill at Nowra Naval Air Base and asking about the possibility of having a fly of one of the Navy Wirraways on the tarmac. The flight commander Lieutenant Colin Wheatley saying what are you flying at the moment and the answer was second dicky on Lincolns but have some hours on the Mustang. The Lieut sez "Mustangs?" Forget the Wirrway, Sergeant - Here are Pilots Notes Sea Fury. Come back after lunch and take that Fury (920) over there". And I did, too.

Centaurus,

Never has one paragraph made me so envious.. and so dejected that no matter what happens in the future, that very scenario will never ever be repeated. (regardless of airframes)

Well done you bastard.

Dog

PLovett

30th Nov 2010, 05:26

Xe1a1wHxTyo

It says it all. :ok:

John Eacott

30th Nov 2010, 08:11

I'm relieved to find there are people older than me that post on PPRuNe.... :hmm:

Not me Chief: I'm aircrew ;)

Lighting flares for night ops was mandatory training for a young ATC Cadet on a Flying Scholarship, and being taught by an instructor who flew Camels on the Western Front....

What he had to say about us as the younger generation would fill a book :p

troppo

30th Nov 2010, 08:20

It is all better now that tin has found 109 post(er)s to talk to about taim bepo and his wit is notably absent :p

Tmbstory

30th Nov 2010, 09:00

One of the better ways to check the surface wind direction when approaching an aerodrome was to check the wind lines on the local water dams.

It made the circuit entry easier.

Tmb

Old Fella

30th Nov 2010, 10:14

I remember a fishing trip out on the Darling around 1950-51 with my grandfather when the pubs still closed at 6 pm, fuel was dispensed from hand operated bowsers and beer was cooled by having wet wheat bags draped over the wooden keg lying on it's side on the bar at Louth. Some petrol brands were, as I recall, C.O.R. (now BP), Vacuum (now Mobil), Shell, Golden Fleece and Ampol. Most towns on the rail line had Fuel Depots, fuel was brought in rail tankers and distributed around town and farms by truck.We left Wellington around 2.30pm in a 30 cwt Chev truck and a '48 Ford ute. A flat bottom boat on the truck, a large ice-box in the ute and numerous bags, yes bags, of bottled beer. It took until around 8pm to get to Dubbo, camping near the airport. I think there must have been at least 3 stops along the road and at the Guerie and Wongarbon pubs as well as a stop in Dubbo for an "amber" or two (maybe many more) whilst I stayed with the vehicles and was brought bottles of lemonade. The trip took 10 days and my grandfather and his mates drank both loads of beer, except for one which got away in the Darling when they were pulling it out of the water where it had been being cooled. They got hunted out of numerous pubs, we caught six fish and Pop reckoned he would never again go fishing with the others. I did not drink lemonade for a long time after that trip. They were good times, but we roughed it. I took my first flight, a T.I.F. in a Tiger Moth belonging to RNAC from Bodangora airstrip in 1956. I joined the RAAF in February 1958 and trained as a "Sumpie", the first engine I worked on being the old Gypsy Major. Ten years later I was working on C130's and got the opportunity to become a Flight Engineer on C130A's. I left the RAAF in '81 as a B707 F/E and later went north to CPA in HK. The experiences I have had, good and bad, bring back many good memories which, in many ways lead me to believe it was better back then, mostly. Todays aeroplanes are far safer, more reliable, less noisy and fly further and faster. That said, I still reckon tactical flying in a C130 beats route flying in a B747 anyday, except for the salary. These days my flying fun is provided by flying aeroplanes nearly as old as myself, well not quite, but C150, C152, PA28 and C172RG are not new anymore. Thanks for the memories.

Tmbstory

30th Nov 2010, 11:27

Old Fella:

Well written and good stories about some good times.

Talking about Louth, did you ever get to Dunlop Station, not far from Louth and on the banks of the Darling?

Those fishing and hunting trips certainly lowered the beer supplies!

Thanks for the stories.

Tmb

Old Fella

30th Nov 2010, 23:07

tmbstory Thanks for your comments. If we did go via Dunlop Station I do not remember it specifically. We crossed the Darling on the punt at Louth (after closing time at the Louth hotel) and went down towards Tilpa where we set camp on the river bank. I spent part of the night in the middle of the river in the boat with one of my Pop's shearer mates playing our trumpets. Great fun, but with the old Tilley lamp attracting every insect for miles we gave it away after an hour or so. Caught no fish either despite about a dozen set lines. Maybe our "music" scared them off. We then went to Bourke and on to Brewarrina where the only fish caught were tossed back in (Four yelow belly and a couple of bream as I recall). The trip was a lot of fun for an 11 year-old and I think I learned a fair bit about listenening to what my older folk had to say. They were pretty rough and ready blokes, but they knew how to work hard and enjoy life.

Tmbstory

1st Dec 2010, 07:33

Old Fella:
Thanks for the reply and the stories of the area.

In my early flying days I spent a lot of time in the Western part of NSW, used to run a few flying schools in the area and often taught Students to fly on their own properties.

A good part of Australia.

Tmb

Slasher

1st Dec 2010, 07:57

We had a lot more gays and masturbaterers up North in
the old days than now -

Walk into a pub wearing yer wings and/or epaulettes and
you shouted the entire bar. End of bloody story! If it was
epaulettes you had on then YOU had to go out of your way
to prove you weren't a raving w@nker.

Taxy in with nav lights on during the day and you shouted
that night for all who witnessed your dumb-arse act.

Weather radar was for poofters. If your 421 had wx radar
it was assumed you had certain gay tendencies. And if you
had a new-fangled color radar you were firmly put in the
raving poof category.

Leave the beacon on after walking away from the aircraft
and all the airport sheelas knew that night you're really a
bit of a dumb ****.

Pilots in the North were Northern poofters and pilots in
the South were Southern poofters. Then you had those
Eastern poofters flying in the West. I was from SA and
somehow I was accepted by all poofters (though those
Sydney poofters seemed a spoilt bunch and pissed me
off a bit). Pilots in all 4 corners of Oz assumed most pilots
in the other 3 corners were poofters and that the only real
heteros around were them.

If you were a woman pilot you'd certainly be shacked up
and shagging a Southern poofter within a week.

Runaway Gun

1st Dec 2010, 08:06

Apparently Slasher misses his old 'Uniformed Man Love' days ;)

Checkboard

1st Dec 2010, 10:58

On the same theme ...

I spent part of the night in the middle of the river in the boat with one of my Pop's shearer mates playing our trumpets.

I hope that's not a euphemism! :eek:

Taxy in with nav lights on during the day and you shouted
that night for all who witnessed your dumb-arse act.
Especially if you had spent any time holding, wondering why you couldn't get any green lights on the gear! :rolleyes:

ForkTailedDrKiller

1st Dec 2010, 12:53

C.O.R. (now BP), Vacuum (now Mobil), Shell, Golden Fleece and Ampol

.... and Atlantic (now Esso)!

Dr :8

Old Fella

1st Dec 2010, 22:18

Checkboard, sorry friend, no hidden meaning in "trumpet", don't know what Mick Hardy's instrument was but mine was/is a Boosey Class A trumpet which at the time was the most prized possession of my Pop. BTW, the shearers were all Aussie's and only sheared the sheep!!! Thanks Dr for reminding me of Atlantic brand fuel. Another brand of personal "fuel" consumed was Resch's Pilsener. In Wellington there were seven pubs for about 4000 population, most of them being Resch's pubs. My Pop reckoned the Hotel Wellington was the best and on Anzac Days, for 29 consecutive years my Mum told me, he would play the Last Post at the Cenotaph and then spend the rest of the day playing for the men at the 'Wellington' whilst consuming plenty of the "amber fluid". He was a WW 1 veteran.

das Uber Soldat

1st Dec 2010, 23:28

oh my arse sixtiesrelic.

Nothing has changed in terms of difficulty from the old days.

He was NOT ready for the test I took back in the olden days.
And by what you describe he wasn't ready for the test of today either

Too much fluffing around with the silliest little things (things he’d been taught were important)
Seventeen minutes taxiing and preparing for his first take off.
A fail item in todays test

Calculator commin’ out for the most basic mental arithmetic. Six inputs into a calculator to get say 3.123456 litres.
It wasn’t him; it was the system. Rods and calculators for MATH in primary school where we got caned for, four outa ten f’r mental ‘rithmetic.
We don’t need computers for multiplying or dividing by seventeen for some rough figurin’ on the run. Seventeeen’s ‘bout half way between fifteen and twenty; both are easy to do in your head and get the average for your answer.
Your mate has all this real world experience.. has common sense, has 'been' around but its modern aviations fault he cant do mental arithmetic? Irrelevant.

We old dodderers flew everywhere for commercial ‘full reporting’. ETAs had to be plus or minus two minutes.
Still a requirement

We had to know where we were to do that.
Still a requirement

Needed to be able to read a map AND keep an accurate log.
Still a requirement

My boy kept forgetting to note his departure time till well under way.
“**** I forgot to note the take off time… have to guess it”.
“Why not check the VDO meter… you noted that before start up, or what about the stop watch we’ve taped to the yoke and you’re finally remembering to hit as you apply take off power.
I thought you said he had common sense? Not exactly rocket science to look at the stop watch and count backwards from the current time. Either way, noting an accurate departure time still a requirement.

The habit of turning onto heading from take off. Sometimes those upwind legs were long and he was already two miles off track at the start.
Departing the circuit and on track tolerances, all the same.

Map reading?? … “Well I won’t be able to see that pipe line… it’s underground”.
“Look at the beaut straight line of different coloured dirt in the paddocks about where it could be”.
Map reading. Still a requirement. Lets hope you had a realistic view of the standard of map reading required for the experience level. A 5000 hour AG pilot sees an entirely different picture when looking at a map over a 150 hour student.

Radio calls… Dunnow why the instructors thought he was ready.
There was more, but that was lack of experience, we all did those things initially.

Im probably just suffering from chronic lack of humor but whilst the reminiscing is enjoyable to read, this assertion that somehow you were 'better' than the pilots coming through today, or that the testing was more difficult and todays is lax and anyone can get through, its bull**** and frustrating to read.

The bloke you spoke of above wasnt ready for the test you took in your day. But he wasn't ready for the test of today either. Now there is always the exception of him finding a lax testing officer and 'fluking' his way through, but tested properly he would have failed before leaving the ground in todays environment.

Ive done enough BFRs with the 'old' crowd to see that your proficiency as a pilot is linked only with your recency, experience and personal attitude. Not the year you did your training.

Rose_Thorns

2nd Dec 2010, 00:27

At least the old un's had a sense of humour and could always (well nearly) laugh at themselves and learned to know when they were being sent up, it's traditional. Maybe that's the Y in the generation, sensitivity.

There are some sensitive little flowers about ain't there boys. :D

tinpis

2nd Dec 2010, 00:40

The smell of 100/130 burning out the valves in my Austin 1800 :uhoh:

das Uber Soldat

2nd Dec 2010, 00:53

Rose: Your post would be great if I was replying to an intentional send up.

Its not a send up. Learn to internet. :)

Edit: Oh and I did enjoy the irony of your post regarding the superiority of the oldies in their ability to recognise a send up. Whilst simultaneously failing at recognizing a send up.

Well played sir! :ok:

Old Fella

2nd Dec 2010, 02:30

Slasher I think the days of "phoofters" being only in aviation is long gone. Seems to me that there is an oversupply of such people in the Parliaments of Australia these days. We have small businesses going to the wall all over the place, cost of living soaring, failed public transport systems, poor roads etc etc and the greatest concern for many of our politicians is "Gay Marriage". How many millions of dollars will be wasted on this debate? Things WERE better when the Phoof's stayed in their cupboards and the rest of us got on with life in ignorance of them.

Slasher

2nd Dec 2010, 03:44

Old Fella you can blame that carpet-munching dyke Penny Wong (http://www.news.com.au/national/wong-gay-push-sparks-fears-of-labor-hijacking/story-e6frfkw9-1225962418126) for pushing the poofter-marriage thing. Even that colon ****-shunter Bob Brown isn't as rabid.

PS: looks to me like Wong wears the strap-on...

tail wheel

2nd Dec 2010, 05:12

"...and the greatest concern for many of our politicians is "Gay Marriage". How many millions of dollars will be wasted on this debate?"

That debate has absolutely nothing to do with personal sexual preferences and everything to do with a politically motivated tactical diversion, intended to distract the populace from other more controversial issues including the Victorian election result, obscene carbon tax, escalating utilities charges and a mere $43 billion – or is it discounted to $34 billion - on an NBN.

Like many PPRuNe users, Australians are very easily distracted from the important topics! :=

How many remember Chips Rafferty in “Smiley”? Rafferty was in the RAAF during the war, de-mobbed in 1945 as a Pilot Officer?

The Australian movies “Jedda”, “They’re a Weird Mob”?

Movietone News in black and white?

Pence one and two as cents will do,
From three to nine one off is fine,
For ten and eleven what you do
Is take the pennies, minus two.

Bruce Gyngell made Australian history on 16 September 1956 – for what?

The mystery of Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler that intrigued Australians for many years. The Graeme Thorne case. Wanda Beach murders and the Beaumont children at Glenelg.

The world’s first hijack, TAA flight 408 in 1960. Ansett flight 232 hijacked in 1972.

Which washing machine company built and sold cars in Australia?

“Pete” Geoghegan, Bib Stillwell, Bob Jane, Norm Beechey were what?

Swimming lessons with Harold Holt.

osmosis

2nd Dec 2010, 06:05

Gee Tailey,

You're goin' back aways there. Perhaps before even your time? What about hobnail boots? Dripping. How many o' you young custards even know what dripping is? Had fruit tins full of the stuff. Peel the white crusty top layer off to get to the real dark goody underneath. Go back a little further and we had eel fat. Eels, being the oily creatures they are were rendered down once apon a time. Had a swamp full of the things not far from home. Damper and eel fat, how many generations survived on it? Go look in wiki if'n you don't know what damper is you young fullas.

I have to say I'm surprised refuelling of aircraft was even mentionedin an earlier post. I take it today that aircraft are fuelled by people other than the pilot in command nowdays? We used to refuel and do oil changes as S.O.P. but its been a while for me. Can't imagine things have changed THAT much.

Old Fella

2nd Dec 2010, 07:10

Tail wheel I do remember that Lightburn made washing machines and the infamous Zeta. Likewise, Bruce Gyngell made the first TV broadcast in Australia, also remember all the Bogle & Chandler drama, the murders at Wanda Beach and the Beaumonts going mudsling from Glenelg beach. My wife used to deal with Graeme Thorn's grand-father who was a Commercial Traveler for hosiery and womens gloves etc. The exploits of Pete, Bib, Norm & Bob on race tracks, some of which no longer exist like Amaroo Park, Catalina Park, Mallala, Gnoo Blas & Warwick Farm. Actually belong to the same car club as Des West, No 1 driver with Brock as his co-driver at Bathurst on Brockies first drive there I think. I even remember Harold H going missing from Cheviot Beach and the jingles with the introduction of decimal currency. Used to watch Movietone News on Saturday arvo's in the local movie house, Chips in Smiley, Ernie Borgnine in "They're a Weird Mob" and also saw Jedda. Life was better then in many ways. You may well be correct about the reasons behind the debate on same sex marriages. It doesn't distract me half as much as it disgusts me. I guess I am just good old fashioned homophobic!!!!

tail wheel

2nd Dec 2010, 07:12

Yes, I go back a way. I was just here when Chips Rafferty was demobbed and in the final years of high school when you were hatched! :}

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/Woomera/1952A.jpg

I think kids back then were a little more aware of affairs around them, despite the lack of modern communications technology. We all knew someone that had been to war. We had the wireless that took pride of place in the living room. No distractions with computers, X Box, mobile phones etc. We went outside and played footy with our mates or listened to the wireless. We talked as a family at meal times and respected our parents. And we saved our pocket money for the 1/- admission to the one hour newsreel threatre about once per month.

We were in Scouts, School Cadets and the school footy team. At weekends we went hiking, camping or digging out rabbits. Rabbit was a regular meal, Mother would buy then for 2/6 a pair.

Dripping? Sure! Butter was still rationed as all Australian butter - Duck River brand - was shipped to England. We were raised on home made bread and dripping, good stuff too! Parents drank Bushells tea and in winter we were given a hot Bonox or Vegemite drink.

"Beano" and "Dandy" comics and Mars bars were a special treat when our parents could afford it.

I now have grand kids and a great grand son. Kids are no different today than they were sixty years ago. They simply have other influences and priorities to what we had.

Old Fella

2nd Dec 2010, 07:16

TW, you are but a lad mate, and I'm envious.

tail wheel

2nd Dec 2010, 07:51

Ol' Fella. Not so many years between us. Like thousands of other young Australians, Father joined the Navy six months before you were born and didn't return permanently until I was over a year old. In those few years he lived another stressful and dangerous lifetime, for which all Australians should be eternally grateful.

Old Fella

2nd Dec 2010, 08:50

TW, I am one who is grateful, as I believe most are. The ADF would not have my Dad due health problems, but he did his bit in the Lithgow Small Arms factory as a fitter & turner. His two brothers and three sister all were in the Air Force, one awarded the DFC as a Lancaster pilot. I spent 23 years with Ronnie before going civil. Enjoy the mostly friendly exchanges here. Cheers OF.:ok:

Captain Nomad

2nd Dec 2010, 09:20

Lithgow small arms factory - wasn't it the main production centre for the Bren gun? Very important place for the war effort in the early forties that's for sure.

sixtiesrelic

2nd Dec 2010, 09:22

Soldat!!!

"He was NOT ready for the test I took back in the olden days.
And by what you describe he wasn't ready for the test of today either"

EXACTLY! He wasn't anywhere near ready YET his instructors said he WAS.

Perhaps you don't have ten thumbs on ya hands when you are under pressure of taking on something new.... most of the rest of us think we have.

He was trying to do all the bulldust he'd been taught thus the seventeen minutes taxi time.
All the mistakes should have been spotted but perhaps makin' bucks is the primary role of the school and when the testee fails they can make lots more getting them up to speed.

I have been trying to get across that today's pilot's have a heap more to learn and it's in virtually the same number of hours, so they aren't going to be as good in some areas.

The cropduster taught him a lot about flying and engine handling that the lads of today don't know, because they are only a few hours more experienced than their students

I see you're from Sydney... Hmmm that's interesting... so was he.
And YES "Im probably just suffering from chronic lack of humor "

Old Fella

2nd Dec 2010, 09:42

Capt Nomad, yes, Bren Guns and Vickers Machine Guns as well as LeEnfield rifles and bayonets were all produced at Lithgow during WW II. Although privatised now, there is a comprehensive museum section there still.

tinpis

2nd Dec 2010, 09:54

The cropdusters taught him a lot about flying and engine handling
Like how long it takes to nicely heat up a can of baked beans placed between the cylinders through the oil flap of a C180. :hmm:

ForkTailedDrKiller

2nd Dec 2010, 10:15

today's pilot's have a heap more to learn

They do ??

F'rinstance?

Dr :8

Checkboard

2nd Dec 2010, 10:43

Like how long it takes to nicely heat up a can of baked beans placed between the cylinders through the oil flap of a C180.:hmm:
Kneel down so that your heel is projecting upwards. Take can and firmly tap side of can on heel of boot, so that a dent is formed in side of can. Place can in engine bay. Beans are perfect when dent pops back out. :8

Chimbu chuckles

2nd Dec 2010, 11:17

They got a heap more to learn about flying a circuit:{

I had to follow an aeroclub C172 around the circuit a while back (in the Tiger Moth) - I usually duck inside and am down and clear in the time they take to fly base/final - there was no way they, and as a result I, could have made the runway after an engine failure. I watched him and he couldn't have made the runway 1/2 way down his final approach.

This is the norm these days across the training industry and not just in Australia...common moan heard across the western world.

Wanna know the real reason things were better in the old days - $1 was worth $1 not 0.05 cents. I am not kidding.

Fueling/loading/topping up the oil?

That is what natives are for surely?:E

Horatio Leafblower

2nd Dec 2010, 11:22

Old Fella I used to play a beautiful 4-valve Boosey & Hawkes "Imperial" Euphemism... *sigh*... I now own a nice little "Sovreign" Bb Cornet but it's a challenge for my Eupho/trombone Lubra-lips :sad:

601

2nd Dec 2010, 11:42

I watched him and he couldn't have made the runway 1/2 way down his final approach.

From what I remember, we had to do master glide approaches before we could do powered approaches.

Tee Emm

2nd Dec 2010, 13:08

From what I remember, we had to do master glide approaches before we could do powered approaches.

That's true. Never did powered approaches in the Tiger Moth until after first solo. Great judgement practice. Even then, you had to go downwind a little longer, turn base. Cut the throttle on completion of turn to base and set up a 58 knots glide. Then because of the slight undershoot you applied a trickle of power at 300 ft and motored in from there. That was called a powered approach. The trickle of power was just enough to muffle the sound of the wind through the wires...

Tee Emm

2nd Dec 2010, 13:19

"Beano" and "Dandy" comics

Don't forget Flight Lieutenant Rockfist Rogan, RAF Spitfire pilot, featured in the Champion comic during the war or was it the Hotspur? After reading that comic at age 8 in 1940 in England, my burning ambition was to be a real Flight Lieutenant and fly a Spitfire.

Peter Fanelli

2nd Dec 2010, 13:26

....when yoof were seen and not heard so much.

osmosis

2nd Dec 2010, 19:52

Those who have spent any time with an ag pilot, particularly a crusty old bastard, early on in their flying will gain benefit. A steep learning curve is re-entered as he learns a few new facts of life; not everyone's cup of tea though. Engine management is one but the biggest new experience must surely be airframe handling on or near the ground in windy conditions. Cross-winds and tail-winds have to be managed correctly on one-way strips if you're in an a/c with a little wheel on the back and particularly a fully loaded one. There is much to be learned for the new pilot. Not been to New Guinea but I imagine those blokes had to LAND at MTOW in far worse conditions than one way ag strips here.

I suspect sixtiesrelic is right in saying the students are required to learn way too much irrelevant material and their heads are likely to be swimming.

Kite flying. Something we all did as kids and it cost nothing, we made our own. My longest retained memory is one of me going to bed as a child feeling bad because President Kennedy had been shot and was gravely ill. A swingsaw. Dad had a swingsaw and used it regularly both for cutting logs and as a sawbench; us kids stacked the wood as it came off the bench. Those blades weighed a ton to a small kid. Had an old Chev Blitz as a super spreader with chain drive off the rear wheel. The one and only bought cereal we had was Cornflakes and we used to spend hours making and playing with those toys found inside the packets. The packets themselves were highly prized as they soon were cut up into various shapes and used all the time as gaskets in all sorts of engines.

tinpis

2nd Dec 2010, 20:20

Flying a plane with a new fangled cockpit heater.

frigatebird

2nd Dec 2010, 20:48

Flying a Navajo at 17 thou to catch the tailwinds on a night freight run without one.. (no, that wasn't better, if you got pneumonia..)

Checkboard

2nd Dec 2010, 22:35

I watched him and he couldn't have made the runway 1/2 way down his final approach.So what?

I mean - I know large circuits at training aerodromes are a perennial whinge, but show me the regulation that says you have to be able to glide to a runway at every point of your flight from A to B, or in the circuit or anywhere else.

Skynews

2nd Dec 2010, 23:15

I mean - I know large circuits at training aerodromes are a perennial whinge, but show me the regulation that says you have to be able to glide to a runway at every point of your flight from A to B, or in the circuit or anywhere else.

Exactly.

I used to do circuits that you could glide to the field from mid downwind, but What about from take - off until the downwind point that you will make it from?
What about when you leave the circuit for the training area or further?
Most if not all light aircraft rely on powered approaches today. That means they rely on power! if the have a failure post a position were they can glide to the field, what then?

Surely its better to teach some one to be aware of their options and how to react then simply turn towards a runway they well not make?

I'm all for smallish circuits, more take-offs and landings is another good reason, but just to be able to "maybe" glide back with a failure, what frog****.

Chimbu chuckles

2nd Dec 2010, 23:52

You don't think there is value in ingraining skills that might save your life if the engine fails cross country and your only option is a relatively small piece of open ground, section of straight dirt track etc?

And just because you cant make the runway straight after takeoff you shouldn't have to be able to from base or final?

Well there is a standard that has changed in the last 25 years for starters.

A 172 is not a 737 and teaching people to fly them as if they are is a mistake.

Jober.as.a.Sudge

2nd Dec 2010, 23:54

So what? then... ...show me the regulation that says you have to be able to glide to a runway...

That's some sort of "head-in-the-sand" attitude there Checkboard!!! :ugh:

Of course there's no regulation that states you must remain within gliding distance of a runway en-route point A to point B -what a ridiculous, nonsensical suggestion!!!
The point of the discussion is that it is good basic Airmanship to remain within gliding distance of the runway when operating within an airport environment (ie: the circuit), particularly when operating a single-engine aircraft, keeping in mind the "where will I go if it stops" scenario.

When operating within a busy airport environment, I think of flying a tight, efficient circuit as common courtesy, coupled with Airmanship (again). That means that if I am using the airspace and runway environment efficiently, my actions do not force a change of (approach) plan on others, the "system" works appropriately and for everyone.

Then there is the small matter of energy management to be considered. Why would you not use the energy inherent in your aircraft to aid and assist your approach path??? I remember one discussion here a year or 2 ago from a new CPL with a 1st job on a C207 (personally I think they're a pig, but that's a discussion for another time). In his "vast" experience of the 207 he decided the best way to land them was to set up on a loooong final, then drag it onto the runway with power. All the way in on the back of the L/D curve with it balls to the wall :ugh: No thought there for any changes of condition that may require additional power. No energy left to do anything but stall if it went even slightly pear-shaped. And all this from a 747-size circuit.

Those that fly these enormous, inefficient circuits (God alone knows what they're thinking) would truly struggle to fly in places where terrain severely restricts -and in some cases modifies the shape of- the circuit pattern. A case in point from my own experience is NZMF (Milford Sound) where the "circuit" for RWY29 starts abeam Stirling Falls, around 4NM from the RWY11 threshold, and roughly on the extended centreline of that RWY. You need to be not above 1,000' at that point. You then follow the wall of mountains until roughly ABM the airport, where the circuit widens out a little -but watch for aircraft joining from the ADA RP/Arthur Valley -they'll be at your level! Then passing ABM the 29 threshold (your touch-down point) your path is again restricted by the Sheerdown mountains. Maintain your level, staying as close as you can to the rock-face until you're in the wider area formed by the confluence of the Cleddau and Tutoko Valleys. That's where you start your turn onto "finals" and descent from 1,000' to 500'. Maintain that 500' until established on the RWY centreline. Then you'll really start using your "energy management" techniques. Initially, you'll be struggling to get her down: it'll look like you're going to massively overshoot the threshold. But as you get in towards the Cleddau River, you'll find massive sink awful sudden making it look like a tree-top or river-bed arrival is likely. Just add a trickle of power to modify your descent rate -the sink will disappear again as you cross the river, then all you'll have to contend with is the howling x-wind from the Arthur Valley. Get that about right, you'll touchdown pretty much on the numbers, with little enough remaining energy that you should be able to turn off into the parking area without use of brakes, or at best only very light use there-of.

And all of this is in the midst of 30+ other aircraft, all doing the same thing...

If you're interested, the VFG plates are available here (http://www.aip.net.nz/pdf/NZMF.pdf). Personally I've operated into NZMF from when I was a student -I worked in there in another capacity at the time. My NZMF Rating (required at the time) arrived in the same post as my PPL. Apparently the rating committee were of the opinion that they couldn't keep me out as an SPL, so why would they even bother trying as a PPL/CPL. I would surely like to see some of these people (I hesitate to call them pilots) that fly these enormous circuits attempt to operate in here. I'm sure some of the old PNG hands could illustrate my points with many examples of their own.

When I was a student pilot, glide-approach proficiency was mandatory pre-solo -in point of fact, the fact that you were getting glide-approach training was the prime indicator of your impending 1st solo.

Worth thinking about I reckon.

Pinky the pilot

3rd Dec 2010, 00:29

Climbing up onto the wing root of one of the Maralinga Mustangs:ok: to look into the cockpit just a few days after it arrived at Parafield, and not being told off by anyone for doing so. Admittedly I did first ask permission from someone nearby. Whether or not that person was really able to give said permission I knew not.

Fueling/loading/topping up the oil?

That is what natives are for surely?

They were reasonably good at it as well, were'nt they Chuck? Came in handy for that, especially as on occasion one was leaning up against something trying to light up a calming cigarette with trembling fingers:eek: after just having scared the bejaysus out of oneself on the landing or prior take off out of some strip carved out of the side of a mountain, or in between some mountains, etc etc.

Some Talair pilot once told me that if you did'nt scare yourself s***less at least once a week you were'nt working hard enough!:eek: Maybe he was joking but..

Old Fella

3rd Dec 2010, 00:46

I remember the first time I saw a Shorts Skyvan. It was in Goroka and one of the local engineering guys said words to the effect: "Him a Skyvan, not very big on pretty, but pretty big on strong" . Some of the best flying I was ever involved in was in New Guinea during the 1970's. At one time being based in the old Ansett Annexe in Madang and flying into Mendi in a C130A with food for the locals after their yam crops failed. It was another of the worthwhile humanitarian efforts we got involved in.

das Uber Soldat

3rd Dec 2010, 02:02

Soldat!!!

"He was NOT ready for the test I took back in the olden days.
And by what you describe he wasn't ready for the test of today either"

EXACTLY! He wasn't anywhere near ready YET his instructors said he WAS.
No shortage of crappy instructors around, you'll get no argument from me in regards to that. However, it literally has no bearing whatsoever on the difficulty of obtaining a CPL today compared to yesterday. Simply, his instructor made a mistake. What year exactly did instructors stop being perfect? 1973?

Perhaps you don't have ten thumbs on ya hands when you are under pressure of taking on something new.... most of the rest of us think we have.

He was trying to do all the bulldust he'd been taught thus the seventeen minutes taxi time.
Having trained literally hundreds of CPL candidates, I can assure you he wasn't prepared correctly. Time management and commercial considerations play a central role in CPL training today, yet there is no question that a properly trained student can complete all the required items whilst getting away in good time.

All the mistakes should have been spotted but perhaps makin' bucks is the primary role of the school and when the testee fails they can make lots more getting them up to speed.
Again, this all comes down to what sounds like a crappy instructor. Not a reduction in standards from the times you speak of. The standard of instructors is altogether a different argument and not relevant to the one we are having now.

I have been trying to get across that today's pilot's have a heap more to learn and it's in virtually the same number of hours, so they aren't going to be as good in some areas.
Grammar aside, 150 hours is well sufficient for a student to meet the minimum requirements of the CPL provided they are trained properly. That said yes, logically, if they need to learn more things in the same amount of flight time then it stands to reason that they would not be as proficient in certain areas. That opens up a seperate argument as to the content of the syllabus and if everything inside necessarily needs to be inside. Different argument.

The cropduster taught him a lot about flying and engine handling that the lads of today don't know, because they are only a few hours more experienced than their students
Yet some of the worst instructors I know have 10,000 hours, and many of the best I have ever worked with have 750. Experience and ability to impart said experience in a tangible way are not always in accompaniment. You're lucky your mate met a good ag pilot. Regardless, i'd have a wild guess that your mate didn't exactly learn alot about compliance with the regulations if taking lessons of an aggy ;)

I see you're from Sydney... Hmmm that's interesting... so was he.
And YES "Im probably just suffering from chronic lack of humor "
True, being from sydney, i'm automatically a bad pilot, and probably an idiot. Oo, even better. I instructed at a sausage factory!!
The argument that pilots were better in the old days doesn't hold up to close inspection. Sorry.

sixtiesrelic

3rd Dec 2010, 03:26

Dear oh Dear... that chip must be heavy.

das Uber Soldat

3rd Dec 2010, 03:50

Yeh ok mate, I've got a chip on my shoulder because I can comfortably disprove your flawed theory.

Ad hominem strikes again. I'll be waiting any time you decide you want to debate the issue itself.

kingRB

3rd Dec 2010, 06:10

Soldat cheers for taking the time to respond to his points, saved me the trouble :}

Fully agree with what you have said.

Relic, I appreciate you came across a pilot with what sounds like average skills for a low experience PPL, claiming to be at a CPL standard, but, you have not said anything so far that proves CPL candidates a few decades ago are any better than todays.

Thats why I asked if there is any major differences in the syllabus of old or new... Its the only way to objectively see if there is anything that would make the CPL candidates of old more skilled than todays... Opinions aside.

Checkboard

3rd Dec 2010, 08:52

Of course there's no regulation that states you must remain within gliding distance of a runway en-route point A to point B -what a ridiculous, nonsensical suggestion!!!

Hyperbole, a form of rhetorical device used in intelligent debate. :rolleyes: You might want to look it up.

sixtiesrelic

3rd Dec 2010, 21:35

Soldier, you and I will never see eye to eye.

Old Fella, we used to talk on the tarmac when I came over to admire that sexy 310 when you’d fly it over the Bismark to RAB with KWA the only bit of coral to settle on if you lost one.
I was next door to you operatin’ war surplice equipment with Drama ‘n Trembles when livin’ in the capital.
We dined upstairs in the evenings during the gammon famine too, when you came over to paradise.

das Uber Soldat

3rd Dec 2010, 22:57

Thats fine mate. And I'm more than happy to read the stories from the older guys, often going out of my way to hear them. Aviation was a different beast back then and in some senses I'm sad to have missed the 'golden age'.

But I will always defend the ability of my peers.

Happy flying. :)

Old Fella

4th Dec 2010, 03:28

Sixtiesrelic, I think you have mistaken me and our aircraft for another. I was a F/E on Lockheed C130A models when flying in PNG, later on C130E and C130H models before going Boeing (B707 initially). Happy days mate.

thorn bird

5th Dec 2010, 00:46

Ladies and Gents,
A question for you.
During my sighs and smiles reading through these posts, Ahh, memories!! my dementia addled brain suddenly thought...Is it "really" any safer flying today than it was back then?...is it as enjoyable today as it was back then?
Seems like my stress levels are a lot higher , continually worried about big brother breathing down my neck, with that criminal prosecution for a minor mistake, to relax. (Who wants to spend their retirement in Jail?)
Lots more box ticking and paper work now...but is it any safer? with all these new rules, which I have to confess I dont fully understand, even if I can find them in all the tomes they now occupy. Flying seems so complicated today.
Sorry guys, must be old age creeping up on me, maybe its time to hang up the Dave Clarks, and keep the fond memories.

sixtiesrelic

5th Dec 2010, 07:40

Old fella you're correct, Dyslexia's functioning too, but we did dine in the Ansett mess in 72.

Some pickies for you from outside your aeroplane during the 'Gamon famon'
It started off real enough when they had a six week drought but they got cunning later and gently waved red hot sticks over the leaves of the crop when the morning dew was on it so the steam burned the leaves and then they showed the Kiaps the frost damage and reckoned they'd need more Kaikai b'long Australia. Havin choppers deliver food beat weedin' gardens and digging up crops.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/HercTakeoffMadang.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/hercmendi.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/Gamoncaribou.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/gamonbiggies.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/gamonreloadbou.jpg

sixtiesrelic

5th Dec 2010, 07:44

More Famine Ops.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/Gammontower.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/Gamonhomeward.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/gamonenrouteh.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/gamonchop.jpg

sixtiesrelic

5th Dec 2010, 07:56

Mendi 5000ft elev.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/Gamonfinals.jpg

Some of the things the RAAF did to their aeroplanes.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/HercGKA.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/TakeoffMendi.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/gamonshowinoff.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/boggedRabaul.jpg

sixtiesrelic

5th Dec 2010, 08:06

Then there was the day when they busted the nosewheel at Madang.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/HercbustedMd.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/Broken1.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/Hercnosew.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/BouMDb.jpg

Couple of other pickies.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/HercGoroka.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/sixtiesrelic/vixitPOM.jpg

So OLDFELLA that's what we saw.
PM me if you would like more.

Tmbstory

5th Dec 2010, 08:32

Sixtiesrelic:

Thanks for posting those, I enjoyed them. Even though I was not in the RAAF, I did spend quite some time with the L382's and SAT on the operation from Nadzab to Moro when we helped develop that project.

Regards

Tmb

Old Fella

5th Dec 2010, 09:45

Sixtiesrelic. Thanks very much for posting the photographs of C130 ops in PNG. The nose gear failure on -213 was the first of its type in RAAF service. A similar event happened within the last couple of years with a C130H. The one in Madang could have been much worse. As you may recall, the torque link on the C130 is forward facing. The dual wheel nose gear axle broke away from the bottom of the strut and the axle and wheel assys trailed with the torque link fully extended. Don Stuart, I think, was flying the aircraft and after jettisoning a load of empty 44 gallon drums into Madang harbour they landed, very gingerly lowering the nose so that the broken strut slid down the torque link and rested on the broken axle. There was very little secondary damage and a new NLG strut assy complete with new wheels and tyres was about all required to get the aircraft back on line. I checked my log book and I was in Madang during October '72. A couple of times a week we would go down to Cairns and load up with potatoes from the Atherton area, departing early in the mornings to fly direct to Mendi. The aircraft which bogged at Rabaul broke through what had been a WWII repaired bomb crater as I recall. It had been filled with drums and covered with earth. The drums eventually rotted and the Herc broke through. I had a bogging incident on Daru, luckily we had a number of Aussie soldiers on board who had been away from home for weeks and they soon dug us an excape route.

Tee Emm

5th Dec 2010, 10:09

So OLDFELLA that's what we saw.

Was Bruce Clarke the pilot of any of those Hercs. We flew together at 34 Sqn on 748's and in DCA. He keeled over at his desk at DCA. RIP/.

Tee Emm

5th Dec 2010, 10:16

was to check the wind lines on the local water dams.And not forgetting cows always have their arses into wind. They never tell you that in the A330 simulator when doing the volcanic ash exercise and you can't get the engines started..:ok:.

ForkTailedDrKiller

5th Dec 2010, 11:37

And not forgetting cows always have their arses into wind.

Yup! Especially after I have been at'm!

Dr http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/nerd.gif

Hempy

5th Dec 2010, 13:03

tinpis and the local FSO, circa ?

G6Ir9pKL5zY

Old Fella

6th Dec 2010, 01:33

Tee Emm I first met Bruce I think in 1959. He was on C130's then and I later caught up with him while he was an Instructor on Winjeels at Point Cook in the early 1960's. I did not get back to RAAF Richmond until late 1968 and I can't recall if Bruce was around then. He certainly was on the C130A in around 1966 or '67. He and Arch Streeter were in
A97-207 with Barrie Wallis as F/E and Les Wells as Loadie when they inadvertently entered a spin during practice stalls. One of the outboard props re-acted to a Negative Torque Signal and away they went. They lost a lot of height before recovering at a fairly low altitude. I know the power off stalls were always thereafter with a minimum of about 1000 in/lbs of torque on all engines to preclude another NTS event during stalling practice. I was aware that Bruce had passed away, a long time ago now. He was a good guy and an early wearer of the Crew Cut hair style. RIP.