DC3 Essendon

[PennyBenjamin]

Hi there, chasing the DC3 operator who has the white machine with 'flydc3.com.au' written on the side for a charter, is it working? what is the go?

[sixtiesrelic]

Sydney helicopter flights and Melbourne helicopter rides, Australia (http://heliexperiences.com.au/incentives/tag/dc3-charter-melbourne/)

the opposition ... DC-3 VH-OVM Essendon Airport | Shortstop Jet Charter (http://www.shortstop.com.au/info/node/220) a good safe operator.

DO IT... People love going low and slow over the city and countryside and the harmonic drone of those two big round engines is music.

[Al E. Vator]

I think the aircraft you're talking about was/is a Dakota National Air aircraft but having had a little issue with bills is grounded at EN ufn.

It's a great old best but looking a little the worse for wear.

As sixtiesrelic mentions, a good operator is Shortstop and OVM. There's a nice looking machine... There's also the Air Nostalgia aircraft on the tarmac just to the east.

[Power]

this one ?
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/3/0/0/1017003.jpg

[Centaurus]

People love going low and slow over the city and countryside and the harmonic drone of those two big round engines is music.

Not much fun in the old days flogging down to Tassie in ice filled clouds and no de-icing equipment on the wings. Illegal actually but DCA looked the other way. Wouldn't be at all surprised if same thing happens with light twins doing the prawn runs in winter. Amazing that CASA ignore that too...

[sixtiesrelic]

Never had the pleasure of ice filled clouds but had big contact covered maps to keep us a bit dry in PNG.
Tourist flights today don't fly in too much rain. The tourists are pretty astounded at the room they have to themselves too.

[Desert Flower]

Anyone know if Jack Curtis is still flying? Had the pleasure of meeting him a few times over the years.

DF.

[Dogimed]

Jack Curtis... and Pleasure?!... bwahahahahahaha


Dog

[T28D]

Geez Dog , you might not like Jack, but you have to respect him !!!!!

[Dogimed]

T28D..

Nope... dont have too.. dont want too..

Story is too long and old.... much like him :)

Dog

[PLovett]

Not much fun in the old days flogging down to Tassie in ice filled clouds and no de-icing equipment on the wings.

My father was a passenger on such a flight. While over Bass Straight the aircraft was climbing all the time but then started a descent. The word from up front was that they couldn't get over the storm so they had to go under it. The flight landed at Cambridge (then the Hobart airport) some hours later than scheduled.

As they were taxiing in, another DC3 was warming its engines prior to departing for Melbourne. This aircraft was a freighter. It was taxiing out as my father left the airfield for home. On takeoff that particular aircraft had one of the elevator control wire blocks let go and the crew could not control the aircraft. It crashed into Pittwater with the loss of both crew. For a long time there were remnants of the crashed aircraft on the banks of Pittwater.

[dogcharlietree]

Jack C is a legend in his own lunchtime and he has CAA, CASA or whatever they are called, all conned. "Mr DC3 in Australia" what a laugh.
If you really want to know about this guy, ask some of the old snoozers from TAA decades ago.

[Desert Flower]

Jack C is a legend in his own lunchtime and he has CAA, CASA or whatever they are called, all conned. "Mr DC3 in Australia" what a laugh.
If you really want to know about this guy, ask some of the old snoozers from TAA decades ago.

I judge people by the way they treat me, not by what they may or may not have done.

DF.

[dogcharlietree]

And so do I. Hence my comment!!!!

[Slasher]

this one ?

Holy **** its SBL! Does me bloody heart great to see that the
old girl is still flying! :D: :ok:

I love DC3s and loved every minute of the short time I had of
the privilege to fly them - they've seen Concorde and Space
Shuttle come and go, and will still be flying when the latest
batch of computerised Airbus junk retires.

NGdhAJL9wQI LyUJIC6I7ic

There're some aircraft I'll simply stop my Scareboos on the
taxiway to watch take off - any Spit or P51 (natch), B727s
(with unpooftered JT8s) and naturally any DC3s/C47s/Daks.

BTW does anyone know what's happened to the old Tin Can
(VH-CAN)? Used to be with the DCA then went to Brain and
Brown at EN I think in the mid to late 70s.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2607/3999619465_e159084c15.jpg

[NSEW]

VH-CAN is now in New Zealand flying with the Southern DC-3 Trust as ZK-AMY.

[Slasher]

Thanks NSEW.

[emeritus]

A fabulous aircraft to fly. Flying in rain tended to take the gloss off it a bit tho.
Remember landing on King Island in a howling gale. Took about 5 minutes to make a 180 to backtrack !
Emeritus :ok:

[JMEN]

So who owns the grounded one?

It does not look like the black sheep.

Should be flying, oh what? Does not run on grass alone?

[sixtiesrelic]

I met a young bloke who had popped his head in the cockpit of a DC-3 that was open, to have a look when I was. He was a bit scathing and announced "Tomorrow I'm starting my endorsement in a METRO!"
Metros, it seemed were the real aeroplanes not this relic from the past.
I wonder how long or IF... he'll ever realize that he's not really flying aeroplanes he's just a button presser and monitor of systems and computers.
A DC-3 with no auto pilot in your hands has to be flown and isn't that what every wannabe pilot wants to do ...FLY.
Simplicity... Gauges told you what was happpening and you had to use the info to manoeuver her through the sky, taking care of those big round engines which gave a beaut harmonic roar on take off and a lovely drone on cruise. No ear splittin' scream with computers runnin' them. within limits.
It took an artist to get a Pratt started. Now days I've been told, there have been instances of FAs and cleaners starting APUs so they can get the air con going to make themselves more comfortable. Someone saw a pilot push a little switch down and hold it there for a bit before letting go.
I suppose they have the book out so they can do the fire drill if the bugger catches alight...

DC-3s wallowed and leaked and deafened you but all DC-3 pilots will climb aboard and sniff the same old smell she has had and remember the good days when ever they get a chance.

[Monopole]

sixtiesrelic, you obviously haven't flown a Metro then :=:=:=

But then this I suppose they have the book out so they can do the fire drill if the bugger catches alight... Every aircraft I have flown with an APU auto shuts down in the event of an APU fire :}

[JMEN]

Excellent!

On the list of aircraft I want and will fly one day.

:D

[dogcharlietree]

DC-3s wallowed and leaked and deafened you but all DC-3 pilots will climb aboard and sniff the same old smell she has had and remember the good days when ever they get a chance.

One of the few aeroplanes I really miss. Would rather go around the world in a "3" than across the road in a "...bus"

[Propstop]

Relic...
Excellent!

On the list of aircraft I want and will fly one day.

Naturally you will not want an engineer to do a walkaround on that as you will be more than capable of doing your own:hmm::hmm:

[sixtiesrelic]

Monopole... No I haven't even crouched down to get inside a Metro.
You are getting all protective there mate, like I did almost fifty years ago when a fairly famous Aussie aviator mentioned to another in my hearing, that he'd had a fly of a Tiger Moth recently and “Hell there was nothing to do in the checklists”.
I, a thirty stupendous hour, grub, was suitably affronted at this slur. I kept my gob shut and went through the longest one in my head…Trim, throttle friction nut, fuel, slats, switches, instruments… ( there were six of those to check… ASI, Altimeter, T&B, tacho, oil pressure and compass!) Hatches and harness and controls... “What’s HE talking about”.

HE had flown evacuees in an Avro Ten in New Guinea with the Japs streaking in and shooting the place up and gone on to start his own ‘small airline’ that operated for many years, servicing the north.

We have been you… you have yet to become us. As a tall, superior, Austrian Check Captain once said to me…’”Right now you’re just a grub! One day you’ll emerge into a beeauutiful butterfly”. I suppose today he’d be up before some graduate in equity and diversity for being so insulting. I laughed and understood where he was coming from.

I had a bit of a look in the thread ‘Back in the day when you flew a real plane’ and I don’t see ‘the pencil’ mentioned. I didn’t go right through but feel free to enlighten me.

In say thirty year’s time, will there be the affection for the Metro that MILLIONS have for the old Goonie? The war helped I guess, as plenty of servicemen heard the drone and welcomed the supplies that would drop from her, or the relief of being carted out to safety.

Passengers can stand upright in the Three’s aisle and lean against the hat rack to look out the window as they’re mooching along a couple of thousand feet up. You can see people in their yards and watch what they’re doing as you pass slowly by.
Short people find the emergency exit row uncomfortable to try and eat in. Their table is too far from them. There’s plenty of leg room and the seats are wide.
I really don’t think many passengers have any particular love of the Metro... A good little aeroplane, but … just another screaming, people mover.
The couple of pilots who've flown them, don't get too misty when telling me about them. It was more the situation they were in and the heaviness of the controlls that came across to me.

You FLY a three, not ‘operate’ them … although in today’s climate of correctness, it looks like trying to operate them is coming in, much like the way the airlines changed the way of flying the Friendship so that the transition to jets was easier.
There were a couple of oldies who had flown big lumbering beasts through hours of bursts of flack for many petrifying tours and came back home and FLEW the Friendship ‘their way’. Some of us spotty little experts learned a thing or two about the aeroplane and flying when with them… uncomfortable perhaps to start with because it wasn’t in the manual, but we saw what CAN be done. I never heard of any of us doing the things but we knew what the aircraft was capable of.

OH! and does the fire bottle go off automatically too, when the APU catches alight?
I was endeavouring to point out that starting a jet engine is fairly straight forward because lots of computers take care of the fine tuning.
You didn't seem to be appalled at the effrontery of an untrained person going into the cockpit and touching things, which is a sad entitlement on the standards of training and respect today.
I haven’t seen it myself, but it was a pretty irate pilot who told me it’s happened.

I'm not having a serious shot at you mate, I was always excited about the next step up, like every other pilot I've ever met... Just don't look forward all the time. Look back over your shoulder occasionally, because it may well not be there when you realize you'd like it. That goes for old aeroplanes, a way out of a valley or your holding altitude while the bloke in front shoots another approach.

When flying Tiger Moths; a Chipmunk with its huge clunker of a Flight/Ground swithch to supply electricity to the aeroplane, flaps, TWO petrol tanks, a five channel wireless set, lights, brakes ... and artificial horizon and direction gyro... WOW!
AND a great big Cessna 172 with two wirelesses and an automatic direction finder with it's five inch, round, three channel dial on the dashboard... Complicated and scary ... hell! would I ever be able to fly one of THEM?
Funnily enough at that time I was often sitting in jumpseats of Viscounts and didn't have a clue what was happening... too far above my experience and knowledge.

[Centaurus]

That is not surprising. Some years after the Viscount was introduced into the airlines, a poll was started in Flight International I think, asking pilots to nominate which aircraft they had flown in their career that had caused the most checklist errors. The Viscount was on top of everyone's list because of the illogical layout of the numerous switches from the top to the bottom of all the instrument panels. Having flown the Viscount I would go along with that.
American cockpits were generally far better designed - Mustang versus Spitfire cockpits for instance.

The Convair 440 Metropolitan flight deck was excellent but later made a hideous mess when the turbo-prop Allisons were installed.

[Slasher]

I was too young to have flown the Viscount, but I know from
reading McArthur Job's crash comic Vol 4 that the 700 was a
pretty badly designed heap of crap - Winton (http://www.airwaysmuseum.com/Vickers%20Viscount%20VH-RMI%20crash%20Winton.htm) being the prime
example.

http://images.berkelouw.com.au/large/9/7/8/1/8/7/5/6/7/1/4/8/9/9781875671489.jpg

[Centaurus]

that the 700 was a
pretty badly designed heap of crap - Winton being the prime
example.

So was the Lockheed Electra where several were lost because of significant inflight structural failures to the outboard engine support structures and the inboard portion of the port wing. These were the components which appeared to have been involved in the catastrophic disintegration of the aircraft.

And of course the Comet 1 structural failures in flight and not to mention the Canadair C-4 Argonaut with its poorly designed fuel system - Stockton, Manchester accident 1967. The list goes on.

[emeritus]

I strongly suspect a person can only find out how good a pilot they are by flying something like a DC3, Tiger Moth or Auster aircraft.

Emeritus.

[Monopole]

Hey Relic, sit down ol' timer and have a little rest. My post had my tongue so firmly planted in the side of my cheek it was almost pushing through.

My point being, that there are many aircraft types (while not in the same league as the D) that are still 'hand flown' and not completely computer operated. The Metro (a vast majority of them at least) is one of them.

I'm not getting defensive about anything. I couldn't care less for the Metro. And I agree that in 30 years time nobody will probably get "misty eyed" about it either. I also hope that we never again become so attached to an aircraft or reliant on an aircraft due to the process of war.

I do take my hat off to you guys who pioneered the industry, and bravely fought (my father and my grandfathers amongst them) for us latter generations, and I enjoy hearing people talk about and know personally some of 'Australia's Aviation Greats'. This will unfortunately one day be lost to the history books. But for those of us who through no fault of our own, were born in an era after yours, deserve the right to enjoy and be sentimental of the aircraft that we cut our teeth on, without constantly hearing how easier the things are to fly these days or that we don't fly them, but monitor the systems.

You didn't seem to be appalled at the effrontery of an untrained person going into the cockpit and touching things, which is a sad entitlement on the standards of training and respect today. Not too sure where you got this opinion of me from. I would not be too happy to hear of this happening.

Also, you don't know me, the respect that I have for my fellow people, or where I've come from, where I am now or how I got here, so please don't lump me in with 'today's standard of training'.

I'm not having a serious shot at you mate, I was always excited about the next step up, like every other pilot I've ever met... Just don't look forward all the time. Look back over your shoulder occasionally, because it may well not be there when you realize you'd like it. That goes for old aeroplanes, a way out of a valley or your holding altitude while the bloke in front shoots another approach I appreciate this Relic, and nor am I having a personal crack at you. For those that no me well though, they know that I looked back too much and this in fact hampered my way forward. Remember that Classic Wings operation with the 3 out of Perth a few years ago? I was well into the process of the exact same thing a few years before that. I was, and still am passionate about the DC3 and would love nothing more than to "FLY" one, but passion doesn't put food on the table and I abandoned the project.

No hard feelings Sixtiesrelic, but we are all adding our bit to the aviation industry with the cards that we've been dealt :ok::ok:

[splitty]

Done many an hour in the right hand seat of a Topdressing DC-3 many years ago in NZ. Fantastic Aircraft ...!!

[sixtiesrelic]

Sorry Monopole .... read you wrong.
Splitty ... now YOU are a man I'm bloody envious of!

[Slasher]

So was the Lockheed Electra where several were lost...

True Centaurus, but if memory serves the harmonic problem
that caused the propeller to rip the engines and wings off was
corrected by tilting the engine mounts 2 deg up, and this was
done just after the L188 entered domestic service in Oz.

As I recall there was a 220kt IAS limit on the Electras while the
problem was being worked on. The aeroplane turned out pretty
ok after that - as a Ta-Ta DC9 FO we used to race Ansett's L188C
from MEL to Launy, and those Wombats could give us a run for
our money!

I strongly suspect a person can only find out how good a
pilot they are by flying something like a DC3, Tiger Moth
or Auster aircraft.

Damn true! An old axiom said if you could fly those aircraft
accurately and safely you could fly anything the buggers
throw at you in the future.

Was only able to ever do 3hrs in the J4 though.... :(

[sixtiesrelic]

Driving past Caboolture yesterday I spotted either the TAA or Ansett DC-3 parked with her nose majestically pointing skywards towards the highway. Lost concentration on the driving as I shot my head back a couple of times trying to identify her.
While at a mate's place further north an hour later, we heard the unmistakable sound of the pair of Pratts burbling along at 2050 RPM. That had us out of the house and dancing about the yard to keep her in view as she slowly flew seawards of the coast towards the Wide Bay do that's on this weekend.
The silhouette is unmistakable and the sedate speed ... a giveaway, even when you can’t hear the old girls.