What a great surprise to get such a quick response. Its great to hear your experience with this machine. As far as I can gather it was donated to Victorian TAFE and was never really used for training, hence its still in great ( if dusty condition. The Engines are great, the interior a bit "tardy" and to me ( a very sad classic car ( SAABs) enthusiast) its a machine worth resurrecting. If you can think of anyone else who has info, experience or knowledge of this early Cessna twin, I would love to here from them. I have shipped the aircraft from Victoria to Sydney ( in container with wings/engines removed and will be working on it for a few years to come. Brought the Wings up myself on an modified car transporter trailer to ensure they weren't "mis-treated"..... never had so much attention form those who met me while filling up with fuel!!
Again many thanks for your insights
Cheers
Charles
Many many thanks for your quick response.
I was amazed to find this machine that seems to have been mothballed for 30 years. Its all there and I have now moved it to Sydney. Body engine in a container and wings separated transported personally on a modified car trailer.. Created lots of attention when I stopped foe fuel!!
If you have any more info, please let me know as I think this early "executive Twin Cessna" is worth looking after... even if it takes me many years,
Cheers, charles
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Originally Posted by
Mach E Avelli
Using my first logbook as a memory jogger, I think Bob Oliver (Murchison Air Charter) acquired TDB in late 1966. Jim Borthwick endorsed me on it on 5th February 1967. Somewhere around that time I recall it having a camera hatch cut in to the belly at Jandakot. For high altitude photography we sucked on oxygen, and for some jobs took the top half of the cabin door off so that the cameraman could hang his gear out the side. I can't remember how we did the cloud seeding experiment, but it was unsuccessful - maybe they chucked the pellets out through the camera hatch? For some reason the contract went to another operator - maybe the C 411 was too expensive?
The only incident I had was a lucky escape. For some time there had been severe shimmy during landings, which we assumed was caused by the nosewheel. One dark night, landing on a very wet runway at Perth, the shimmy got really bad and I struggled to keep straight while slowing down. The torque link on one main landing gear had dropped (or possibly sheared) its retaining bolt and the gear on that side ended up with the mainwheel at right angles to its proper position. Of course taxying was not possible. The only thing that saved us from ripping the gear leg off was the wet runway, and the tyre did not even deflate.
Another C 411 came to Perth, operated by Bell Bros. I think that was the one which threw a prop and nearly cut the pilot's leg in half.
A very nice aeroplane for its time. To be trusted with flying single pilot in such a machine at a paltry 1300 hours in those days was quite a deal, but now of course kids with that time are flying jets..