Duke Elegant
Joined: Nov 28, 2002
Posts: 262 Posted: 2003-04-22 21:31
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Tomorrow I am on the Bullet Train to Hell.
Chemo .... #4
At least today I get to reflect on a life that I would not trade or change for anything...... I made a lot of mistakes .... you are yet to read of them .... spectacular mistakes.... but ALL have a lesson.
THE CHOOK CAPER
The Viet Nam war was over for Australia ... we had pulled out.... pilots everywhere .. no jobs.
I tired of life on the beach. Mowing lawns till 1PM for some scratch, surf till dusk then off to the surf bar to pick up glasses till closing for about three bucks an hour. The benefit was you got to scope out a floozie where, after a little horizontal refreshment, one got a shower and maybe some laundry done. Chauvinism was alive and well back then.
I was lucky that my cousin was a Bristol Freighter captain so I got a job as a swamper. We flew drill equipment to the Gulf country, racehorses to Melbourne, strawberries to Sydney, and my favourite job, flying huge prawns from the Gulf to Cairns , twenty four hours a day. The prawns came ashore from the trawlers in WW2 army amphibous vehicles called "ducks". They came out of the water and drove straight to the airport that had NO facilities. Supper! I took a garbage can lid and drained some salted bilgewater into it and lit a fire.... boiled prawns as big as yer fist.
I was waiting for the job on the Turbo Aztec doing air photo survey in New Guinea. I was a shoe in as I had Photo experience in the Army and had been to New Guinea before.
I finally got the job and flew to New Guinea in the Aztec.I got real good at it...climbing to 210 over unbelievable beautiful country.We took off at dawn and climbing out we would see the native grass huts along the 5000 foot ridges and they all looked like they were on fire as smoke seeped through the grass roofs but we learned later that they burned pig **** all night to keep the mossies away. The other company airplane in the highland town of Goroka was a turbo B56 Baron . Picture this! Two 385hp Beach Duke engines on a Baron fuselage. ****! It climbed like a Mustang. HOOOOOWEEEEE!
One day, an engineer was trouble shooting a wing tank mounted fuel pump...tanks dry... switch on.... ka-ferkin' BOOM. Blew the wing off. That pilot, senior to me, grabbed my plane and I was pooched. Again!
Fortunately, I had charmed the local Australian entrepanuers some of whom owned coffee plantations, native trade stores, butcher shops, hotel managers. I felt that I fit in here but no bloody job.
A young bloke called Peter Miller had a C182 and a private licence and owned trade stores, thirty coffee buying trucks, butcher shop and wholesale seafood business. He supplied seafood to the big tourist hotels but couldn't get enough as there were no roads to the coast.
I awoke from a brutal hangover that would have felled an ox, to Peters' wife splashing water on me to get up for my first flight. ****! I musta got a job last night.
More to follow...over.
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Last edited by Duke Elegant; 9th Feb 2004 at 02:01.