Duke Elegant
Joined: Nov 28, 2002
Posts: 262 Posted: 2003-04-22 23:22
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was in Paradise.
Everybody had tons of loot.... and loot they did.
We all drove tax free Alpha Romeos, Mercedes and all imports. Plantation life .... nothing like it. I had a houseboy who called me Masta even when I begged him not to. If you didn't have a houseboy you couldn't get through your front gate.... " Masta... me like wok. Me Catholic.". Perhaps twenty boys every day, wanting work. Six bucks a week.... you got tea in bed, laundry and a clean house for that.
And the flying.....divine and dangerous. We lived at five thousand ASL and flew to strips as high as eight thousand.. spectacular gorges and waterfalls that never reached the ground.
We were rich. Coffee was at a high price due to the frost in Brazil. We would fly to a place like Karimui, a strip carved on the side of a volcano. It was a leper colony but the type where it was not contageous. They got it from eating human flesh and developed a disease called Grilly.
There was only one white guy there and he was a patrol officer. ie Judge, lawyer, doctor , administrator etc. armed too and had some barefoot native constables.
We would walk fifteen minutes through the jungle to the trade store with the boys carrying the cargo where we wouild do a stock check then take the cash to the airport. There, the natives would have bought their coffee for us to buy and fly out, heavilly laden with a cash crop and bags of loot.
We upgraded to and old Aztec VH-BPW. I was **** and I dressed the part. Khaki duds and shirt and elastic sided Aussie riding boots.
I flew to Lae for maintainence and went to the flying club. New Guinea was a pilots heaven.... hardly any roads and lots of airstrips. Cessna 402's, Barons, Twotters, 206's, Islanders and 185's.
The airline guys had fun too, flying F27's VFR into uphill strips at six thousand feet ASL.
And me in my scabby old Aztec.
So I got invited to the TAA Airline mess where stewardess, called hosties back then, were housed in little tropical bungalows with a pool and a bar. I traded tales of daring do for some tropical romping in Paradise.We rode hard back in those days... at full gallop!
I flew lobsters, croc skins, artifacts, calves, coffee, trade goods and people on wild adventures.
Once we chartered a DC3, put a jazz band aboard and took a pod of hosties to the Kar Kar Ball on a coffee plantation on a tropical isle. Lots of loot, fast cars, babes and oft painful
penicillan shots.
One day I was approaced by a bloke called "Fred".
"Do you do 'jobs'? " he asked... I sensed it would be .
"Well maybe" says I, "What is the cargo?"
"Can't say" says he. "**** off" says I.
" I heard you're the bloke who did the dog charters." He had me dead to rights. Indeed I had. You see independance was coming so a lot of whites were planning to leave. Usually they had pet dogs and these weren't allowed into Australia until they had served six months quarantine in another country...expensive eh? (You see Australia was rabies free).And is little Fluffy going to remember you after six months in England.
So I would wait till about six expatriates
got six muts together and I would fly low across the straits to Cape York where another C402 awaited the awakening cargo. I had one awake from his induced sleep and he started to howl as I gave a false position report on HF so all New Guinea heard it. In the mess , I couldn't keep my mouth shut as I told these tales and my plane became known as Bravo Papa Woof . People were rich and paid big bucks.
So Fred knew I was imaginative.
We parried back and forth and I held my ground. I had to know what the cargo
was and that was that.No drugs...NO BLOODY WAY!
After a pause he said, "Chicken Eggs".
I howled as I walked away.
"Wait!" he said as he followed, "I'll prove it"
He told me an amazing story.
I WAS IN!
More to follow....over
[ This Message was edited by: Duke Elegant on 2003-04-22 23:30 ]
[ This Message was edited by: Duke Elegant on 2003-04-23 01:44 ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Duke Elegant
Joined: Nov 28, 2002
Posts: 262 Posted: 2003-04-23 01:39
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred was an executive with Mother's Choice Chickens. Mother's Choice used to be Australia's #1 supplier of chooks.
They were now #3.
Scientists in the US had engineereed a chook that ate less and grew fat at twice the rate of normal chooks.
Australia had VERY strict quarantine laws .. I had run out of muts to smuggle ... so now it was to be eggs?
I asked Fred how the competetion had got eggs in from the US.
"Same way we plan to do it" says he. If we don't do it we are sunk.
I sensed an oppurtunity to get a free trip to OZ. "I want to see the plant" say I, "just to
be sure."
They flew me to Sydney and put me up in s Cross at a fine hotel with an expense account. I toured the factory and was convinced that I was their man although it was hard to drag me away from the floozies I had stabled. Hard I rode....Hard!
Back in New Guinea, I had a plan to formulate. I had to set up fuel caches, come up with a dummy flight plan and fly low ... bloody low ... to get into Northern Australia and land at an abandoned WW2 airstrip. You could not fly anywhere in New Guinea without full radio reporting on HF so I had all my fake calls rehearsed.
The coast of Australia is very well patrolled to catch Asian fishermen, bird smugglers taking thousands of parrots offshore and they had military reasons to patrol. They used Nomads and the chief pilot was none other than my cousin. He knew of my mercenary lifestyle and had heard of Bravo Papa Woof, dog charters.
It was risky. The eggs had a mere seventeen days to get from the USA to incubators in Oz. Mother's choice bought a high speed offshore cruiser to be skippered by a friend of mine and after the "job" he was to keep the boat.
He was to go from New Caledonia to Rennel Island where I was to land on the grassy strip and fill the Aztec up with chook eggs.I went down to Guadacanal in the Aztec with a large wad of cash and played the role of a rich dude cruising WW2 battlefields. My biggest mistake was getting hooked with a hostie who wanted to come along for a ride.... a babe too...had to turn her down.
I got a coded telegram....it was time. I flew across the ocean to tiny Rennel Island where I got mobbed by the local children from the Catholic mission....and a priest asking "What are you doing here?" I left and flew out over the ocean looking for the boat that should be half a day out. No boat. I flew back to Guadacanal and phoned Fred. Apparently the boat lost an engine out of Noumea and they returned and threw the eggs at a cliff face muttering .."One thousand, two thousand" that was the price per egg so far.
I got to relax in Guadacanal until another whole shipment was arranged. I got a change of hostie every night as I lay about the pool. I also came up with a bull**** story for the priest that we were going to populate another island with great chooks and could he get help with the loading. So when the boat arrived, the priest and his boys packed the load for me so I dropped a wad for their trouble and fled.
I flew four hours to my fuel stash at Baimuru all the while muttering on the radio that I was in the circuit at Karimui and off to Chimbu. I fuelled at this unbelievable place, the subject of another chapter. It was monsoon season so low flying was the norm. But there seemed to be unusual Nomad traffic in the North. I heard it on HF.****! My cousin was on to me, thinks I. I had to somehow cross the strait at Thursday Island and pretend I was going somewhere else. I hoped they weren't staked out at Iron Range, my abandoned airstrip where a Cessna 414 awaited me... flown by another out of work ex Army Pilot.
I approached the straits..low..it rained hard.. sure enough, a Nomad slowly loitering.
I had to think fast. I went up into the green CB and the rain pounded ....deafening...the plane leaked and shook like crazy in the turbulence....I gunned her using valuable fuel... I didn't have any on the mainland... I had to get back to Daru in New Guinea.
I timed it so I flew in cloud above the Nomad and then I broke cloud and headed back to New Guinea...180 degree turn .. he saw me and gave chase. He thought I was smuggling **** North to New Guinea. As soon as he was on my tail I upped her
into the **** and rain and did another 180 heading back to OZ. I flew in the thunderous green murk till I felt out of his vis range and cloud broke again.
On to Iron Range where my mate nervously awaited... he didn't have a reason to be on an abandoned strip in a 414 now full of chook eggs. I was empty now and took off for Daru where I landed on fumes. I filled full of fuel and took on 1500lbs of lobster tails and flew it to Goroka and made another coupla grand.
The old Aztec's engines were tired, the gear kept drooping and she needed care.It stunk of croc skins, fish, sharkmeat and calf ****. Independance was looming and it didn't look good for whites. The Feds were onto me. I had a huge wad of cash and an airline ticket around the world.
Often while I lay on a hot tropical beach, I would fantasize about Green evergreens, snow capped mountains, canoes, log cabins.
So off to Canada I went.
Built a log house too.
I will not be mentioned at the annual general meeting of Mother's Choice Chickens who regained their #1 position in the market.
But I was rewarded hansomely.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
endless
Joined: Jan 10, 2002
Posts: 782
From: nuclear winter
Posted: 2003-04-23 19:10
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
god i hope you're writing a book right now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
aileron
Joined: Apr 27, 2003
Posts: 17
From: North unless you're norther...
Posted: 2003-04-27 23:17
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the best with treatment #4 Duke.
I just want to say all of us [coworkers] enjoy your stories, and we hope to hear more. Put up the good fight, it's worth it - you have alot of fans pulling for you. I want to second endless's comment: "God I hope you're writing a book"; never the less, keep posting here (we don't have to wait for the book release ).
[ This Message was edited by: aileron on 2003-04-27 23:17 ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sulako
Joined: Oct 19, 2001
Posts: 307 Posted: 2003-04-28 06:56
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Duke, I take my hat off to you. You really know how to describe and convey those stories in a manner that makes me feel like I'm sitting beside you in the cockpit (in the right seat, of course )
It's equally amazing that you are fighting through a tough time, yet through your stories, you enrich the lives of fellow aviation buffs. Thanks again, and if I ever meet you in person, the beers and stogies are on me. Take care.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sugar Shack
Joined: Apr 30, 2003
Posts: 1
From: Jennifer Paris - Iowa
Posted: 2003-04-30 13:42
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Les,
Your stories are more than great! I feel special that I was able to listen to some of these stories in person. As you Canadian’s say… “It’s a hoot!” Your energy for life is so incredible… you are incredible!
Enjoyed cheap kangaroo wine and built a dream come true…. Thanks!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Duke Elegant
Joined: Nov 28, 2002
Posts: 262 Posted: 2003-05-06 00:16
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ya Know....
You gotta milk this cancer thing for everything it's worth......
I got two phone calls..... "get yer arse down to the airport"b...says Crowe..."seeya at noon" says Mark....
and some other dude...
Three Yaks show up for lunch.... I had a beer with lunch...
Then up for some aeros... loops...rolls..
in a sweet , sweet airplane....
**** I'm lucky!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DIK & DOG
Joined: Apr 06, 2003
Posts: 3 Posted: 2003-05-06 18:06
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Duke, remember that luck does not just happen, it is made. Reminds me of a statement that someone once told me.
YOU START OFF WITH A BAG FULL OF LUCK AND AN EMPTY BAG OF EXPERIENCE
THE TRICK IS TO END UP WITH A FULL BAG OF EXPERIENCE BEFORE YOUR BAG OF LUCK IS EMPTY
Think I'll have beer with you as I wait for the YQF snow to terminate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------