rpt2
Ahh Hawthorn, my footy team yet.
We came to Mel from Perth with what I thought was to be a one way ticket in the mid eighties, but 5 years afer we were back in Perth. I would be back there in a heartbeat if I had my druthers. What a life.
My babies went to Deepdene Primary and Ruyton Girls, and a more elegant and fun city I have yet to see.
I suspect we have fought in the same wars, here and there.
Noel Lamont, now there's a beaut guy still around, although not doing any City to Surf fun runs now. He is a great friend of a mate of mine and still one of the great Nav theory instructors.
I had the pleasure of watching him give it to a CAA theory examiner, ever so politely mind you but forcefully nonetheless, explaining that not only were the multiguess answers available in one of the old B727 papers wrong but to get it to fall towards the "rightest" one required working to SIX (6) decimal places,
AND that the method they were using was in fact wrong in any event.
RE the Viscount crash, I took the call at out Perth base from MMA ops, Loch Britten, for one of our aircraft to take them to the site. I already knew about it as another of ours was already on it's way from Hedland to look for it.
Comms weren't all that flash in those days and the local radio stations had both out and inbound pax families waiting to see what had happpened.
On a happier note when they introduced the F28, they were having a bit of bother with the main gear doors not closing after extension. No big deal but when the oleos compressed, whammo on the doors. So our local offices in Hedland, Carnarvon and Kal always had Plan A ready to uplift their pax when one of the new wonders arrived. Made a bit of money out of that.
Mind you it rammed home to MMA the number one lesson of the jet age in West Oz. When you have an equipment problem out there, you have a lot more people scattered over greater distances than before and a bigger more expensive mess to sort out getting them home and thats not allowing for the 4 plus hour ferry of crew, engineers and gear from Perth in one of our littleuns.
Thems were the days.
