Does anyone recall the PBY that lived at EN late 70's to early 80's? Survey craft I believe & once heard that if it ever landed on water that would be it's final resting place, well at the bottom of the ocean that is!
Wally, John Edwards was one of the pilots of the Catalina you mentioned.....
Did about 600 hrs in EXG back in the '70's all over the country. Was in BHI when Whitlam got the sack! Some really interesting flying and no GPS then - all the nav visual from aerial photos that were taken in summer and u were then in winter! The noise was painful without a headset - you could actually reach out the window and touch the prop tip! The aeroplane was something else, it would actually talk to you and had personality plus. The work on survey was hard yakka - all at 400ft agl on line, but at the end of the day it was fun and a great experience. It had Wright 2600's installed for the water bombing role and went very well. The orig had 1830's I recall.
John Edwards was great to fly with - he was an ex croppy and could turn the Cat around better than anyone else at the time. He went on to fly a CASA 212 which picked up the same work for Geoterex after EXG ceased flying. It sat in the northern park at EN for a while then went to PCK and I understand went to Amberley for rebuild then back to PCK now.
Most of the guys at Execs got a gig on it at sometime back then. Back in the days of Wes Guy, Stan Tayler, Chris Moody, Bob Barnes and others I cant recall right now. (getting old!) Great times...
