Must be a few more Nomad stories lurking out in Pprune land.
I received the below message from Rick Bennett who used to fly Nomads, and he gave permission for it to be included here:
"I was Chief Pilot of Independent Air Transport, Wewak when we formed the company in January 1976.
IAT was the first customer (civil or military) to operate the Nomad.
We leased VH-ELN demonstrator from National ?? in Sydney who were designated Agents by GAF. After the conversion at Avalon, we delivered ELN to Wewak via a short (!!) CNS overnight stop.
I operated ELN and IAT on earthquake relief from Sentani for MAF for six months in 1976.
The shortest strip was Nalca, 150nm roundtrip. It was 6500 AMSL, 1200 ft length. First 1/4 10%, 2nd 18%, 3/4 12%, last 24% - into a short turning bay only 100 ft long. Had to do a 3 point turn to escape On takeoff, brakes release was V1......
At that radius of NM we carried the same payload (1300kg) as the Twotter which could not go into the mission strips. MAF liked the N22 so much that they bought their own and I endorsed their guys on it.
The CAA and the Insurance company waived all restrictions to achieve the mission - if i believed the performance figures, i could operate into any strip as per the charts.
I regretfully left IAT in Dec 1976 to join Ansett on the S61 at Proserpine. Another trip on the Nomad was at Avalon in 1977 to endorse Jed Clampett who replaced me at IAT.
I actually did fly the Nomad again in 1982 for a month with Douglas into the Jungle strips near the gap, as well as Kiantiba, Kanabea etc.
Lots of fun !!
Rick"