T28D – I can but concur with your comments re the Queen Air vs the King Air. I only ever flew A90’s, which shared to “short” wing with the straight-tailed 65 but were 1500 lbs (?) heavier. While the King Air had lots to excite a very young aviator (me), namely pressurization, radar, lots of avionics and a wonderful new smell, it was a distinct slug on and off the ground.
Sms777 – VH-FDV was exclusively mine for a year in Derby (in 1968), so I was delighted to recently see her still active at Caloundra. Sorry to hear she was bent though. Your mentioned the autopilot; originally fitted was one of those useless Brittain B4 autopilots which only worked if you were flying on a SW heading!
OK, get your hankie out now:
This is the Civil Flying Services line up at Perth in about 1970. The aircraft are, L to R, VH-ASY (Beech 65-8200), DRV (Beech 70), CFI and CFD (both Beech 65’s). ASY is at Caloundra in a terrible state and CFI was last seen being parted-out at Adelaide. I have no idea what happened to either DRV or CFD. I’m really interested in the latter case as CFD was definitely my “most loved” Queen Air – originally built/optioned for a private US owner; she had an executive interior (lots of leather and wood) and had a gorgeous overall maroon/gold/white colour scheme. It was love at first sight. My “least liked” Queen Air was CMI, a dog of an 80, which eventually shed a wing near Alice Springs.