one day back then when I was working at Essendon an RAAF VIP Viscount was there and the Commander (or whatever he was called) was worried about a prop leak, I was sent over to check it. I could not see any problem but the Commander wanted assurance it was safe to fly back to Canberra
Hey that could have been Centaurus!
He always was a bit twitchy about oil leaks from props. Methinks he read too many scary flight safety magazines
The RAAF VIP Squadron had two Viscount 832's. The furnishings were beautiful - sheer luxury. Many times after dropping off the VIP we would return empty to Canberra and I would let the co-pilot fly from the left seat all by himself up front, while I relaxed in the Prime Minister's chair and read the newspapers down the back in luxury interrupted only by the pretty RAAF stewardess bringing me the coffee, cake and sticky buns left over from the VIP meal. In those days, rank had its privileges with I a Flight Lieutenant and the co-pilot a mere Pilot Officer.. Hence I had first choice of the cakes.
RAAF pilots underwent the Ansett ground engineering course at Essendon. The Dart engine lecturer (I forget his name) was a superb lecturer with such a keen sense of humour. On the other hand, three days on the autopilot was too much for me. Back at Canberra, Squadron Leader John Radford did my endorsement on the RAAF Viscount. Lots of circuits and landings including touch and go's. During one of the circuits John wanted to show me how much drag was caused by the props at idle.
We turned base for 35 and he told me to close all four throttles when I was sure of getting in - just like we did on Tiger Moths. I waited on level base leg until I reckon I could make it then closed the throttles. Had to dive to maintain the required threshold speed and it was soon obvious I had badly underestimated the effect of drag with throttles closed. Good lesson learned.
After the Winton crash where a fire in blower system burned through the wing as Ken May (?) the captain tried to reach Winton, I was determined the safest thing was to get into an emergency descent asap if we ever struck a similar problem. It might mean a forced landing or even a ditching if over water but the danger of a fire burning through a wing was scary. That glide approach into Canberra was a good example how quickly you could descend.
The Viscount Ansett performance course at Essendon run by Roger Gabriel the Ansett senior performance engineer in 1965, was top class and it was from listening to his lectures on take off performance that generated my career long interest in aircraft performance. Later in 1969 I attended the TAA F27 performance course at Essendon run by Peter Turner - another fine performance engineer. On one of his lectures he demonstrated the low gradient of climb of the DC9 on one engine after lift off with engine failure at V1. He did this by using a roll of toilet paper with the net flight path superimposed on it with the Brisbane Storey Bridge at one end and Eagle Farm airport on the other. Now a roll of toilet paper goes a long way and so did the DC9 flight path.