It seems strange that a compulsory retirement age of 60 (presumably introduced on medical grounds)
58 was the magic number because that't when the company pension scheme kicked in. The RAF was 55 as was British Airways. In those days the company, as could the RAF, tell you to shove off if they did not require you any more. Should they require you then you had to be outside the pension scheme so that it would stay afloat as your entitlement with pay and seniority would start to hurt.
Back to Oz.
I wasn’t flying, I was driving. The aircraft had flown there with the pilots and some engineers whilst a couple of engineers had driven a company Ute there to act as transport. They needed some more so I was taking one of the two company cars to ease the transport situation. I was quite a long way; down the Stuart Highway to Katherine and then west to Western Australia. It had to be done in daylight, as is all bush travelling in Australia because of errant kangaroos and feral cattle. Big trucks and buses have Roo Bars on the front which is similar to a cowcatcher on a train.
The first problem was the car. The rear axle was on the bump stops and opening the boot explained why. They had loaded it with a full set of maintenance manuals and the space was solid with paperwork. Loads of moaning from me that Poms don’t drive cars in that state so they removed half of it and got the car back on to even keel. I had a passenger, an engineer who had never driven in the bush before and looked slightly apprehensive. With my years of blundering through the Rhodesian bush I had no fears at all.
We set off down the Stuart Highway; with a 120 kph limit (75 mph) one could get going but you had to be careful of the road trains. These were large trucks with three or four equally large trailers behind them limited to 100 kph. Because they were so long you had to be sure that there was plenty of clear road ahead to get past them safely. Some of them would have what is known as a dog; a trailer that will not follow in a straight line but whips from side to side. They were normally the rear trailer but occasionally one in the middle used to influence the one behind. It just made the whole unit that much wider especially when they were coming the other way. A cup of coffee in Katherine at a café where there was a stick again the wall that showed the height of the water, about 60 cm, the last time the Katherine River flooded.
We then punched off to Western Australia along the A1. The road was practically deserted. It was fully fenced both sides in a futile attempt to keep Coos and Roos off the road. The Roos could jump over it but the Coos couldn’t so the carcasses of the cattle that got onto the wrong side from the water trough were rotting in the sun. Just before we reached the border with Western Australia I saw a geological sight that I have never seen before or since.
It was an escarpment; not very long, about ten miles or so. What was so fascinating was that at the western end it was a pristine cliff. As your eyes travelled eastwards it slowly deteriorated until at the eastern end it had crumbled into a pile of rubble. It was a complete exhibition of natural erosion in one sweep.
We then came to the State border. Those of you that have travelled to Australia will know the arrivals are very fussy about what you can bring into Australia. That traditional black pudding that your relatives yearn for goes straight into the bin; the same with Chinese delicacies. The individual states are the same as I found out when I pulled up at the border office.
“Have you got an esky?” he demanded.
I put on my best Pom accent. “What’s an esky?”
“One of those.” He pointed to a fenced compound about the size of a tennis court that was five feet high with discarded cooler boxes.
I hadn’t, so I wasn’t led away in chains for trying to massacre the entire greenery in WA with traces of lettuce in an esky.
We then arrived in Kununarra. The hotel, at that time run by an international chain was almost the first place we found. We checked in, had dinner plus a few beers with the blokes and I was briefed for the next morning.
We weren’t supposed to be at Kununarra; we should have been at a place called Troughton Island. This was a small island of the coast that hosted a small airfield built during the war. The island had zero inhabitants and was only used for offshore support. A month or so previously a cyclone had come along and had demolished everything in toto so it was now unusable. There was another wartime airfield nearby on the mainland called Truscott but this was already occupied by the other Oz helicopter company for their offshore contract. We then had a different procedure to get out people out to the rig and back.
Our passengers would be loaded into a Beech Kingair at Darwin. When they got airborne we would fire up our 332 at Kununarra and fly to Truscott. We would arrive first and then shut down to await them. The Kingair would arrive in a cloud of dust until it reached the tarmac at the far end which enabled the brakes to work. This was essential because the airfield had been virtually abandoned at the end of the war and there were all sorts of equipment and unexploded ordinance lying around. We would be there and back in an hour and leave them to the mercies of the Kingair whilst we punched off back to Kununarra and the bar. The only drawback in this procedure was that there was a time difference between NT and WA. This meant that we had to launch in the dark.
As with most airfields in Australia the airfield was unmanned. There is a radio procedure that is mandatory in Australia so that pilots know where other pilots are so takeoff including departure heading, joining from which direction, downwind and landing calls are made. At night there is another complication; it is dark but they have an answer for this; an airfield frequency that controls the airfield lighting. By selecting the frequency and in this case keying four long dashes the entire airfield lights up for fifteen minutes. That is plenty of time to taxi to the runway and take off, even for a fully loaded passenger aircraft; who do. It’s fascinating when you first do it but then it is old hat.
Kununarra started of life as a work camp for the Ord River project. This was an irrigation scheme for a massive agricultural project in the Kimberly area. The main dam was constructed in 1962 and Lake Argyle, the result, is the largest inland body of water in Australia. All has not gone as well as expected for various reasons but it has opened up tourism, especially for saltwater crocodile enthusiasts. I had a look at the dam and then I went up a hill to take some pictures of the township. I went down to the main road and whilst walking back I witnessed one of the more unfortunate parts of Australian life.
There was a clearing in the woods near the road and in it was a big circle of local Aboriginals. In the middle was a five foot high pile of
VB (Victoria Bitter) cases and it was obvious that they were intent on demolishing the whole lot. The reason was that is was ‘pay day’, the day that they collected their benefits. One could sympathise with them. They had no tradition of the so-called work ethic because it did not exist before Captain Cook arrived. They could get by now as they had done for centuries without money so why start now when the government gives you stacks of beer tickets.
I had only been there about four days and then there was a panic to get me back to Darwin. The aircraft that was coming from Aberdeen in an Antonov was still on the British register and so they needed a CAA licensed pilot, ie me, there to be able to fly the reassembly checks. With my feet hardly touching the ground I was bunged into the back of a F27 and then I was off back to Darwin..