The DCA Flying Unit had a couple of F27 Mk1's in the 1960's. All the pilots were ex RAAF wartime or peacetime. One of them had been a Wing Commander at the RAAF VIP squadron at Canberra when I was there.
After I joined DCA I found out he was the check captain on the F27 and he did my F27 endorsement. He was one of the most relaxed pilots I had ever flown with and one of the few RAAF pilots with a double Air Force Cross.
One day he ferried the DCA F27 from Essendon to Tullamarine for servicing and I was the co-pilot. We took off on EN 34 and landed Tulla 27 and then via Tulla 16 all the way to the TAA hangar at the southern end of Tulla. The first thing I noticed was he was taxiing using 30 or 60PSI (I can't quite remember the exact amount) torque on the engines which is a fair amount of prop bite on the Darts. All the way down 16 to the TAA hangar and even around the corners, the prop bite was there accompanied by the hissing of the brakes being dragged.
Even though we were now both civilian pilots, I still felt a bit shy of telling him I thought he was dragging the brakes against power. As my former CO he was a Wing Commander and I had been a mere flight lieutenant and now we were flying together gain seven years later in an F27.
Arriving at the TAA maintenance hangar, he cut the donks and set the parking brake. I went back to open the door and saw an airman (sorry, a TAA LAME) vigorously pointing at the left main wheels and rushing back to get a fire extinguisher. I peered outside and saw smoke and vapour coming from the wheels. Obviously the brakes had over-heated.
I told the boss who had a looked through his left window and said quite unconcernedly, "I wonder how that happened?" I could have said it was bloody obvious how it happened - You were taxiing brakes against power all the way from the intersection of 27 and 16 to TAA. But I kept quiet until the next day I was grabbed by the chief pilot who asked what happened after he received a call from TAA about a complete brake and tyre changed on both main landing gears due over-heating.
I said that in my opinion the captain had been using excessive power while taxiing and dragged the brakes to reduce taxy speed. The chief pilot may have believed me but in true loyalty to mates, style, he said his mate would never taxy in that manner and opined there must have been something wrong with the brakes to cause such a serious overheat. I could have said "Bull****" and that I saw the whole thing. But that would have been a waste of breath in the DCA Flying Unit in those days.
It was a good experience I suppose, since I had never seen hot brakes before. That was until the following day I was sent to TAA to ferry the F27 back to Essendon and a technician showed me the remains of the brakes and tyres on the hangar floor. Not a pretty sight, I tell you. And expensive, too. But no problem; it was only tax-payer's money..
Last edited by Centaurus; 18th Sep 2015 at 01:22.