Showa Cho, you ask about me being held outbound from Darwin.
Perhaps
le Pingouin or another one of the controllers could tell me. Here is the exact quote from page 226 of my book ‘The Earth Beneath Me’ which was published in 1983:
“I lifted off the tarmac at 8.45am and was then asked by the controller to “hold” over the NDB for several minutes while an RAAF Hercules took off! I found this archaic procedure quite incredible. It was the first holding I had to do since leaving Fort Worth, and I had landed at much busier airports than Darwin. Still, that is Australia. A great country but with some maddening quirks.”
Remember, this was years before I had written ‘Two Years in the Aviation Hall of Doom.’
Also remember back in those days we had ‘controlled’ and ‘uncontrolled’ airspace. One of the chapters in my book was about how air traffic controllers would separate VFR helicopters from VFR helicopters using IFR standards in primary control zones. Naturally, in those days if they wanted to separate a VFR helicopter from a Hercules, they probably had to do it procedurally in some weird way.
I would love to have the comments on why this happened.