Long Live The Heron

[CharlieLimaX-Ray]

Today’s date marks twenty five years since the last RPT flight, of the DH Heron VH-KAM.

A few photos doing the rounds on social media.

Just remember the Guid of the Heron First Officer motto, never ever touch the emergency brake lever!

[Toruk Macto]

Good memories of them operating around bass strait in the 80’s .

[machtuk]

Today’s date marks twenty five years since the last RPT flight, of the DH Heron VH-KAM.

A few photos doing the rounds on social media.

Just remember the Guid of the Heron First Officer motto, never ever touch the emergency brake lever!










ahh the good 'ole days, Swiggsy was at the helm on that last KD day :)

[megan]

Aaahhh, the Heron, my ride as a teenager when she was brand new.

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[flywatcher]

Hey Charlie Lima Xray, I can remember you flying me to YFLI way back then and also once almost meeting Dallas by chance early one morning.

[desertduck]

Very fond memories of VH CJS out of Jandakot in the mid 70's, wonderful aircraft.
Was in fact the first Heron built, with gypsy queen 30 engines and a fixed undercarriage.

[Fris B. Fairing]

Here is a recent photo of VH-KAM at the Queensland Air Museum Caloundra.


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Picture: Angelo Calleja

[Pinky the pilot]

I can remember seeing a Lycoming powered Heron at Port Lincoln back around 1999. KAM perhaps?

Sounded somewhat impressive at T/O power:hmm:, but still not as good a sound as a Titan!:ok: Or a certain Queenair that used to call in there on occasion, eh SMS777?:D

[aroa]

Was in Alice Springs when Connair was doing the Lycoming changes to their Herons.
On the radio we could hear Bill Whitney? was it, making callouts as they sped off down the runway with a shouted NOW ! for the pilot to reef it into the air. Must have been a lot of fun playing with it to get the numbers !

Later, sadly one fell to earth nr Cairns airport in sh*t wx, killing all on board.

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

'CJS' fuselage used to lay in the sun at JT, out in the open, sad.

Last time I saw it, a few years ago, was at the Bull Creek RAAFA Museum, fuselage only, awaiting some form of restoration / display.

Must go and have another look...one day.

Cheers

[kenair]

Hi, I am looking for information on De Havilland Herons that were converted to Saunders Aircraft ST-27's.
They are Heron serials numbers 14019, 14050, 14051, 14054,14058 (XG603),14059 (XH375),14070,14087,14095,14097, 14112, 14129 (XM295), 14137,14141 (XR391).
I know that RAF Heron XG603 #14058 became the first Saunders Aircraft ST-27 001 conversion.

Perhaps you worked for Aviation Traders, De Havilland or Welltrade.

cheers - ken kalynuk

[cowl flaps]

Connair Pty Ltd Heron DH114 2E/A1 Aircraft VH-CLS crashed a few hundred metres from my house here at Holloways Beach.

The paddock is still under sugar cane,- as it was then. October 1975,- all 11 POB killed.

[Squawk7700]

Did Jeff Trappett ever have one of these? I recall something similar many years ago in his hangar at Latrobe Valley...

[Maisk Rotum]

Flew the Heron in Fiji decades ago. We flew it IFR single pilot with no autopilot. On long range trips to Funafuti we added a copilot and mtow of 13,500 lb. Used Loran C to navigate there. The radio guy there asked us to call ten miles out. They would then sound a siren and the locals would pull all the football goal posts out of the ground and everyone would scatter off the strip. Loved it. They were Riley Herons. Years later got checked on the Gypsy Queen engines but never flew it in service.

[Mach E Avelli]

Flew the Heron in Fiji decades ago. We flew it IFR single pilot with no autopilot. On long range trips to Funafuti we added a copilot and mtow of 13,500 lb. Used Loran C to navigate there. The radio guy there asked us to call ten miles out. They would then sound a siren and the locals would pull all the football goal posts out of the ground and everyone would scatter off the strip. Loved it. They were Riley Herons. Years later got checked on the Gypsy Queen engines but never flew it in service.
At the risk of contradicting you, the Fiji Airways Herons were the Gypsy Queen originals. A couple of them had come from Indian Airlines, so were well worn by the time they ended up in Fiji, but for all that the fleet was well-maintained. There were three Mark 2s with retractable gear and a Mark 1 with fixed gear. The fixed gear machine had been badly bent in a heavy landing at Taveuni but got rebuilt to inaugurate domestic services out of Tarawa. I know they were Gypsy Queens because I still have an Engineering endorsement somewhere that allowed me to change magnetos, spark plugs and starter motors. This was so that I could operate without support out of Tarawa and get it back to the engineer based there if something broke. It was possible to hand swing a Gypsy Queen, but I doubt that would have been possible on a Riley Heron (though never flew these so don't know).
From Fiji we flew as far afield as Tarawa and Majuro, occasionally to Honiara. Navigation by sextant if above cloud, drift sight below cloud and a loop ADF if able to get a signal. When HF radio was too hard to read at least one old skipper I flew with would resort to the Morse key, though I confess my Morse was never quick enough to receive.
My logbook shows 1662 hours command on those old aircraft before upgrading to the HS 748 which we thought was the space shuttle at the time.
If Riley Herons and Loran C ever made it to Fiji it was later, perhaps with one of the smaller operators there?

[Capt Fathom]

Sunflower Airlines had Riley Herons.

I don't think Fiji Airways was mentioned?

[Mach E Avelli]

OK, after my time then. Apologies for jumping to a conclusion. But Loran C, was that the go-to navaid later, as well?

[tail wheel]

"Sunflower Airlines had Riley Herons."

They had one which Don Collingwood proudly showed me many years ago.

I think I still have the dent in my shim bone from the main spar as a souvenir of my visit.

[Fris B. Fairing]

They had one which Don Collingwood proudly showed me many years ago.

That would have been DQ-FDY and Don was indeed very proud of it. One wing was crushed during a cyclone when the hangar doors blew in. Rather than write it off and buy a new one, Don imported a wing from the USA and used it to rebuild DQ-FDY. The aircraft is now in the possession of the Central Australian Aviation Museum at Alice Springs.

Fiji Air also operated Riley Herons.


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[By George]

Flew Herons with Connair in 1979 based in Darwin. Very Pommy aeroplane, beautiful handling with well balanced flight controls but the usual British cockpit design. "Now where could we hide the cross-feed selector so the pilots can't see or reach it"? The cockpit door looked like a coffin lid, curved wide at the top and narrow squared off at the bottom. Pneumatic brakes and four spring-loaded switches to keep the props in sync via four blue lights. Every speed or pitch change and you had to start again. Memory fading, and my pilot notes went to the local tip years ago, but I think landing flap was 60 degrees. Steep nose down approach as if you were going to attack the earth. All flight controls, rag of course. The radios and navigational equipment were all kept in the nose. This compartment leaked like a sieve and had to be heavily masked with speed tape. Some funny stories in my memory linked to the Heron. One crew with a load of unruly 'locals' tied a tape around a teddy bear and released it out of the storm window. The slipstream took it along the window line which had the desired effect of turning the rabble into mice, facing straight ahead with wide eyes. Another crew accepted an invitation to visit town, parked the brakes but didn't secure the rudder. Waving slowly in the breeze, bled off the air and the aeroplane rolled off the apron. There were some odd performance issues as well, if you wanted more range and endurance you could achieve this by shutting down an engine. Nice to fly but a cockpit designed by a madman.

[Tee Emm]

Flew Herons with Connair in 1979 based in Darwin

The photo of the Connellan Herons reminded me of their nickname of Connellans Canary Coloured Coon Carriers. But that was in another era of course before political correctness came into being. In those days the Company Operations Manual gave directions on how to do a crosswind landing in the Heron. The instructions were more complicated than doing a cat 3 ILS with two out on one side. From memory the following information was under the heading Crosswind Landings
:
1.At the round-out kick straight with rudder and plant it on the ground.
2. If the kick straight is made too late and the aircraft lands with drift use bursts of power on outboard engines combined with rudder to make the aircraft align with runway.
3. If kick straight is made too early while aircraft is floating and aircraft starts to drift off the centreline, fly back towards centreline then try kicking straight again while holding off closer to the ground. Use differential engine power to help keeping straight. Once on the ground use power from either outboard engine to aid directional control on the ground. Avoid using differential braking.

I don't recall any advice to go around.

[Mach E Avelli]

Once on the ground use power from either outboard engine to aid directional control on the ground. Avoid using differential braking.

I don't recall any advice to go around.

Some rather 'quaint' British advice there, probably written by a boffin who never flew it in serious crosswinds onto short runways. I have yet to fly ANY aeroplane that required adding power to control the landing rollout if the proper landing technique was made - and that includes big taildraggers like the DC3.
The Heron has a fully castoring nosegear which will go through 360 degrees if you are determined enough. Directional control on the ground is by differential braking. The rudders are moved in the desired direction and a lever on the control column depressed to apply brake on the selected side. For equal braking on both wheels the rudder pedals are centred and the lever depressed. Differential power is, of course, useful at taxi speeds to assist with sharp turns.
Because it is a pneumatic braking system there is always a slight lag while the air finds its way to the brake bags on the wheels, so the advice to avoid differential braking in a crosswind makes sense. But rather than apply power when trying to stop there is a much easier way to control it in a crosswind. Use rudder as aggressively as needed, then reach under the Captain's seat and gently pull the lever that selects air from the alternative air bottle. This applies equal braking on both wheels regardless of rudder position. Simple, effective and I never got a good reason why they did not include this method in the AFM.

[tail wheel]

Yes Fris, Don needed that Heron due to it's long range capability. Sunflower was providing a long haul scheduled service, maybe Wallis and Futuna, I forget the destination now but only the Heron in that class of aircraft, had the "legs" to get there and back.

Sadly Don and Robyn are no longer with us. I miss the good times we had across the Pacific.

[Centaurus]

Some rather 'quaint' British advice there, probably written by a boffin who never flew it in serious crosswinds onto short runways. I have yet to fly ANY aeroplane that required adding power to control the landing rollout if the proper landing technique was made - and that includes big taildraggers like the DC3.

On the contrary, the crosswind landing advice was published in the Connellan Airways Operations Manual a copy of which was held in the former DCA Head Office at 188 Queen St. There were other strange words of advice in the same manual one of which included how to draw a mud-map in flight. The crosswind landing advice of kicking rudders, bursts of outboard engine and various other gems of information could only have been written by the same author maybe Ed Connellan himself as much of it was bizarre and personal opinion rather than from the manufacturer. Maybe the CAHS museum at Essendon fields have a copy of that Ops manual. I'll have a look.

On rare occasions I was forced to apply full rudder augmented by a burst of outboard engine power in the Lincoln to straighten up a swing caused by a 200 hour newly qualified RAAF pilot whose first multi-engine aircraft was the Lincoln a 30,000 kg four engine tail-dragger. Crosswind landings, particularly at night, where the long nose of the Lincoln blocked the pilots view of the runway lights could be interesting. Useless in a Dakota though due lack of moment arm with two engines.

[Motorola]

Fiji Air. A good weekend's work was Suva-Nadi-Funafuti-Tarawa, overnight, and back the same way next day. 2 pilot but no autopilot and no SELCAL. Every night that it rained, the leaky nose cover and electronic PCB's had to be removed and dried with a hair drier. Most important PCB's were the Litton brand LORAN, ADF and DME. Funafuti used to switch their AM broadcast transmitter on for arrivals. It was a relief to get a DME lockon.

Our AFTN was still being sent from Funafuti to Nadi by morse code.

Ahh the things we did when young!


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[Lillian]

Can remember Ken Windsor dropping in more than once, with the Heron and engineer after a 748 went U/S at a remote Fiji Airways outpost.
Ran into him in MAJ after he retired. Went back to his old trade as a ship's sparky - great bloke!

[Mach E Avelli]

Ken was a maestro on the Morse key. Also quite adept at Astro, showed me how it all worked. I enjoyed occasionally flying with him and his company on layovers in various outposts of the old Empire. Happy days they were....

[blackburn]

Ken was one of my instructors during my PPL and CPL training at Mangere and Ardmore (Auckland Aero Club). Good memories of him; and he lived in Ellerslie.

[airspace alpha]

I was learning to fly at Tyabb in the late 90's, and I've a memory of a couple of Heron fuselages dumped outside a barn to the south of the flying club buildings.Or was I mistaken?

[Global Aviator]

I was learning to fly at Tyabb in the late 90's, and I've a memory of a couple of Heron fuselages dumped outside a barn to the south of the flying club buildings.Or was I mistaken?

Been many years since I’ve ventured out that way but was t there a Dove around there?