27th Jan 2019, 13:21 - Wikipost
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A thread where ex PNG geriatrics lapuns and long longs can live in the dim distant past.
Where tall stories are accepted as fact. War stories are applauded. Grab a Brownie, pull up a story and join in a trip down memory lane!!! 
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PNG Ples Bilong Tok Tok
Man Bilong Balus long PNG
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Looking forward to returning to Japan soon but in the meantime continuing the never ending search for a bad bottle of Red!
Age: 69
Posts: 2,965
Received 92 Likes
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53 Posts
I boast a late ‘coffin charter’ take off from Port Moresby to Tapini
Once had the airstrip closed for seven days due 'Civil unrest' after a coffin charter there.
At that place, the 'Peasants were certainly revolting!'
I remember passing through Girua one day on the RPT run from Lae.
The local Talair pilot (and numerous helpers) were loading a tranqualised cow into the back of a C206. It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen, although I did feel a little sorry for the poor old cow, still showing some signs of consciousness!
I can only assume the cow arrived safety as there was no adverse chatter on the company HF network after that.
Unlike the infamous Pig incident!
The local Talair pilot (and numerous helpers) were loading a tranqualised cow into the back of a C206. It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen, although I did feel a little sorry for the poor old cow, still showing some signs of consciousness!
I can only assume the cow arrived safety as there was no adverse chatter on the company HF network after that.
Unlike the infamous Pig incident!
Guns and death...I'd never seen (?) much of either before I went to PNG. Ended up flying a lot of alluvial gold from morobe to MRO in Moresby. One of those preserving jars mum used to put peaches n **** in held about PGK30000 worth of gold/mercury balls back then. Got given a sig sauer p226 and a rottweiler on the basis that if I ever shot someone keep flying to NQ and I'll be told when to come back. MRO in Moresby was interesting...the air smelled toxic but seeing gold bars on a pallet was fun
We used to fly gold from Wau to Lae at Macair in the 70's. I recall walking through our terminal one morning and tripped over a couple of canvas bags lying on the floor. I asked the traffic officer what they were and he told me it was gold and that he had better ring the bank and get them to pick them up. The bank Johnny duly arrived in his Holden sedan, dressed in shorts and long white socks and loaded the bags into the boot and off he went.
These days it is armoured vehichles with heavily armed guards posted. Whenever they turn up with gold/cash I always expect the bullets to start flying at any time!
These days it is armoured vehichles with heavily armed guards posted. Whenever they turn up with gold/cash I always expect the bullets to start flying at any time!
I see people looking for stories from old-timers, and I guess I must qualify. Does anyone else remember the USAF detachment workng on the HIRAN survey across the Pacific? Operating RB 50's out through the islands.Those big radials sound great, but it seemed they spread an engine over the runway on take-off as a weekly occcurence. Some of them joined our embryo SCUBA group, and we profited when they moved on, a stainless steel 4- gallon thermos got left behind, somehow. Great bit of kit for mixing party punch. They also played a small but critical part in a marine rescue of a fishing party. I was involved in that, with Dave Robbie in his 310. Lots of stories from those days if anyone is really interested.
Anyone still got Aero Club of Papua wings? And how about Crowley wings?
Long time ago....
Anyone still got Aero Club of Papua wings? And how about Crowley wings?
Long time ago....
Moderator
Operating RB 50's out through the islands.
I was involved in that, with Dave Robbie in his 310.
Heavens, you must be Lapun Tru!!!
in the 70's was a US DC 6 or 7 flying SLAR over PNG. Got to be shown thru it. Plenty of room to move and many crew for all the gadgetry.
After the scan the image was processed and rolled out of the processor, a bit like the paper strip from a cash register. B&W imagery, only prevented by clouds with a certain size vapour droplet, so advised..
Have an old B&W neg of the Big Radial Bird someplace.
After the scan the image was processed and rolled out of the processor, a bit like the paper strip from a cash register. B&W imagery, only prevented by clouds with a certain size vapour droplet, so advised..
Have an old B&W neg of the Big Radial Bird someplace.
Too tru, Tailwheel. Some days I think we should have a "use by" sticker.
With a moniker like that I trust you like my favourite Cessna, the 185, as much as I do. How do you decide the load for a 185? I was a (slightty apprehensive) pax in this exercise. First cover the floor, except around the pedals, with cartons of frozen beef. Then load the pilot and 5 adult pax. Of course that takes up the luggauge space, so the luggage for 5 pax goes on everyone's lap. You may need help to close the doors!
But the 206 did help out the operators as it did away with the ground-looping problem with new pilots. One such ground-looped a 185 on a bush strip, so a LAEME was flown in with tools and camping gear to get it up to ferry permit state. When it was ready, guess who was the only pilot available? And he ground-looped it on Moreby...
I suspect his career was a short one. A similar story with a member of a sky-diving club operating a 185 I did some flying for. One of their members had a licence, so went off to get his tail-wheel endosement - in a Chippie? First flight in the 185 cost them a new wing, but it was a miserable little strip.
The RBB50's were quite a sight, especially the one who visited a BBQ the aero club organised on Fisherman's island. We had invited him to drop by, and he did so with about 10ft prop clearance, and the wingtip maybe 30yds from the crowd. Certainly got everyone's attention.
They formed a critical link in the marine rescue I mentioned. Story started one Sat. afternoon as we were mooring the diving boat in the harbour, we were aproached by the wives of some friends, with a question, whether we had seen their husbands fishing party, as their lakatoi was late back from a Fri o'night trip. We assumed they would be sitting on one of the beaches, having misjudged the tide. We'd all done that, with unreliable tides when the one you were counting on to float you off didn't arrive. The ladies were worried, so i quickly organised the club 180 to locate them and reassure the wives. But we couldn't locate them anywhere between Moresby and Idihi Is, so we started to worry. We wanted to search that night as they would have some sort of light. But the club was not able to lay on a night flight without some declaration of an emergency. There was a USN ship in port, and we knew they had two Kamman choppers. We found the captain, and he was symathetic, but he would also need some official request, the only person able to declare a rescue mission was the Harbourmaster, and when we found him he was too drunk to organise anything. So we did manage to get an official search sort oforganised on Sunday morning. Dave Robbie volunteered his 310 and I claimed the rh seat.
We flew one or two missions, the airlines were allocated areas to look at on arrival and departure, and I think we got an airline DC3 as well. Singles could only be used to check the shorelines. No result Sunday. Monday we hit the jackpot, near the seaward limit of our run we found the lakatoi floating upside down with people on top of it.
We called the good news in, and then the communication SNAFU started. Although a DC3 drop of a dinghy pack was successful, after one of the partty had a long swim to retrieve it, the Kaaman choppers were organised to retrieve the rescuees, They had been turned over by a rogue wave on Fri night and had drifted 50miles down the coast & about 30 out to sea. Co--ordination.... the choppers only have military UHF radios. Enter an RB50 somewhere over the gap who has UHF and HF, so he can talk to the choppers on UHF and Moresby on HF, Moresby can talk to us on VHF. The reult was that location we gave of SW from Hood Pt. got to the choppers as SE. Finally worked out who was where, we found the choppers and led them back by hand signals. They lifted the whole lot of survivors out as an overload and everything seemed fine. Then we found there were two people missing. One was a strong swimmer who had set out to swim to an island they had drifted "close" to on Sat morning. We thought we had lost him, but a native fisherman rescued him from a palm tree washed up on the main reef some miles further along on the Tuesday. Unfortunately the other guy was never found. Apparently he snapped sometime Sunday night, just said "i've had enough of this, I'm going home home" and swam off. Worst thing was he was the father of one of the kids on board, who had to be restrained from following him.
Quite a performance
With a moniker like that I trust you like my favourite Cessna, the 185, as much as I do. How do you decide the load for a 185? I was a (slightty apprehensive) pax in this exercise. First cover the floor, except around the pedals, with cartons of frozen beef. Then load the pilot and 5 adult pax. Of course that takes up the luggauge space, so the luggage for 5 pax goes on everyone's lap. You may need help to close the doors!
But the 206 did help out the operators as it did away with the ground-looping problem with new pilots. One such ground-looped a 185 on a bush strip, so a LAEME was flown in with tools and camping gear to get it up to ferry permit state. When it was ready, guess who was the only pilot available? And he ground-looped it on Moreby...
I suspect his career was a short one. A similar story with a member of a sky-diving club operating a 185 I did some flying for. One of their members had a licence, so went off to get his tail-wheel endosement - in a Chippie? First flight in the 185 cost them a new wing, but it was a miserable little strip.
The RBB50's were quite a sight, especially the one who visited a BBQ the aero club organised on Fisherman's island. We had invited him to drop by, and he did so with about 10ft prop clearance, and the wingtip maybe 30yds from the crowd. Certainly got everyone's attention.
They formed a critical link in the marine rescue I mentioned. Story started one Sat. afternoon as we were mooring the diving boat in the harbour, we were aproached by the wives of some friends, with a question, whether we had seen their husbands fishing party, as their lakatoi was late back from a Fri o'night trip. We assumed they would be sitting on one of the beaches, having misjudged the tide. We'd all done that, with unreliable tides when the one you were counting on to float you off didn't arrive. The ladies were worried, so i quickly organised the club 180 to locate them and reassure the wives. But we couldn't locate them anywhere between Moresby and Idihi Is, so we started to worry. We wanted to search that night as they would have some sort of light. But the club was not able to lay on a night flight without some declaration of an emergency. There was a USN ship in port, and we knew they had two Kamman choppers. We found the captain, and he was symathetic, but he would also need some official request, the only person able to declare a rescue mission was the Harbourmaster, and when we found him he was too drunk to organise anything. So we did manage to get an official search sort oforganised on Sunday morning. Dave Robbie volunteered his 310 and I claimed the rh seat.
We flew one or two missions, the airlines were allocated areas to look at on arrival and departure, and I think we got an airline DC3 as well. Singles could only be used to check the shorelines. No result Sunday. Monday we hit the jackpot, near the seaward limit of our run we found the lakatoi floating upside down with people on top of it.
We called the good news in, and then the communication SNAFU started. Although a DC3 drop of a dinghy pack was successful, after one of the partty had a long swim to retrieve it, the Kaaman choppers were organised to retrieve the rescuees, They had been turned over by a rogue wave on Fri night and had drifted 50miles down the coast & about 30 out to sea. Co--ordination.... the choppers only have military UHF radios. Enter an RB50 somewhere over the gap who has UHF and HF, so he can talk to the choppers on UHF and Moresby on HF, Moresby can talk to us on VHF. The reult was that location we gave of SW from Hood Pt. got to the choppers as SE. Finally worked out who was where, we found the choppers and led them back by hand signals. They lifted the whole lot of survivors out as an overload and everything seemed fine. Then we found there were two people missing. One was a strong swimmer who had set out to swim to an island they had drifted "close" to on Sat morning. We thought we had lost him, but a native fisherman rescued him from a palm tree washed up on the main reef some miles further along on the Tuesday. Unfortunately the other guy was never found. Apparently he snapped sometime Sunday night, just said "i've had enough of this, I'm going home home" and swam off. Worst thing was he was the father of one of the kids on board, who had to be restrained from following him.
Quite a performance
Man Bilong Balus long PNG
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Looking forward to returning to Japan soon but in the meantime continuing the never ending search for a bad bottle of Red!
Age: 69
Posts: 2,965
Received 92 Likes
on
53 Posts
Troppo; How long before one of them gets bent because someone's wantok wants to take one for a spin?
Man Bilong Balus long PNG
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Looking forward to returning to Japan soon but in the meantime continuing the never ending search for a bad bottle of Red!
Age: 69
Posts: 2,965
Received 92 Likes
on
53 Posts
Em nau, Troppo. 
I'm going to go out on a limb here (had three glasses of a good Barossa Shiraz this evening instead of the usual two
) and I'm going to make a prediction!
Of all the Maseratis, at least three will be damaged in some way before the end of the Forum!
Nahhh, stuff it!
Make it at least five!! With at least one write-off!
I'm going to go out on a limb here (had three glasses of a good Barossa Shiraz this evening instead of the usual two) and I'm going to make a prediction!Of all the Maseratis, at least three will be damaged in some way before the end of the Forum!
Nahhh, stuff it!
Make it at least five!! With at least one write-off!
The cars will be used to carry attendees at this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2018 forum, being held in New Guinea.
Pinky old boy,
Maserati's are a hi-po Italian stallion; ground hugging machines with little under tray clearance, and POM petrol will destroy the engines. Maserati used to use Ferrari engines, although today I think they used wording like 'inspired by Ferrari'
I don't think any design in the engine computer was contemplated for rubbish fuel. Speed humps... ????
I'll go one step further and say 10 damaged, three write off's.....
BTW, whom is buying these machines, surely not the Aussie taxpayer?
Maserati's are a hi-po Italian stallion; ground hugging machines with little under tray clearance, and POM petrol will destroy the engines. Maserati used to use Ferrari engines, although today I think they used wording like 'inspired by Ferrari'
I don't think any design in the engine computer was contemplated for rubbish fuel. Speed humps... ????
I'll go one step further and say 10 damaged, three write off's.....
BTW, whom is buying these machines, surely not the Aussie taxpayer?
I read somewhere on bookface that the total purchase was 3 Bentleys, 40 Maserati Quatroportes and 80 SUVs for around USD$21m
Can't argue with any of those predictions. At least they seem to have got them off the wharf. The record I remember was three wrecked Mercedes for none landed. First looked good, only a short drop so the suspension should absorb it. But neither that car or the next one could survive the impact when the crane operator dropped no.2 on top of no.1 from about 20ft. That disposed of any save the operator might have had, as no.3 slipped the slings as he swung the crane towards the outside of the ship, then braked it hard when he realised wrong direction. It sank in about 30' of soda-wara - not good.
The main wharf was a handy supply dump for SCUBA in the days before containers, pallet loads were quite likely to end up in the harbour, and it was just a little deep for the wharf bois. There was a large crate of monogrammed table ware that equipped many a donga, a collection of kids trikes & similar made good Xmas presents after a quick sand-blast and spray. I was envious of the guy who scored a crate of Scotch, but I made up for it with a Colt .45 automatic!
The main wharf was a handy supply dump for SCUBA in the days before containers, pallet loads were quite likely to end up in the harbour, and it was just a little deep for the wharf bois. There was a large crate of monogrammed table ware that equipped many a donga, a collection of kids trikes & similar made good Xmas presents after a quick sand-blast and spray. I was envious of the guy who scored a crate of Scotch, but I made up for it with a Colt .45 automatic!
Man Bilong Balus long PNG
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Looking forward to returning to Japan soon but in the meantime continuing the never ending search for a bad bottle of Red!
Age: 69
Posts: 2,965
Received 92 Likes
on
53 Posts
Those attendees might prefer to be riding in an MRAP
I'll go one step further and say 10 damaged, three write off's.....
