TAA Cessna 180's in PNG

[Skywagon1915]

Chimbu's seat

Here's one for Chimbu Chuckles ...

Put your old seat back in P2-MFU the other day with the instrument panel.
Brought back vibes of your story of hauling on the flap and diving through a hole in the cloud and rain to get to Bensbach.

Look familiar ?

[Chimbu chuckles]

Well...I recognize the seat

[Skywagon1915]

Planning the interior P2-MFU

Laid out the interior trim and seats to check out what actually I had. I'm going to run with the full bench rear seat and put the MAF fold-down centre seat in storage as well as the child seats from Row 3. Located a scrap hood liner for a template. Dash sub frame is only temporarily fitted, pilots panel will be modified to take a Garmin 500 PFD/MFD or such when ready.

Had to have sit in Chimbu's seat, which was actually quite comfy. Should leave it as is ! Wings are advanced in repair status, RH unit will be back in jig this week and LH side requires only minor rectification, skinning and leading edges etc. I'm ahead of budget in this area.

One of my first flights in MFU will be to take it back to PNG and visit where it operated, some where after 2014 money permitting !

[saabsforever]

Interior panels

Good to see a 185 being brought back to life! I used selkirk fibreglass panels for the interior because the plastic ones just crack all over. But the selkirk ones are very hard to fit. If I did it again would use selkirk for the door panels and the front footwell, but not for the front top doorpost or rear side panels, very hard to fit so mine are still in the box! Used to be possible to get made up headlinings at a fair price, I got a woolen one still not sure if that was a good idea but a former sheep farmer cannot resist. Just spent two weeks at Moresby airport and saw just one piston aircraft flying, a MAF 206. No piston twins at all and just one sighting of the avgas trailer. Caravans for the longer strips and those wonderful NZ PAC 750 things for the shorter ones seem to do what little bush work is left.

[troppo]

I love following this thread. It is like a life story from birth to death and resurrection.
SF, no more TNA office down the far end any more. Hard to believe it is nearly 20 years ago now.

[Al E. Vator]

A noticed a couple of TAA Cessna's (and Grummans and Catalinas etc) in this clip from You Tube:

The Aircraft & Colours of TAA - Part Two - YouTube

[Skywagon1915]

C of R

Received Certificate of Registration yesterday, so officially MFU now exists and back from the grave !

[Skywagon1915]

BVM and SMW

Saw this photo of VH-BVM and VH SMW (?) working with the Natmap people in PNG during the 1960's, just to add to the topic. I don't recall anyone talking about VH-SMW, what happened to this one ?

[sundaun]

VH-SMW

You sure that rego isnt CMW which was Ansett G.A. and later Territory Airlines?

[AussieO2]

VH-SMW was only issued once, to a Beech 58. I go for VH-CMW, which is now in NZ as ZK-SMW!

[185skywagon]

1850524
BVM -2 ATR 15 02 1963 Missionary Aviation Fellowship 8 Market St Box HillVIC Ex N2524Z


BVM -2 SOR 10 12 1966 Crashed 10.12.1966 near Karubaga, West Irian
1850678 CMW -1 ATR 27 02 1964 Ansett-MAL Box 278 LaePNG Ex N2678Z




Looks like CMW in the photo.

CMW -1 CO 05 05 1968 Territory Airlines Pty Ltd LaePNG
CMW -1 COA 29 04 1971 Territory Airlines Pty Ltd PO Box 65 GorokaPNG

CMW -1 COA 24 12 1971 Territory Airlines Pty Ltd PO Box 108 GorokaPNG
CMW -1 SOR 29 04 1974 Transferred to Papua New Guinea civil register as P2-CMW
CMW -1 RTR 17 06 1982 M.E.D. Currington C/- KTX Aviation, PO Box 526 Alice SpringsNT Ex P2-SEN, P2-CMW, VH-CMW

[Skywagon1915]

Keglsugl airstrip in the 60's

Wonder which this C185 is, anyone recognise her at Keglsugl airstrip (trust that is the correct spelling) ?

[chimbu warrior]

Keglsugl spelling is correct, but strip is now closed. When I last operated there in 1980, there was no grass, but strip was hard packed gravel.

[tinpis]

Keglsugl it is.

Was apparently still being used up to a few years ago by trek/ climbers

No many mercury thingamies available for take off, some scary solid slabs of vertical real estate when approaching from Ramu

[sundaun]

Keglsugl

Probably a Divine Word C180 going by the blue colour scheme. The Popies had a few missions from Keglsugl down the valley to Chimbu then a large one at Mingende. Two misshos were murdered in the valley prewar and Fthr John Glover killed in crash at the Mingende strip postwar. If the photo was taken late 70s early 80s it could be Brother Ben, a pilot/engineer based Madang. Prior to that Nyron Martin.

[chimbu warrior]

Nope it is definitely a C185; see larger fin. Do agree that it could be a mission machine, as they did not seem to favour fitting pods to their aircraft.

[Skywagon1915]

MFU wing rebuild well advanced

P2-MFU wing rebuild is progressing well, bit behind schedule but ahead of budget thank heavens. RH wing was a big job and this wing is almost finished, complete with new flap track brackets and gap seals (still to be added at this point). Good news is that LH wing will involve mostly some re-skinning only.

Lot's of history in these wings, patches and repairs every where, they sure worked hard !



Neville hard at it, gap seal is inserted beneath the fasteners when ready.



LH wing only requires new skins and good clean up. Repairs will be minimal to some rib's mostly, thanks ...

[185skywagon]

You have the right bloke on the job there, Fred.

Do you think gap seals are worth it?

[Skywagon1915]

Gap seals

I assume they are and in principal they should be + Neville says they are great on DGL. I'm not doing the aileron gap's though. Nows the time to do them though and in our fuel conscious state, a knot or two extra would be good ?

[Skywagon1915]

Some where in PNG

MAF people sent me this picture from their archives, but no info on the aircraft or times were available. But would be in the 60's I expect.