Calling all aerial survey pilots

[Fris B. Fairing]

zac21
I have added C208B VH-NWT. Who was the operator at the time? Polar?

MakeItHappenCaptain
Your P68T would qualify if it conducted survey ops within Aust, even for training purposes. Was the training for pilots only or for survey operators as well? Clearly the survey ops in Taiwan were under Taiwanese registration.

aroa
Aztec VH-COC is already on the list as is TU206 VH-SIB. I suspect your Aztec might have been VH-PYY which is also on the list.

holdingagain
I have added Bonanza VH-SDD and Musketeer VH-BZO. I seem to recall sending you a PM a while back seeking confirmation that it wasn't simple oblique handheld camera out the window stuff. Your confirmation that they both had holes in the floor does it.

Thanks again for the contributions.

The Big List is here

Rgds
Ron

[Seagull V]

Fris B.
Please check your PMs
Seagull V

[Stationair8]

What about VH-KAK Shrike 500, that was owned by a pastoral company but leaesed out for vertical photography during the late 1970'?

[Fantome]

Earlier talk here a few posts back about heater failure. Not related to photo survey but to cloud seeding, in 1968 the Masling C310 VH-AER was contracted to the Department of the Interior in Canberra for rain-making over the Cotter Dam catchments as the capitol was in the grip of a severe drought.

The cloud seeding officer from CSIRO seconded to the operation was the late Arthur Tapp, who had been a nav on Lancs during the war. A very droll soul.
He was training a new recruit from BOM in the fine art of rain dancing.
On his first op without being overseen, this bloke was violently ill on descent back into Canberra. Quite a relief to pull up, open the door and get some fresh air circulating. His first job on deplaning was to fetch a bucket of water and a cloth and clean up the right side of the panel. Also to carefully remove all trace of his bacon and egg breakfast, evidenced by little greasy scraps hanging off the instrument post lights.

The next morning the two of us went off again, three hours of silver iodide and acetone in the tank. After two hours of boring back and forth through thick stratus at 14,000 feet, minus 10 on the OAT, the Janitrol heater packed up, resulting in minutes in numb tootsies. When we could bear it no longer we gave it away and headed on down. As soon as we pulled up outside the aero club the trainee chappy hobbled off inside to warmer climes. Arto Tapp was standing by the wing root and the step saying to me "Well, aren't you going to get out?" "Can't yet" said I, "Just waiting for some feeling to come back in the feet."

Arto's response was more than curious, for he said "Mick has none at all and never will." It took a while to discover the meaning of this cryptic remark.
Arto in fact was in mild shock. He had just had a phone call from his head office. His fellow cloud seeder in CSIRO and life long friend, Mick Heffernan, in Hobart the evening before, had walked out of the Ocean Child Hotel in Argyle Sreet, most likely a little unsteady on his feet, right into the path of a passing car. There was driving rain and wind at the time. Mick died in the ambulance.

re VH-AAG, the aforementioned Dragon Rapide of Alpine Airways, in 1958 and 1959 she came to airshows in Canberra, there to drop on each occasion four white overalled parachutists as part of the display. The fate of this red and white liveried beauty is recorded in the DH89 data files.

12.12.52. Op 2.53-2.56 by [Airwork-owned] South Island Airways, Christchurch. Regn cld
24.1.57 and shipped to Sydney 1.57 on SS Kaitoke. Stored crated until late .58. Regd VH-AAG
19.8.58 to Alpine Airways Pty Ltd, Cooma, NSW (C/n quoted as 6684). Regd 16.8.60 to Robert
G [Bob] Carswell, t/a Carsair Air Service Pty Ltd, Archerfield (later Darwin). Badly damaged by
engine start-up fire Banyan Station Airstrip, NT 12.12.60. Repaired in the bush with replacement
mainplanes; reflown 16.2.61. Leased to Darwin Air Taxis wef 10.61. Collided with kangaroo at
Wolner Station, NT 27.2.63 which broke lower main spar; reportedly ferried by air back to Darwin
where repairs abandoned. Remains donated to RAAF Leanyeh Range, nr Darwin and used as
target by RAAF Sabres early .64. Regn cld 21.12.64.

Is there anyone who may be able to confirm that the repairs at Banyan Station were undertaken by Ivan Unwin, more recently of Emu Park, Queensland?

Pardon this massive digression, Mr FF. I suspect you will not be too cross. In the latest FLIGHTPATH the piece on the recently restored Beech 17, VH-UXP, says that this aircraft has camera hatches.

In the Big List there are five DH84 Dragons listed. Another was VH-APP, 'Auntie', of Brown and Dureau. This one is featured on page 178 of 'The South West Book', an ACF publication that came out in 1979. In the 1940s the company did work in Tasmania. In the book it states that Brown and Dureau had on strength a Dragon and a Dragonfly. There is a photograph of VH-APP on the beach at Cox's Bight in the far SW of the State. The Dragonfly is not identified. The DCA registers of civil aircraft held at the Airways Museum in Essendon are a good source of information as to who owned and operated what.

[Kabwum balus]

Survey ops

Hey Far CU,

As did your good self, I too flew AC680FLP BTN & also C402B PEH plus C421C NSW amongst others. Flew Do27 & AC520 in Europe, including infra-red scanning of major rivers for pollution monitoring before that. Started out as a survey navigator on low-level aero-magnetometer work in WA & Qld. mid-1960's, DHC2 SMH & AAS, prior to which I was a ground prospector, initially solo geochemical including gravity survey & grid pegging for geophysical & drill crews (northern SA) then team geophysics on induced polarisation in WA - Kalgoorlie/Kambalda area - leading to the aeromag job on the dear old Beaver - being in the final stages of gaining my CPL.

Ben


[email protected]

[Stationair8]

Reference VH-KAK, it was actually leased by Tasair over the summer while they used there Shrike 500 VH-EX? for vertical photography.

My informant can't recall the actual year and if the contract was with the Hydro or another state govermnet department.

[Springhill]

VH-epf

Could I ask you a few questions about EPF please? I am considering purchasing a P68C and would very like to hear about the TC version.
Who owns this aircraft now? Where is it being operated?
Cheers

[Oceanhopper]

Could not read thie list, but did VH MDG(MaDoG) get on it also VH IBY and VH STB, (C210's) All flown throughout WA in 2012 by a lucky few pilots......

[Fris B. Fairing]

Oceanhopper

The list is Here

Your three nominations are already on the list.

Rgds

[dubbleyew eight]

RUU and the queen air that crashed at shepparton were used for aerodist ops by the army survey corps.

[Fris B. Fairing]

That would be TYV. Both are already on the list.

Rgds

[Centaurus]

I know the subject is Australian surveys but tribute should be made to RAAF Canberra crews that surveyed PNG in the Sixties plus all the area including New Britain and New Ireland down to Honiara in the Solomon Islands. One of their pilots is a mate of mine living in Melbourne. His story is fascinating.

[Fris B. Fairing]

Centaurus

IIRC that would be Operation Skai Piksa and I agree that it is worthy of coverage in its own right. Unfortunately, when I started the list it was decided not to include military ops as there is limited information available. I would like to read that story though.

Rgds

[AussieO2]

VH-AYE, Cessna 411A, c/n 411A0228, VH-AEA, Beech A56TC/A1, c/n TG-91 and VH-SFR, GAF N22SL, c/n N22S-90, all once with Reprographics.

[aroa]

Repro's

AYE ...was that the one that crashed at Archerfield..?

AEA was at one time with Qasco in PNG...before or after.?

I have a pic of the Nomad somewhere..was it just operating for Coast Watch tho as it had a radome under the nose.?

And one for Centaurus...you be de story man. Can you get yr Skai Piksa mate to write it all down for you and give us some anecdotes ??

[601]

RUU and the queen air that crashed at shepparton were used for aerodist ops by the army survey corps.

RUU never had the Aerodist installed.

FWG had the Aerodist installed. The 25mm coax aerial cabling was permanently installed in the wings of FWG as was the structure for the wing-tip aerials.

RUU carried WREMAPS-II equipment and/or a RC10 camera. Part of the WREMAPS-II installation was a "bomb bay" door for the laser, RC10 navigation sight and 70mm strip film camera.

WREMAPS
WREMAPS | DSTO

[Centaurus]

And one for Centaurus...you be de story man. Can you get yr Skai Piksa mate to write it all down for you and give us some anecdotes ??

I have just had a chat with him and he will give it a go in the next week or so. He said he was given a couple of days notice to go away for six weeks to photograph from his Canberra bomber, all of PNG including New Britain, New Ireland and the Solomons. He took a navigator and two technicians. All hand flying up to 40,000 ft single pilot and no autopilot on the Canberra.

And just digressing on an allied subject. Talked to an Airbus pilot the other day. He was on a recurrent simulator training session. The session was completed in well under scheduled time so the simulator instructor asked the first officer (a former FTA cadet with total of 700 hours in his log book) if he would like to do some general flying practice of his own choosing. The former cadet refused saying he just wanted to go home. Such boundless enthusiasm from someone with such low flying experience.

The simulator instructor was annoyed at this attitude and said "you are not going home - you will practice some circuits. The first officer was dismayed, saying he had not had time to study how to fly circuits. This crap from a second in command of a large jet transport.

[Homesick-Angel]

Centaurus ..

I'm always first in line to bash low hour cadets cos frankly they didn't have to do the hard yards , are way better paid than I was (and probably still am) and in many cases probably have me in the looks department as well... But there may be more to this than meets the eye.

Or not but hear me out .

Bashing Circuits in the sim may sound like a simple thing, but is an unusual offer as far as I'm aware in recurrent training (Sim guys and gals?) So the FO may have felt it was a bit of a trick or something that he should've prepared for (SOP,s more than anything else - not that id imagine there'd be many if any for an Airbus?)

Despite modern day human factors and open reporting fairness in the workplace etc, The industry as a whole is set up for a pilot to go 20 years without incident and be strung up for the one wrong step .

I've seen people make relatively small errors early in their careers and have themselves tainted for the rest of their time at that particular employer and its affected their progression.

Maybe he was just fearful of judgment ? They don't handfly much at all.

Has it always been this way?

Saying all that, I woulda taken the circuits in a second...

[aroa]

Stories..

Centaurus. Looking fwd to that.

I recall seeing the Canberra blasting out of POM. On the way up to $40K ft at least they would have had a great view to see where the cloud free areas were.

Meanwhile we spent all morning chugging up to 20K in old COC /MapMakers and freezing the vital assets in the process.!
Was entertaining to try and fly a straight line across the terrain from a map with a big blank in it stating ' No photographic coverage this area'
Trouble is all those jungle covered ranges looked the same !.
Ah.. the good old days.