Leopard Moth and Miles Falcon still at Lilydale?

[Kharon]

Dig deep – 1938 covered, 1968 covered; but where, oh where is '48, '58 ??. Probably in a damp box, in the shed at the bottom of someone's garden. Good work S&S......

[6317alan]

Petropaviovsk

That sounds right to me,I went to Berwick for a couple of weeks to help Keith out to replace Peter Murphy as an Instructor while he was bringing the C411 out from the USA. He did not return as an instructor and I ended up staying for a couple of years. Worked out well for me! 6317alan

[Old Akro]

The C411 was flown out from USA by Pete Murphy and Bronwyn Hurst.

Absolutely! A name I had forgotten. She also followed Alan Baskett to Essendon.

And... to a 17 YO the 411 was the biggest, newest thing I had seen.

[sixtiesrelic]

Fantome, There are two Pat Harringtons.
Both were in TAA to confuse matters.
The one on the yellow T shirt. (I had one of them) they were 'The vintage aircraft section of the sports aircraft association.
That Pat is the owner of Vintage Aeroplane Servicse at Redcliffe. He was always chunky where as the other is thin.
Thin Pat was a Bushies pilot and I've heard a good musician.

[Fantome]

YEP . .. . when the SAAA held their annual get togethers at Mangalore , the stockier Pat, now at Redcliffe, was there in '82. One cool night he and I were the last still up approaching dawn, huddled round a camp fire, wondering how to replenish the nearly empty esky. A later "untouchabe" of nicholas aspro connections (TAA too) was there wearing a substantial fleecy lined suede coat that Pat and I had thoughts of commandeering. 'It was all so different before everything changed'.

[StallsandSpins]

Dig deep – 1938 covered, 1968 covered; but where, oh where is '48, '58 ??. Probably in a damp box, in the shed at the bottom of someone's garden. Good work S&S......

Thanks! good to know people are interested! i have a fair few photos and i dunno where to start! i have quite a few aviation photos from pre war but they are not Casey related. There wasn't much going on at Casey from 1938 to when ever it was that the VMFG started operating out of there. Prior to to then it was just Lord Casey's private strip with one hangar. Anyway here is a great clip i found on youtube filmed in the 50's of the VMFG operating out of berwick in Color.

[StallsandSpins]

[StallsandSpins]

[StallsandSpins]

[5th officer]

Great thread, I have wonderful memories of Casey, Keith Hatfield and the crew in the 70's.
Flew in the Leopard with Keith when it was green and silver, quiet, no vibration and that lovely grey Wilton carpet. Proctor DUL was sitting out in all weathers, we used to start it once a week. The remains of a red and yellow Dessouter sat on the floor at the back of one of the hangers.
When flying Tiger TIG the rudder felt sloppy and after letting the workshop know he went down to the local hardware and came back with a "Cad Platted" bolt to replace a broken stem post bolt, those were the days.
Bill Campbell-Hicks lived on the field in a Caravan, always slept with a bottle of J/W.
Casey is what flying was all about in the 60's and 70's, atmospheric.
Cheers.

[StallsandSpins]

some photos from lilydale taken a few days ago














Elsa with AAT

[StallsandSpins]

My grandparents were pleasantly surprised that people still remember them and were talking about Casey on the internet

[StallsandSpins]

[StallsandSpins]

[mansion]

What a great thread!!
I can recall completing my Aztec endo at Casey with Bill C-H and also doing circuits in C411 BBV for endo there as well.

[Kharon]

I am much intrigued by the Falcon windscreen, whilst I expect it's no problem – operationally I wondered :- are any blind spots ?, what's it like wet or iced?, how hard it is to replace ?, what's it like to clean? , but most of all why it was designed in the way it was?. So of course, I went looking but came up dry. Can anyone scratch the curiosity itch.

During the search I found some interesting pictures, but nothing really worth bothering with, there is one showing a team of blokes 'lifting and turning' a Falcon from the Vic. State library which may ring a few bells. I did find out there are (or were) two other examples surviving;

In Spain an M.3C registered EC-ACB is also active. This aircraft participated in the Spanish Civil War. Just think about that for a second. Wow!!!. The Brits have managed to keep one airworthy –

G-AEEG.

But for me, an unexpected highlight of the tour was 'Lady', a Peregrine falcon. Take five and enjoy a Friday fancy, bet a choccy frog you'll smile at the end....

200 KIAS – Easy.

[Dog One]

Remember AAT at Cambridge when Alan Hume was restoring it. Alan was the Chief Engineer for the Aero Club of Southern Tasmania. He entered it in several Navigation trials which the Aero Club use to run.

[StallsandSpins]

kharon,

the original prototype falcon G - ACTM, which was flown out to Australia in the 1934 Mac Robertson air race had a more conventional sloped back windscreen.



I think FG Miles was at the the time heavily influenced by American designers such as Vultee and Northrop. The forward sloping windscreen was originally patented by vultee and used on the vultee V1 which preceeded the falcon by a year or two. i remember reading something about it reducing the reflections from instrument lighting at night.



when miles changed the windscreen to the forward sloping one it was said that it increased the cruise speed by 5kts due to improved aerodynamics (which i am skeptical of) Mostly i think it was styling to make sure people didn't confuse the Falcon with the Percival gull.
The windscreen itself is made of molded perspex and you have to be careful cleaning it! i am certain it would provide many a headache if it needed to be replaced and i Dont plan on finding out how it's affected by icing either! Other wise the visibility is about what you would expect from a taildragger of this era.

EC-ACB has a gipsy 6 (200hp) im sure i saw a painting of it during the spanish civil war with racks and hand grenade size bombs attached to the wings!!

G-AEEG has a gipsy 10 with a generator and starter and AAT has the original gipsy major with no generator and starter provided by pilots arm

love the clip of the peregrine falcon! it's faster than the miles!

[Kharon]

S&S – Thank you. The curiosity cat has curled up in sunny spot, purring with satisfaction. What a great era that was, night flying in it's infancy and windscreens redesigned to get rid of the annoying reflections of the window. Back in the day when radar was not an item picking your way through a line of cells, or trying to 'see' a dimly lit threshold on a dark approach was 'high risk' (higher than now?). Those guys paved the way for 'modern' safety protocols and often paid dearly for the lessons routinely taught now to the new kids. Hats off Gents.

Glad you liked the "Lady" clip. (mutters) Lucky bugger.......

[StallsandSpins]

some more miles photos