Kendall Herons?
 

Hi all,

Having a bit of a conversation with some old fellas who remember Kendall operating Herons. I never knew they did. Does anyone have any further info or pictures please? Would like to see what it/they looked like.

Thanks

Photos: Riley Turbo Skyliner (DH-114) Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

Photos: Riley Turbo Skyliner (DH-114) Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

I flew The Herons at Kendalls in 1978/9, VH-CLW & VH-KAM, IO-540 Lycomings fuel injected 290 H.P. We cruised at 60% power, 22"@2,200 R.P.M.
Gave a TAS between 160-170 kts on a total burn of 220 litres/Hr. With CASA (DOT) approved 3,000 hour T.B.O.
Don Kendall said the break-even load factor was about 5 Pax out of 15 seats. Max T.O.W. 13,500 lbs. for two pilot R.P.T. operations and we sometimes operated single pilot charter flights at 12,500 lbs. Max. Interesting A/C to fly, great in x-winds with a 30 Kt. limit, fully castoring nosewheel, pneumatic brakes, flaps and gear and a thumb operated brake bar on the control wheel. It was a little deficient in the anti-icing area, pitot heat only which made the MEL-MER sectors in the winter a little interesting at times.

Zlin

Surely that should read pounds, not kgs???

Accident description

Date: 23 OCT 1975
Time: 19:28 EST
Type: de Havilland DH-114 Riley Heron 2
Operator: Connair
Registration: VH-CLS
C/n / msn: 14067
First flight: 1955
Crew: Fatalities: 3 / Occupants: 3
Passengers: Fatalities: 8 / Occupants: 8
Total: Fatalities: 11 / Occupants: 11
Airplane damage: Written off
Airplane fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair)
Location: 3 km (1.9 mls) N of Cairns Airport, QLD (CNS) (Australia)
Phase: Approach (APR)
Nature: Domestic Scheduled Passenger
Departure airport: Mount Isa Airport, QLD (ISA/YBMA), Australia
Destination airport: Cairns Airport, QLD (CNS/YBCS), Australia
Narrative:
The aircraft was on a runway 15 ILS approach when the crew reported they were going around. The aircraft was then seen flying at low height until it crashed 2813m NW of the runway threshold. Weather was poor with lightning and heavy rain.

More tears as one remembers the old girls:)
I used to fuel them at Tulla back when I was 'somebody else':)
Having flown their smaller cousins (The DH104's) I would loved to have flown a 4 eng plane/version, same at the B747 right?:ok:
I even recall the Aero Commanders they operated, PA31's too I think?
Then the Metro 2's SP, & so on all the way to regional jets, from then on it was downhill all the way:bored:.
Real planes they where, now just part of our memories & the history books


CW

Remember fondly the first imported into Oz, VH-ASH by Associated Airlines with the original Gypsy installed, brand spanking new and complete with a drift sight. Fortunate to fly a number of trips as pax, but on the nostalgia stakes not a patch on the Lockheed 12A it replaced.
Tailwheel, yes should be pounds.

VH-KAM
 

Here's the full history of VH-KAM She is currently being repainted in Airlines of Tasmania livery.

VH-CLW went to Sunflower in Fiji as DQ-FDY. One wing was virtually destroyed when the hangar doors blew in during a cyclone. The wing was rebuilt and the aircraft returned to service. The aeroplane now resides with the Aust Aviation Museum at Bankstown. Thankfully the lovely Heron is well represented in Australian museums but most require engines, props and other parts.

Rgds

Great links there thxs guys:ok:



CW

Did some time on a DH-104 Dove....VH-OBI

The machine had only 1600 hrs total time even in the 90's and hasnt flown much since then. If I recall right one of the engine was still a factory installation and was still the best one to get it going.
Gotta love the art of learning to use the steering with the braking system, might go through the front window if not carefull.... and the "Master Air Valve" ;), wonder how many times people have taken off with the thing turned off and nothing worked after takeoff.... I know of once ! watched it from the ground ;)

Few fun facts....
- range just about limited with oil
- if no oil leaking when parked then the engine is out of oil ;)
- always carry spare spark plugs prfereably an engineer !
- plenty of rags on board

Great for passenger comfort, Great art to operate, surely turns heads with the looks and the lovely humm on those inverted engines.....all in all a great vintage machine for fishing trips with the mates and a whole heap of slabs at the back :E

Smoothie...... :ok:

'SmoothC' yr description sums up pretty much any DH A/C well but what about draining the air tank/s making sure there ain't too much oil in them? We had a special tool made up from a ring spanner, only trouble is I couldn't work out whether the air had too much oil in it or the oil had too much air in it:E I was beginning to think that I was draining an oil tank not an air tank!:bored: We might as well add placing the U/C external locks in place as well, this was done so as to not have them fold up whilst parked, talk about the 'B&W Minstrals' (white shirt, black hands)after doing that!. Seen a couple of 'em get airborne with them still in place, enter one fixed gear Dove !:E Still nice pommy airframe, a delight to hand fly, in fact come to think of it that's all we ever did, hand fly 'em!


CW

Yes, I remember ASH and also the sound of the pneumatic braking system, not to mention the difficulty the pilots had in starting the Queens with a downwind blowing into the exhaust pipes.
Interestingly enough, ASH was one of the first Heron MarkII's, the previous version having FIXED undercarriage.

The Lockheed certainly had the edge on the Heron in the noise stakes also. I don't know what happened to ASH, but the last I saw of ABH was at Dragues Museum in Wangaratta looking terrific.

Heron aircraft
 

I have a trophy at home with a Butler Airlines registration on it. A good looking machine.

Tmb

I believe the Butler Herons were of the Mark 1 variety with the fixed gear.

Could stand to be corrected though....

Didn't the original Southern Airlines operate a Heron Mk1 between Melbourne and Flinders/King Is before they were taken over by Ansett?

they did, may I suggest you read the book entitled Ansett available from Flarose, great production book with all the oldies in them

Apparently the rear luggage bay was comfortable enough for the FO when his seat was required for fare paying pax :rolleyes:


Rumour site innit?

Couple of nice photos of ASH here VH-ASH
ASH ended up with Allegheny Commuter Airlines registered as N3FB and converted to flat engines. Photo here AirlineFan Allegheny Commuter Airlines DH-114 Heron 2D N3FB Photo
While landing at Cleveland Hopkins airport, USA, (2 crew 15 pax) a ground controller cleared a vehicle onto the runway and the inevitable happened. Injuries listed as minor/none and the aircraft remains were sold to Susquehana Airlines for spares.

Thanks for all the info guys. Fantastic stuff.

Did Qantas ever operate a Heron?

Qantas operated the DHA Drover, which came out about the same time.

Nobody "operated" Drovers. They tolerated them.

Would have been a different aircraft if they'd allowed dehav Aust to put the Gipsy Queens in them.

How about the flight manual terminology

- Accumulator
- Thrust Augmenta
- Alighting Gear


Smoothie :ok:

Many years ago i remember looking up and seeing them flying around as a kid, mind you that was back in the UK and they wore RN colours then, not too sure what the Navy guys were flying then (early '70's around Lee-on-Solent HMS...?)

I used to fly VH-ASH ... but it was an Aztec, from Melbourne !

Spent some time on them in the early '80s when Airlines of Tasmania bought most of the airworthy ones. CLT,CLV,CLX,CLZ, can't remember the rest. KAM as well for a while.
They did the LT-FLI, LT-WY-KI runs twice daily and LT-HB newspaper runs at 3 am.
I can attest to their deficiency in icing conditions having seen the fabric peel from the trailing edge of an aileron on a particular flight. (Ailerons, elevator and rudder were fabric covered).
Operating the electrically driven constant speed actuators was an art in itself to avoid the thing sounding like it was about to fall out of the sky as everything went out of sync.
Departing without the required pressure in the accumulators made for interesting gear up sequencing. (and the danger of the gear not coming up if an engine failed)
Lovely old aeroplane.

Capt F yr right indeed ASH was latter to become an Aztruck, an old ugly one at that! Even brand new the Aztruck looked old & ugly:E



CW

Brian

The second photo suggests that it acquired the name "Silver Heron" with the repaint, but as I'm sure you know, it was named that as soon as it started with Associated in keeping with the tradition of naming all their aircraft after their Broken Hill roots.

There was "Silver City" and "Silver Gull" both Locheed Mini Hudson (12A's).

Was a good era really.

What happened to the Series1 Heron at Jandakot?

Don't forget that AVDEV operated the Herons for a while on the Lord Howe Island run.

Kendalls when they had the Metro 2 up and running crosshired VH-CLW to Executive Airlines in the late 70's to cover maintenance on the Aerocommanders.

Before going to Sunflower -CLW was with Air Tungaru in Tarawa as T3-ATA. Don Kendell flew it up there himself in 1981. The aeroplane was originally a Luftwaffe VIP machine. The plush seat used by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was apparently used by Eddie Connellan as an office chair and is now sitting in the back of Dove -DHH at the Aviation Museum in ASP.

Big Girl 727

Here's the story in pictures.

http://www.adastron.com/aviation/vault/ca-001.jpg
As CA-001 with the West German Air Force.

http://www.adastron.com/aviation/vault/vh-clw.jpg
At Brisbane on 30MAY81 on delivery to Air Tungaru still as VH-CLW.

http://www.adastron.com/aviation/vault/dq-fdy.jpg
As DQ-FDY with Sunflower.

Great photos, thanks FrisB.

I'm told they flew better with the lycomings, but for my money, the aircraft looked far better with the Gipsy Queens.

Has anyone got any real world comparisons between the two ?
The Queen was supercharged whereas the Lycomings were normally aspirated, so that would possibly have made a difference.

The Heron had unsupercharged Gipsy Queen 30's rated at 250 HP, you may be thinking of the Dove Zolt, which had Gipsy Queen 70's, which were supercharged, starting out at 340 and ending with 400 HP.

One of the ex Connellan Herons CLV was also ex Luftwaffe. I was told that during stripping of the paintwork on CLV, the Maltese Cross was quite visible on the rear fuselage.

From a performance point of view, the Riley Heron with the IO -540 Lycomings was a much better performer than the Queen 6 powered aircraft. The empty weight of the Riley Herons were a lot lighter, because the Lycomings were a wet sump engine and totally made out of alloys, where as the Gypsy Queens had a large proportion of steel in the construction (built like a battleship) and the bare engine weighed much more than the Lycoming, without the oil tankand other plumbing.

From memory, MTOW was around 7.0t. Speeds were V1 65 Vr 70 V2 74 Vyse 91 kts. Any engine failure was left until acceleration altitude (400') to sort out. In fact I had an inboard fail passing V2 and the FO didn't notice anything other that it was climbing just a little slower (which he put down to being at MTOW) He was surprised when the failure was pointed out with the suggestion we might return. The Gpsy powered Herons had two position propellors, where as the Riley had fully feathering 3 bladed propellors. These were controlled by electric pitch actuators. It was like playing the piano some days.

Planning gave a TAS 165kts 48 imp gall/hr. You could put on 15 adult pax, 365 kg baggage in the rear and 100 kgs in the nose, and fly for 4 hrs with reserves. 3 engine cruise was 140 kts and 36 gall/hr, which gave a slightly better nm/gallon.

Flaps were pneumatic and had two positions T/O and Land. The landing deflection was 65 degrees and to enable it to meet the baulk approach climb, a rapid exhaust valve was fitted which retracted the flaps from landing to take-off in 2.5 seconds.

The Viscount bears a striking likeness of the Heron. In photos of the cockpit of the Halifax bomber, one can see the identical throttle levers as fitted to the Heron

Dog One

VH-CLV was indeed CA+002 with the German Air Force. She is now with the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston. I believe that the QVM also have CLZ. The Aust Aviation Museum at Bankstown have CLW and the Moorabbin Air Museum have CLX. As previously mentioned, the Qld Air Museum at Caloundra have KAM.

Does anyone know the whereabouts of CLT? As the aeroplane that was "flown" on the ground during Cyclone Tracy she is probably the most deserving of preservation but I've not been able to track her down.

Rgds

Indeed interesting reading guys, thnxs:ok:

Are there any known facts on a double eng failure?


CW

Dunno what Heron it was but there was one in Airlines of Northern Australia livery parked on the old Darwhine GA apron in 1981
Henk Van der Maas ferried it somewhere south, could this have been CLT?

Most of Connair/Nortern Airlines Herons got flown to Parafield and put into storage.
Christine Davey ferried a couple south from Darwin.
When I worked for Tamair Dave "Macca" Mckenzie told heaps of stories abuot working for Connair when they converted the Herons to Lycoming power.

CLT was sold by Connair to an operator at Parafield, who operated the aircraft for a short while until going belly up. AOT purchased it and operated it until they got several of the ex Connair aircraft airworthy. It then went into the hangar for a C check. During this work, corrosion was found in the wheel wells and adjacent spar area. Repair work was put on hold until the Connair Herons where put on line. My source tells me it sat in the corner dismantled for some time, and when they went to repair the corrosion, an inventory of missing components on the airframe showed that they insufficient spares to put it back in the air. It was reduced to components and the fuselage now resides up in the Tasmania highlands a shooters lodge.

Capt W

Double engine failure on the same side is rare and usually a fuel feed problem. AOT wrote one Heron off at Launceston, attempting to go round off the narrow gravel parallel strip with full flap and the gear down, the left engines didn't respond to the throttles and the aircraft swung left, dug the left wing into the ground and ground looped. There were only minor injuries, but the airframe was written off, and the wings repaired and fitted to CLX (whose wings were out of first spar life)

Oops :O You are so right. I did confuse it with the Dove engine.

Put it down to memory slipping with years gone by. :{

Thanks Brian