Billy Thorpe and the Piaggios
 

No, not the Aztecs. In this instance it was a Piaggio, although the Aztecs travelled on it. Thorpie describes the Piaggio in his second book stating only that it was owned by a Melbourne operator and flown by a Jim Davidson. The aeroplane was used to transport the band to several gigs in the outback. One such flight is described in the book as having culminated in a wire strike on approach to a town in north-west NSW identified only by the mythical name "Redville". Apparently damage to the aircraft was minor. Can anyone identify the Piaggio in question? I'm guessing that I would be wasting my time looking for an incident report on the wire strike ;)

Rgds

Interesting tale.

From memory, operators of the P166 Portofino were -

• Forrester Stephen out of Essendon
• General Aviation Air Freighters of Mascot
• Comalco from Cairns (corporate shuttle to Weipa)
• Snowy Mountains Authority out of Cooma

I know that Airlines of South Australia, MMA and Papuan Airlines also operated them at some stage, but I doubt it would have been them.

I have memories of "Blackjack" Walker flying the GAAF machines.

Didn't DCA have one or more as well? I seem to recall the characteristic sound of one flying over the Brisbane suburbs.

Dr :8

In the mid 70's Blackjack arrived at Scone in a "Pig" for fuel with a load of one day old chicks bound for somewhere out west and asked if we could look at one of his engines which had low oil pressure.

On pulling the filter it was found to contain lots of "sparklies" (no part numbers tho) at which he opted to carry on saying that if the engine failed he would get his pax to all start flapping their wings.

Fris B, I have a vision of many gen Y readers google searching 'Piaggio' aircraft & seeing images of a sleek,modern business turboprop. Maybe if you have at hand a piccy of the QAM one,to show them the less than elegant aeroplane that we oldies know as the 'pig'.

Please do, we know not what you speak of. For example, this is a Piaggio.

http://comandosupremo.com/wp-content...Piaggio108.jpg

The younger generation........ :ugh:

http://www.p166.com/gallery/photos/6776.jpg

VH-FSA and VH-PGA at Essendon.

And no, they are not jets - GSO480's with the props on backwards..... :}

I well remember the PatAir machines. Apart from the geared engines, they served quite well in PNG.

Aye Ess

Here is the Queensland Airlines P-166B VH-PQA

http://www.qam.com.au/aircraft/piaggio/VH-PQA-2.jpg

Rgds

Useful Paiggio P166 web site.

Fris, looking at that photo, for the first time I notice a similarity to the larger Aerocommander of the same era, which I think also had geared engines?

Picture of VH-BHK when Comalco had it CNS-WP-CNS
 

QAM AIRCRAFT COLLECTION

I was in Weipa from 75-79 and hitched out to Cairns in this a couple of times with Les Nind. It was replaced with BSS a 690 Aero Commander respectfully, or otherwise, called the super pig.

PS Does anyone know where Les is these days? He was a great influence in my aspiring aviator days when I was an apprentice sparky in Weipa.

Fris...

I think PQA was a P166C Portofino. Same as ASA, which was ex-airlines South Australia. I flew it when it was at Forrestair Essendon in the 70's.

It had the same engines as those on the Aero Commander 680F and FLs. IGSO-540's I seem to recall.

Despite its looks, it was pretty good to fly, and a very stable instrument platform. Solid as a brick ****house!

harrowing

Les Nind came into the museum in Aug 92 but I've not heard from him since.

SIUYA

PQA was a P-166B Portofino. Only the P-166B carried this name. Sadly PQA met her end on the fire dump at Tullamarine.

Sorry, I should have made it clear from the outset what Piaggio product I was talking about but I assumed everyone would be familiar with the other Pig.

So does anyone know which one Thorpie used? He claimed in the book that it had a six pipe, whiskey-filtered hookah bolted to the floor of the cabin. You'd remember that if you saw it!

Rgds

Someone operated one out of YSBK years ago........yep, they were a PIG!

The one that was operating out of Bankstown years ago now parked at the northern end of Wollongong airport. Sad sight, spar corrosion saw the end of it.
Friend of mine used to operate it, still can't get over it since it has a colourful history.

That was probably the HF wire with plastic cup on the boundary fence.

I'll bite, if it had a geared engine why did the prop sound as if it was doing 3000 rpm going down hill. Also there is/was one displayed on a pole out side some N.S.W. country town. Maybe in Mill colours, maybe Uralla?

The 'Pig'
 

In the later 1970's a 'Pig' used to come through Camden. It always had day old chooks, and from memory was going to Tassie. It always struck me as an old, noisy and un-economical machine. But then again ....

Black Jack himself.

The P166 flew like it looked and sounded.
Lonely nights over the GAFA grinding along the cockpit eerily lit up by the exhaust flare...eyes peeled for Ju 88's...:hmm:

VH-MMP was the Bankstown one. Circa 1989-1990

Dog