I visited the Central Australia Aviation Museum at Alice Springs last November. And what an interesting place it is. The Connellan history is fascinating. Well worth a visit!

Had a year flying KAM & CLW in Wagga…..memories..

Looking for an update on the state of VH-CLT, the fuselage of which was last reported in use as a hunting lodge/storage shed near Woodbury in Tasmania.
Is it still there?
Rgds

Epic thread bump, Fris B !

And x 2 about the Central Australia Aviation Museum, gerry111



And x2 about the museum.

Under the new fangled Part61 licence, CASA don’t recognise the Heron endorsement as being above 5700kgs.

The poor old girl gets classed in with the dinky toy brigade.

I lost three type ratings with the Part 61 change over. One was the Heron, the other two because they are no longer on the register. The biro munchers think they no longer exist.

The Heron was nice to fly but the cockpit was designed by a madman.

It was a little deficient in the anti-icing area,
As were the DC3's operating around Australia. Beats me how operating DC3's in mid winter across Bass Strait without wing and tail de-icing boots were allowed to get away with it. At the same time all RAAF Dakota's had rubber de-icing boots on wings and tail leading edges.

Someone I knew told me about winter Dak flights across the strait to TAS…very disconcerting with bangs and crashes of lumps of ice being flung of the props.

I'm a glider pilot at Bathurst. Whilst thermalling over Billywillinga about 10 years ago, I noticed what appears to be a DH Dove on a bush property below. It's still there, visible on Google Earth, 33 18.818 S 149 It certainly wasn't flown in!

Sorry - coordinates are 33 18.818 S 149 26.464 E

Here it is, nestled in a back-block junkyard:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....16e426599e.jpg

Given the location, I wondered if it might be a Drover, but it definitely looks like a Dove.

I recall reading the Connellan Airways DH Heron flight operations manual. This was in 1969 during my time in DCA Head Office. The advice on crosswind landing technique was mind-boggling. It went something like this: 'Use the crab method on final. At the flare kick the aircraft straight with rudder to ensure all drift is removed before touch down. . If the aircraft balloons resume the crab wings level attitude and then apply power on the outboard engine on touch down to straighten the aircraft. These are not the exact wording but you get the gist of it

No de-icing for wings and tail surfaces on civilian registered DC3 aircraft, presumably to save mainrenance costs. Makes you wonder who conned DCA into approving this modification and why the AFAP didn't buy into the flight safety aspect of the operation. .

The late Geoff Goodall's site doesn't seem to identify it that I can see, nor does Old Props. Certainly does appear to be a Dove.

Could this be the same Dove, photographed recently near Cowra?

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ebee53de16.jpg

It seems that the unidentified Dove might be the former VH-MGT:

https://tinyurl.com/57bfd6td

Fortunate that somebody thought it was worth $5300 to keep it from extinction