Warbirds

Of special note however is that the DC-3 will depart Sydney, then pick up additional passengers at Canberra before flying onto Air World at Wangaratta. After inspecting the excellent array of aircraft at Air World the Douglas will trek onto Launceston. On the return leg the tour will stop off at Point Cook for a special visit to the RAAF Museum, the very birthplace of our air force, before flying onto Canberra and Sydney. Passengers may also pick up the flight enroute. Cost is a very good value $1299 from Sydney/Canberra and we are so enthused that we are taking the tour ourselves. For more information check out the full page colour advert in this issue or contact Harrington Green Travel Services Pty Ltd, Level 9 22 Castlereagh St, Sydney or phone (008) 81 4811 or fax (02) 221 6362.

Harry Wallace Passes Away

It is unfortunate to note the passing of Harry Wallace. Harry died in mid August. Aged in his eighties Harry was known far and wide as the Moorabbin airport based supplier of surplus aircraft hardware. It is as a direct result of his operation that a very large number of warbird and antique owners have been able to rebuild their aircraft due to the availability of parts obtained from Harry’s firm.

Harry’s reputation extended beyond the Australian shore- line and more than one person has flown from the likes of England, New Zealand or the USA with one purpose, to see Harry Wallace. Harry was a very fair man on pricing and in the main one could walk around his hangar store and pick out the parts required. One unforgivable act was to put something in one’s pocket and ‘forget’ to pay for it. This sort of act destroyed the trust Harry had put in the buyer who was then told to never return.

Born at Bright, Victoria, in 1907, Harry had a lifelong involvement with things mechanical and it was after the war that he bought some 27 tons of surplus Tiger Moth and Gipsy major engine spares. The business of so called surplus parts has continued over the years and only recently Harry was noted at the CT-4 Airtrainer parts auction. For the many rebuilders and restorers who visited the house of parts, Harry often had surprises for them by managing to find parts or components that were thought to be totally unavailable.

It is understood that the business will continue with Linton Hayres. Linton married Harry’s daughter Noeleen in 1971 and later joined Harry in running the operation.

Harry Wallace will be missed. As a result of his firm being in existence many an aircraft has been put back into operation and the warbird and antique movement has gained valuable aircraft that may have been lost forever.

Book Series: Us Civil Aircraft

For those that have an interest in older aircraft, the three volume series, British Civil Aircraft, by A J Jackson and published by Putnam has always been the bible on English registered aircraft. The good thing is that the series has always been available even if they are now a bit dated.

On the American scene, the firm of Aero Publishers Inc.

published a nine volume series on American aircraft, entitled US Civil Aircraft, starting in 1966 and finishing in 1981. The of their Approved Type Certificate number or ATC as it is author was Joseph P Juptner. The aircraft were listed in order known. Unfortunately the series has been out of print for some years and copies have been next to impossible to obtain even on the second hand market. Even if a copy were to be found one could expect to pay $US100 each. Due to the increasing interest in older aircraft the TAB Aero division of publisher McGraw Hill has recently started to reprint the series and so far the first four volumes have been released. It is understood that these are direct reprints and do not have any alterations to them. The only difference is the cover and dust jacket. The US price is $29. 95 each and while copies have not yet been sighted on sale in Australia it hopefully will only be a matter of time before they start to turn up here. The Juptner series of US Civil Aircraft makes for fascinating reading and are considered to be the ultimate guide for American aircraft restorers. The books contain more technical data than the British Civil Aircraft series and for anyones interested in older American aircraft they will be of enormous interest.

It was of note that a now much older Joseph P Juptner was on hand to rerelease the series at a book launch in the USA earlier this year.

US Civil Aircraft Series: a worthwhile addition to the library of those interested in older American aircraft, and some foreign aircraft, that received type approval.

Gulfhawk Bearcat Written Off

There are Mustangs, Spitfires and Sea Furys but one aircraft that has attracted a lot of attention in the last twelve months is the Grumman F8F Bearcat owned by Elmer Ward of Santa Anna, California.

The Bearcat was painted up in the orange colour scheme of ‘Gulfhawk 4th’ the mount of famous Gulf Oil company pilot, Major Al Williams. The Bearcat was the fourth aircraft called Gulfhawk flown by Williams as a promotions machine for the oil company. Elmer Ward acquired the remains of a Bearcat in 1982 and over the next ten years had it progressively rebuilt at Chino, California, to better than new condition. With its distinctive orange colour scheme the new ‘Gulfhawk 4th’ took to the air on July 27 1992 and a few days later was displayed at Oshkosh ’92.

One year later the Grumman is no more.

On Sunday August 1 the Bearcat, carrying registration NL3025 on the rudder was taking off at Oshkosh to be part of a warbird flypast when the engine apparently lost power. With the undercart still extended the Bearcat came down in a field a kilometre south of runway 18. The aircraft impacted heavily and both gear legs were torn off as were the outer wing panels. The back of the ‘Cat was broken just behind the cockpit and the prop finished up looking like a pretzel. Fortunately the machine did not turn over and there was no fire. The owner/pilot, Elmer Ward, 72, suffered concussion and a cut hand and was swiftly taken to hospital. Mr Ward had been wearing a military type hard helmet. It is reported that the G meter recorded 9 Gs when observed after the accident. One observer, who had worked on the aircraft, commented that it was rebuildable but would require a lot of work. Time will tell. The cause of the loss of power is as yet unknown.

New Hangar for Classic Aviation

The well known warbird rebuilding firm of Classic Aviation are soon to move into new premises at Bankstown. The firm has been engaged in the rebuilding of warbirds for many years and new work has gradually meant that larger premises were required. The new building at Bankstown airport will be able accommodate several new projects undercover and no doubt encourage more warbird owners to engage their services.

Queensland Air Museum Hunter Movie Star

Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, Australia will not see the results of the use of the Queensland Air Museum’s Hawker Hunter F. Mk4in arecentventure into the world of advertising.

The Hunter was recently leased out by the QAM for use in a TV advert. The movie makers descended onto Caloundra and after towing the aircraft onto the aerodrome proper it was adorned with dummy missiles of Harpoon/Exocet proportions. The QAM would like the world to know that the star of the advert was the Hunter and that a support role was provided by actor Robert Grubb of “Flying Doctors” fame. The film clip, advertising Disprin, will only be seen in New Zealand. It is reported that the Hunter, complete with missiles, looked quite outstanding in amongst the Cessnas and Pipers at the aerodrome.

At the end of the day you could get quite a headache trying to relate the use of the missile clad Hunter in an NZ TV advert for Disprin that was filmed in Queensland!

Ct-4 Owners

With the recent auction sale of the CT-4 Airtrainers to private buyers it was only a matter of time before the aircraft started to turn up on the civil aircraft register.

To date 14 Airtrainers are noted to have turned up on the register and these are now presented below. There are more Airtrainers in the hands of private owners and these can be expected to also be registered in the near future. For additional information refer our regular register review in this and future issues.

A19-029 VH-NCT ACT Aerial Services, Kippax, ACT. A19-031 VH-CIB Cleary Bros Kiama, NSW. A19-038 VH-DPV D Pitkin, Port Macquarie, NSW. A19-041 VH-ANH D Gard, Lesmurdie, WA A19-042 VH-JDN A Norman, Toobeah, Qld.

A19-046 VH-MCT ACT Aerial Services, Kippax, ACT. A10-048 VH AQP A Johnson, Townsville, Qld. A19-049 VH-PTM R McCrystal, Mentone, Vic. A19-052 VH-XAF C Bolton, Wee Waa, NSW. A19-056 VH-ANI A Poon, Glenorchy, Tas.

A19-068 VH-ZCT ACT Aerial Services, Kippax, ACT. A19-059 VH-AGH P Cary, Forster, NSW.

A19-072 VH-TRF D Freeman, Helena Valley, WA. A19-073 VH-YVV Blemmings Wholesale Buyers, Yaggagon.

Canberra Export

Recently exported from West Australia was a Canberra, understood to be A84-207, of the Western Australian Museum of Aviation (WAMA).

The GAF built Canberra departed Perth on Friday March 26 on board the MV Envoyager bound for New Zealand. Also on board were some ex Westrail suburban railcars. The WAMA has recently run adverts for surplus sale of several aircraft in the collection with the view to concentrate on restoration of their prototype De Havilland Heron, VH-CJS.

From the New Zealand end there have been several recent The New Zealanders already have one ex RAAF Canberra in reports that the Kiwis wanted to obtain a Canberra but whether it is for static display or to fly is something else again the form of A84-240 which is now on display at the RNZAF in April 1984. Another ex RAAF Canberra is still flying in the Museum at Wigram. The aircraft was presented to the Kiwis USA.

Profile: Naa Snj-5B, Vh-Ovo

American Aviation SNJ-5B was to spend 16 years in the Built March 4 1943 as Navy serial number 43647 this North service of the US Navy.

Stations at Corpus Christi, Pensacola, Patuxent River, Alameda During its service life the aircraft was flown from Naval Air and Barin before being put out to pasture in 1959. The Navy SNJs (Texans in USAAF parlance) remained in service in large numbers well into the fifties as primary, basic and instrument trainers.

During the period 1965 to 1988 the aircraft was owned by Jim Mott of California who raced it at the Reno air races as N3274G and called ‘Miss Cheese’. Jim later replaced the SNJ-5B with an R3350 powered Sea Fury! In 1989 the machine came to Australia and was purchased by Mike Falls Sr of Shortstop Jet Charter. Based at Essendon airport, Shortstop’s main business is executive charter work but lately the firm has also been heavily involved in the operation of DC-3, VH-OVM, “Melbourne’s Gooney Bird”, on dinner and nostalgia flights. VH-OVO is also based at Essendon.

Powered by a 600hp P&W R1340-AN-1 radial engine the aircraft is reported to fly as well as it looks (see photo). The aircraft is usually flown by Mike Falls (Sr and Jr) as well as Hugh Waltho and Tim Hosking. Following import from the USA the machine was reassembled by Aerotecat Toowoomba, Qld. Here it was repainted in an authentic 1951 US Marine Corp colour scheme. The aircraft now has some 6700 hours but certainly does not show its age.

The machine is operated with the RAAF Heritage Flight out of Point Cook and is used in its time honoured role as an advanced trainer-checking out modern pilots in the philosophy and detail of old aircraft. The aircraft is also to be seen at most local airshows. Mike advises that his SNJ will be an entrant in the Launceston Air Races in 1994, a role that the craft has done well at in the past. Not surprisingly Mike is off to the Reno races this year to gain some experience in air race technique.

In Brief

Who said that there was not a use for old aircraft components? At Kissimmee, in Florida, Tom Reilly’s Flying Tigers Warbird Air Museum and restoration workshop has recently been working on a DH-100 Vampire.

The Vampire, NX100VJ, is an ex Swiss Air Force aircraft and the owner wanted it to have the rounded off nose, as seen on the Australian Vampires, and not the more pointed nose that it had when in Swiss service. Although the sheet metal work for the nose cone was basically straight forward the Reilly engineers are very happy to point out the nose gear door that they managed to obtain from Australia it had previously done service on the front end of an RAAF Vampire. Yes, it is good to see that the Warbird movement is at the forefront of recycling.

• Noted in a recent copy of the American magazine World War One Aero was an advert by the Museum of Victoria wanting to swap a Gnome rotary aircraft engine for a Liberty V12 engine.

• Register updates: AT-28D Trojan was registered as VH-DUK on August 5 to A Schmidt, of Casuarina, NT. Yak-52 VH-YAK was registered on August 2 to Ivor Paech of Christies Beach, SA and Yak-50 VH-YAX was registered on July 26 to Geoff Davis of Rowland Flat, SA. VH-EDA became the new registration for Winjeel VH-AGP on July 27 to owner J Courtney of Rosanna, Vic.

• Did you ever hear about the F-4 Phantom that cost $2? In the USAF Museum at Dayton, Ohio, there is a small model of a Phantom on a stand complete with the inscription “Presented to the USAF Museum by the RAAF on the occasion of the transfer of an F-4E to the RAAF Museum from the USAF Museum on March 22 1989”. Below the inscription two one dollar coins are fixed to the wooden stand. MDC Phantom F-4E s/n 67-0237 is now on display at the RAAF Museum at Point Cook, Vic. The aircraft has been repainted in the marks and colour scheme of RAAF Phantom 69-7234.

For those who have ever wanted to get a complex curve in a sheet of Aluminium, there are three basic methods.

The first is to have it stamped out; great for production runs but no good for one offs. The second is to use the time-honoured sand bag and mallet method (You want a cowl for what, Sir?). The third is to use what is known in America as an English wheel. The metal forming wheel is currently the latest thing on the American aviation workshop tool scene. One was demonstrated at Oshkosh. By manually running a sheet of aluminium between two wheels in this device you can get nice smooth complex curves. The wheel does however require some expertise to get the required finished product.

During the recent Oshkosh and USA tour by the Australian Aviation/Torii Tours group a visit was made to a warbird rebuild workshop where the wheel was seen in action. Unfortunately the wheel had only arrived three days before and as a result some time was spent turning aluminium sheet, worth over $US200 into scrap metal, without achieving the desired curve.

Mystery Aircraft: The Answer

This months mystery warbird is one of two of the type on the US civil register, and possibly the only one left flying. The aircraft is a Stinson L-1 Vigilant of WWII era.

It was the American answer to the German Fieseler Fi 156 Storch. The Vigilant was built to meet a US Army Air Corp requirement for a STOL monoplane as a liaison and observation aircraft with 324 examples built. Initially the type was designated the O-49 but in 1942 this was changed to the L-1. The machine was powered by a Lycoming. R-680 radial engine of 295hp and had full span leading edge slats. The wing span is 15m (51ft). Cruise is 78kt (145km/h) and it can land at just 24kt (45km/h).

The aircraft shown was built in 1941 as s/n 41-18915. Put on the civil register in 1953, the L-1, now N704E, was acquired by Dave Smith of Lometa, Texas in 1985. Mr Smith has spent the last few years restoring the aircraft back to the way it looked during its service life. This year the L-1 was a static display feature in the warbird park at Oshkosh.