Tales

But the old dear followed directions too literally. She walked all the way to the front, opened the door to the cock- pit, and looked in at the crew at the controls. The two pilots swung their heads around in surprise as the old lady quickly slammed the door shut.

Confused, she returned to the galley and complained gently “There are two men in the toilet watching and they’re television!” (H Cohen, Wendywood)

Starry Eyed

Many years ago onboard a Constellation, in the days when navigators used to insert a sextant through the ceiling of the cockpit to take star positions for navigation, a standard trick was often played on new flight attendants.

The new recruit would be summoned to the cockpit while the navigator was taking star readings. Naturally she would enquire as to what the navigator was doing? Truthfully the crew explained that he was looking at the stars. She would naturally take the bait and ask if she could also have a look. Cleverly the crew would place their orders and agree for her to have a look on her return.

On her return the navigator would pretend to be looking at stars, and invite her to have a look. She would then complain that she could see nothing but pitch blackness. The navigator would explain that she is looking with the wrong eye. She would then change eyes and yet again see very little. The navigator would then help out by cleaning the lens and telling her to try again.

She would then clearly see the stars and eventually return to the cabin, and wonder why passengers would be giggling at her and not taking her seriously, until one of her fellow flight attendants took her to the nearest mirror to show her why. Horrified she would suddenly realise why she could not see anything at first when she looked through the lens. The navigator had coloured in the lens with pencil, and she had been had with two massive black eyes! (H Cohen, Wendywood)

A Lateral Thinker

Over the years the RAAF has trained a number of pilots from overseas locations under the foreign defence cooperation program. On occasions the actions of these students have created some of the more memorable occasions that romain from the dawn of 15Te TALES Definitely the lighter side of aviation! This particular story involves a bunch of particularly well liked students from Papua New Guinea. Not only were these four students popular but, as it turned out, lateral thinkers as well.

At the due time in the syllabus, it came time for their solo cross country navigation exercise. The navex was to be flown to the west of Point Cook with a final leg inbound from the west southwest. They were all to complete the sortie the same day in a stream navex at 10 to 15 minute intervals. Due to the possibility of inclement weather, these student navexs were conducted with instructor shepherds, with one weather observation aircraft ahead of the students and one at the rear to pick up any stragglers.

Not particularly brimming with self confidence in their nav skills, the stu- 20 cockpit dents set off into rather bleak, but safe solo weather conditions. At the last turning point of the three or four leg navex, the lead shepherd aircraft decided to remain at the turn point and follow the students home with the tail end shepherd. The instructors had heard the last student’s position re- Do you have a tale to tell? If so, then why don’t you share it with the world by sending it in to ‘Tales’. Australian Aviation, PO Box 3105. Weston Creek ACT 2611 or fax it on (06) 288 2021.

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but he was nowhere to be seen. His position reports had been on time and correct at the previous turn points. Where could he be? The shepherd aircraft spent some time looking for the student who was obviously not where he said he was. When asked if he was sure of his position and able to get home the student replied with an emphatic “Oh, Yes sir!” Having done the job of getting the students around the track safely, the instructors set off for home them- selves. Approaching Point Cook from the west, the instructors, expecting to be the last aircraft home for the day, were surprised to see a lone Winjeel orbiting in a wide, lazy orbit at about four or five thousand feet. Smelling the proverbial rat, the instructors asked the student for his position, to which the student dutifully replied. “Not long now sir, only eight minutes to go. ” “Are you near the You Yangs Bloggs?” “Yes sir, very close to the You Yangs” The enterprising student had spent the entire time orbiting behind the You Yangs transmitting position reports on time as flight planned. Having not flown much more than the departure, to then hide behind the hills until it was time to go home.

DUCK! Back in the early straight deck carrier days, we had a spate of incidents where Sea Furys were snapping their tail oleos off on deck landing.

I saw one of these incidents when standing on the “goofers” platform which was located at the aft end of the Island. The aircraft landed OK but the tail oleo snapped off and shot down the flight deck heading for the port side just near the barrier position amidships.

As we watched the oleo fly down the deck, we saw to our horror that it was heading straight for a young sailor who was standing in the aircraft handlers’ space with his head just above flight deck level. The whole. thing was happening in slow motion; just like an old movie where it’s a toss up whether the hero will get out of the way of the train in time.

In the event the young lad ducked his head as the oleo shot over the side, missing him by a hairsbreadth. The amusing part was to see him slowly rise up out of the sponson looking around like a cartoon character, you could almost hear the words “What’s up Doc?”

Not a Good Career Move

During one such ferry with strong headwinds and total overcast between Woomera and Forrest, a Macchi was crewed by an instructor from Central Flying School and a rather senior officer from Air Force office, who had been a fighter pilot of some repute during his earlier days.

After the allotted amount of time in the cruise, the instructor began to get somewhat anxious due to the fact that the Forrest NDB was still very weak on the ADF. Suspecting an increase in headwind as the problem the instructor decided to remain at height until passing the Forrest NDB from where they could make an NDB approach.

After some time and still no overhead indication on the Forrest NDB the Macchi was now very short of fuel. Deciding that all was lost and that it would be smart to save some fuel for landing the instructor decided to use some of the Macchi’s substantial glide range and risk an inflight relight. He then informed his rather surprised passenger of his intention and shut the engine down.

Not to be concerned with this rather rash move the senior officer in his most calm fighter pilot voice said quietly: “Squadron Leader, I hope for you this is a good career move” After gliding some 20,000 feet and 40nm (74km), the instructor relit the engine, commenced a climb on the remaining fuel and passed overhead the Forrest NDB from where he let down in a hurry and landed with the most minimal of fuel remaining. Fortunately the instructor survived to see another day.

PAIN IN THE ‘Rs’e From the Sydney Morning Herald’s Column 8 (or ‘Granny’s Column’, as we older folk remember it): Just back from a business trip to China is Bruce Martin, of Turramurra. On an internal flight, on China Eastern Airways, he found a chart in the inflight magazine of the characteristics of various airliners, showing their ‘Power Plant’, ‘Maximum Moving Capacity’ and Maximum Cruising Fright Level’- whoa, what was that last one? He was quite happy with the airline, but better spelling may calm the passengers! GUNNER’S MATE 25 Squadron had been practicing air to ground gunnery. After the Mustangs had been pushed into the hangar, the various trades began the routine checks of their particular equipment.

A radio technician pulled a battery cart to a Mustang and proceeded to plug it in. At the precise instant that the plug entered the socket on the aircraft, there was an extremely loud bang. Wondering what on earth he had done, the technician stepped back to consider his next move. He then became aware that there was considerable activity around another aircraft.

It transpired that, in this other aeroplane, an armorer was doing his checks. This involved operating the guns/camera selector switch then pressing the trigger and listening for each gun solenoid, normally quite clearly audible. Some of the solenoids were heard but the test was brought to a sudden halt by the aforementioned big bang! Although all the ammunition was supposed to be cleared from the aircraft before it was returned to the hangar, on this occasion one round was left in the breech.

Said round was recovered after it had passed through the hangar roof on the way out! (I Anderson, Albany) MISSED APPROACH We were flying with Qantas into Denpasar at the beginning of a four week trip overland through Bali, Java and Sumatra and onto Singapore.

As we were making our final run in for landing we could see a large gathering of people near the airport boundary fence. After clearing the normal formalities our guide ushered us onto our bus for the trip to our “digs” at Kuta and away we went.

A little down the road we passed this crowd that we had noticed on our flight in, “what’s the crowd” we asked. “Just a DC-9 which crashed on landing a couple of hours ago” he calmly explained, “plane broke in three pieces” he went on “but no one killed” he further assured us.

Needless to say we approached each with great apprehension ooour next four domestic sectors, but obviously had nothing to worry about and lived to tell the tale.

(K McGowab, Strathmore Hts)

UPS and Downs!

After completing my initial flying training on Tiger Moths at Benalla in 1943 I was transferred to Uranquinty in New South Wales for conversion to Wirraway advanced trainers.

Soon after arriving at Uranquinty, my instructor, Flt Sgt Williams, was teaching me landings at a satellite drome with repeated circuits and bumps along with several other pupils and their instructors engaged in the same exercise. Approaching lunch-time, and after a short break, it was decided by the instructors that they would return to base taking off and flying in formation to show us “sprogs” how it was done.

On getting into the plane and being informed of this, I became totally engrossed in the excitement of what was going to happen and completely over-looked fastening both my parachute harness and seat belt. However, on settling down and at the required cruising revs our plane kept dropping back and one of the other instructors indicated that our wheels had not fully retracted and, despite re-engaging the system, continued to do so.

In order to try and force them up my instructor pushed the control column sharply forward and as my canopy was open it was summer – and not being secured I was thrown upwards and can vividly recall grasping the side of the plane as I left the seat. On realising what was happening my instructor (who was in the rear seat) very quickly pulled the column back and whether that action or my grasping the side of the cockpit prevented me from being thrown out I will never know.

Being in the rear seat the instructor had a good view of what was happening and claimed he briefly saw daylight between me and the plane which probably was to both frighten me and teach me a lesson, as I think had I have gone up that far the slipstream would have most certainly swept me out.

The episode sure taught me a lesson and I rightly received a severe tongue lashing from Flt Sgt Williams and later was told I was the subject of much mirthful discussion that night in the sergeants mess.

CUniacke (Templestowe)

Not My Cat!

This story revolves around one of our domestics shipping a black pet cat to a Queensland city.

On arrival at the destination the cat was found to be dead. Out of concern for the owner’s feelings, the cargo. staff went to the local RSPCA to find a suitable substitute, taking great care to ensure the replacement closely resembled the deceased.

After anxious examination, they decided they had finally found one and duly delivered the animal to its owner. Imagine their surprise when the elderly lady owner, on seeing the cat said, “That’s not my cat!” The well meaning cargo officer insisted that it was, as all the documentation was in order but the lady was equally insistent it couldn’t be.

After some minutes of discussion and with increasing anxiety, the cargo. officer finally asked how she could be so sure it wasn’t her pet, to which she replied: “My cat died last week and I was flying it home for burial!” Well so much for good thoughts.