Warbirds

Navyaviation Museum News

Last year the RAN’s Naval Aviation Museum at Nowra announced that it was to receive an ex US Navy F-14 Tomcat. As luck would have it the aircraft missed the boat, reportedly due to weather problems. It is now understood that applications have been put in for the F-14 to be shipped out on the first available vessel. The RAN Museum certainly does not let the grass grow under its feet and in early 1995 it became known that the Navy had managed to acquire an ex RN FAA Fairey Gannet T. 5 serial XG888. The Gannet and other aircraft went under the hammer at a Sotheby’s auction, on behalf of the UK Ministry of Defence, held at Billingshurst, West Sussex, on November 26. The RAN museum was also interested in obtaining a Royal Navy Hawker Sea Hawk but so far there has been no official word that it has been successful. While not operated by Australia the Sea Hawk was flown by RAN pilots on transfer to the RN and as such represents both a type flown by Australians and part of the development cycle of fixed wing naval jet aviation. The Australian Naval Aviation Museum at Nowra will hold five Museum Family Air Days in 1995. January 26 was of course Australia Day. April 15 is Easter. June 25 is a family air-day, while August 27 will be the HMAS Albatross Anniversary and October 29 is Spring Festival Wings & Wheels. Not to be missed, a lot of fun.

Raaf Museum – Wagga Display

Due to be officially opened in June 1995, the Wagga display will focus primarily on the history of the RAAF in the Riverina area and the contributions of RAAF personnel to the Riverina and its past and present way of life. The Wagga display will be affiliated with the RAAF Museum at Point Cook. Riverina and surrounding areas were Australia’s busiest with aircrew training taking place at Wagga as well as at Temora, Narrandera, Uranquinty, Cootamundra, Tocumwal, Deniliquin and Parkes. This training was part of the Empire Air Training Scheme. The museum will be sited just outside the main gate of RAAF Wagga, utilizing the old guard house, the first building erected on the base, for its indoor exhibits. An outdoor display will include the base’s existing aircraft but these have either been repainted or cleaned. These aircraft are a Canberra, Meteor, Winjeel, Sabre and Mirage. There will also be an outdoor picnic facility and visitors’ car parking is to be expanded. Indoor displays will include uniforms, medals, equipment, a Link trainer, photographs and a computer based presentation describing the RAAF’s current operational fleet. The new display will in time no doubt become a major tourist attraction for the Riverina. It is thought that visitors will hopefully be able to view exhibits by early 1995.

The Curtain Falls On Berwick Airfiew

Historic Casey airfield at Berwick, Victoria, has closed. While other airfields have come and gone Casey was different. The airfield was started back before WWII when Lord Casey used it as a home base to fly his private aircraft to Canberra. After the war it was used as a gliding field, situated as it is on the outer south eastern side of Melbourne. In more recent years the field was developed into a commercial airport. Some years ago it was bought by developers but kept going as an airport. Now it is to become the local campus of Monash University. Over the last year flying activities were wound down until only a few private owners had their aircraft parked there. Now they have gone. The historic Casey hangar has been preserved by the Moorabbin Air Museum and is to be displayed at its Moorabbin airport site. Well respected, the late Lord Casey held the position of Governor General in his twilight years and even during this time he still owned Cessna 180, VH-RGC. This aircraft still resides in Victoria. December 12 saw an auction of the final aircraft. Recently rebuilt Tiger Moth, VH-EIE, was passed in at the sale as it did not meet the reserve price. In the hangar nearby Leopard Moth, VH-UUL, stood awaiting an engine and then to be flown out, probably the last aircraft to fly from Casey field. An appropriate aircraft for the curtain fall.

Navy Iroquois Up A Pole

If you happen to be driving down the Princes Highway through Heathcote, on the southern outskirts of Sydney and you see a very low Iroquois helicopter, don’t report it to the CAA because it will only be the machine recently mounted on a pylon in the Heathcote Inn carpark. On Friday December 16, former Navy Bell UH-1C Iroquois, N9-3102, was fixed on the pole at the Heathcote Inn. The Navy provided the transport to get the machine to the site and the Army put the aircraft in place. Commodore Geoff Morton officiated at the presentation of the helicopter to the people of Heathcote and the Heathcote Inn. The Heathcote Inn mine host, Mr Ces Partland, has for some time been a sponsor of the Albatross Rugby Club and has assisted naval charity work for many years. If you go to photograph the helo be sure to have an ale at the Heathcote Inn. The machine, which carries the number 894 on the fuselage, was formally retired from Navy service in 1985. Need it be said that shortly after the aircraft was put on the pole it acquired the logo ‘Fly Navy’ under the fuselage. Altogether a nice exercise.

Warbird On Line

So you want to fly a warbird but are unable to find one to hire because regulations prevent warbird aircraft being flown for hire and reward? Enter VH-FVV. When the Singapore military decided to dispose of its AESL T6/24 Airtourers in 1988 a number of the members of the Airtourer Association got together and purchased six of the aircraft. These aircraft were powered by a 150hp (110kW) Lycoming engine and as a type certificated machine were soon on the Australian civil register. Type certification means that the aircraft can be used commercially. At Moorabbin airport, Civil Flying School had been seeking an aerobatic aircraft that preferably did not have a tailwheel and was a low wing machine. The T6 met the requirements and when CFS heard about VH-FVV being available it was snapped up. On receipt, the first thing that happened to the T6 was to run it through the paint shop for a new scheme. The end result is a livery that looks a lot like the red and white paint job on the RAAF’s PC-9 trainers. Just to be sure that everyone knows that the T6 came from the Singapore Air Force the logo of a Lions head in a circle has been applied to the wings and fuselage and all the military instruction decals on the fuselage and wings have been faithfully reapplied. It is rather ironic that when Civil Flying School commenced operations in the mid 1960s it was the agent and user of the then brand new Australian built Victa Airtourer. Now the wheel has turned full circle and an Airtourer is back at Civil but this time with the same 150hp (110kW) engine as that used in the Piper Warrior. Civil plans to convert the engine to a full inverted fuel system at the next major service. So now if you want to fly aerobatics in a real warbird or perhaps you want to have the type ‘T6’ in your log book you don’t have to be in the military. All you need is a civil licence and you too can be a warbird pilot.

Piper Aviation Museum for Lock Haven

In the true American tradition of preserving its heritage, a museum devoted to Piper aircraft was just a matter of time. At Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, the Clinton County Historical Society, which is not affiliated with Piper Aircraft Corporation, recently announced that it will purchase the three-story former Piper engineering building. (Piper is now based at Vero Beach, Florida.) Museum Chairman Calvin Arter has said that the museum will be a multi purpose working facility. Already a number of early Piper types have been donated and more are being sought. The museum will formalize the collection of Piper aviation memories as well as promote public understanding of general aviation. The museum is to be known as the William T Piper Aviation Museum. William Piper has been referred to as the Henry Ford of Aviation. The US Mail has even honoured William Piper with the issue of a special air mail stamp. In the past the Piper company has had a semi trailer museum display at Oshkosh, although this has not been seen in the last couple of years, no doubt due to the problems that Piper is now rising above. It is also of interest that there is an annual fly-in each August at Lock Haven. Entitled ‘Sentimental Journey’, the event has over the years gradually expanded to take in other Piper models. With the founding of the Piper Museum this annual event will take on a whole new significance.

F-111 And F/A-18 Imported

The arrival of the new Royal Australian Navy troop support vessel HMAS Kanimbla at Sydney in November created a flurry of interest from several quarters. The Naval Aviation museum was disappointed that the F-14 Tomcat that was to have been delivered on the ship did not arrive. Meanwhile the RAAF was most interested in other cargo that was on board. One item was an F-111, model unknown. The fighter bomber is understood to have been imported for spare parts. I understand that the engineless machine had its tail and wings removed for freighting. Also reported as being on board was an F/A-18 Hornet, again, imported for spare parts. Both aircraft most likely came from the Davis Monthan Air Base and storage facility at Tucson, Arizona, which is doing a lot of work lately with the cutback in the numbers of operational aircraft in the American armed forces since the Cold War ended.

In Brief

• The replica Vickers Vimy, ‘G-EAOU’ (NX71MY) was an interesting addition to Australian skies in November as it flew down the east coast and onto the Adelaide Grand Prix. On arrival at Adelaide the CAA advised that both it and a small number of Warbirds would not be able to fly over the race spectators as they were not certificated types. When in Melbourne Vimy pilot, Lang Kidby, said that the reason for the Sumatra forced landing was due to the failure of a 20 cent spring in an engine distributor. At last report the replica was stored at Luskintyre airfield, near Newcastle. The next move for the big biplane is reported to be back to the UK, as freight, and to then be prepared for a 1996 flight across the Atlantic to commemorate Alcock and Brown making the first nonstop flight across that ocean.

• VH-FTS the new flying Winjeel for the RAAF Museum has been sighted outside the Winrye hangar at Bankstown. Also noted at Winrye was the New Zealand MiG-15. Strikemaster NZ6372 was also noted in mid November outside the hangar of Goulding Airmotive at Bendigo. The aircraft was complete and with covers over it and looked ready to fly.

• The Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) Lockheed Super Constellation, registered VH-EAG on September 23 1994, ran into engine problems in November when metal was detected in the filters of one engine. Subsequent investigation revealed that an engine change was required and this was to take place in the new year. Until then the aircraft is firmly stuck in Arizona.

• The Queensland Air Museum received a finalist nomination in the Heritage Tourism section of the 1994 Queensland tourism awards. The section was won by the Queensland Railways’ “The Gulflander”. The QAM recently had won its third consecutive win (1992, 1993, 1994) of the Sunshine Awards held on the Sunshine Coast.

• The Moorabbin Air Museum took formal receipt of its CAC Boomerang, A46-25, at a ceremony on November 26th. Over 150 people attended the event, many of whom were involved with the construction and operation of the stopgap wartime fighter. The next task is to rebuild the aircraft to its former glory.

• A book entitled “Queensland Airfields WWII – 50 Years On,” has just been released. The book, the work of Roger Marks, has 276 A4 pages and a selection of 376 photos that cover the then and now history of the 60 aerodromes that were used by Allied forces in Queensland during WWII. The book is priced at $52 (inc. P&P) and is available from R&J Marks, 20 Koumala Street, Mansfield, 4122.

• A UK aviation magazine had an advert for the purchase of parts/paperwork/instruments etc of a particular low wing ex-RAF jet warbird. The address given was a post box in Melbourne. Anyone in the UK who sent correspondence to the Australian address would be interested to know that their letter was promptly turned around and forwarded back to the UK to be answered by the potential buyer! There are many ways to be anonymous. This is one of them.

• It is unfortunate to report that the Sunday November 6 Air Pageant scheduled to have been held by the RAAF Air Museum at Point Cook was cancelled due to extremely windy weather experienced that day.

• During November 15,000 people were evacuated from a part of the German city of Ludwigshafen in the biggest such postwar operation after a British 1.8 tonne WWII bomb was found near a housing estate. Although it is now 50 years since WWII up to 100 unexploded bombs are found each week in Germany, reminders of the Allied air offensive that continued night and day through 1944 and 1945. For the record, people are still being killed in France each year from munitions that are leftovers from the trench warfare days of World War 1. Such are the legacies of war.