Tales

Many years ago I was involved with the gliding club at Exmouth. We operated an all metal two seat Blanik glider. A major airframe overhaul became due because of concerns over metal fatigue. Fortunately we had people in the club who were authorised to conduct the overhaul. Unfortunately our hangar was not really the best place to conduct matters. It had a dirt floor, no power, no security and dust was a problem. Exmouth was also the location of the North-West Cape submarine communications facility. Among our club members we also got a sprinkling of US Navy personnel attached to the communications base. One such officer with sufficient “pull” arranged for some club members involved with the glider overhaul to use the very substantial maintenance facilities located on the ground floor of the huge transmitter building at the base of the 1300ft “Tower Zero”. This, of course, is a high security area and admission of authorised personnel normally involved electronic camera surveillance of persons requesting entry. However the maintenance workshops also had very large side door access. It was here that the glider was brought. Club members involved in the overhaul also used the side entry. We then proceeded to dismantle the glider to the level needed to conduct the necessary inspections etc to comply with the requirements of the overhaul. Ilyushin IL-62. At about this stage in the proceedings, word was received that “High ranking brass” were coming to the base to inspect the installation. The glider was beyond being able to be removed at such short notice. It looked as though we were going to be “sprung” and that when upper levels of authority found out what we’d been up to that heads would roll. Sure enough, the senior officer (whatever he was) was conducted through the Transmitter building. And the glider was discovered. What, he wanted to know, was an aircraft doing here? “Well,” he was told, “with so much massive componentry suspended a thousand feet above the ground, over such a large area as the towers covered, an aircraft is the only practical way to enable efficient inspections. This was the aircraft used for that purpose.” Story swallowed, sighs of relief and end of the drama. The overhaul was completed and our plane flew again until it was totalled in a landing accident not long after. (Paul Siggins, Ardross)

Bombs Away

This happened during WW2 in the winter of ’43. I was stationed at Bairnsdale, Victoria with GRS on Ansons. We had a large number of planes working the coast but we only had two full sets of 100lb bombs. Consequently we had to transfer one load onto the next flight. Being an armourer I and many others were kept fully occupied. One wet afternoon a plane was pushed into the hangar for an unscheduled service whilst still fully armed, a sin at any unit. Being listed to disarm this plane I asked the hangar Sgt could we move the Anson over to the apron but we were too late as the riggers jacked her up straight and level. I carefully checked the bombs, all had the safety forks in the fuses, I then set all the switches to ‘safe’. Climbed into the cabin and went forward to the bomb aimers position, set that lot to ‘safe’, crawled forward to the copilot’s position to also set the switches at that position. On the way, my overalls caught on the jettison switch and all the bombs and sea markers hit the concrete floor. I poked my head out the side window but the hangar was empty. The hangar Sergeant was there and helped me out of the plane then told me what a bad boy I was, then he laughed and said “that was the quickest most of those blokes have moved in months”. No charges were laid but I was posted back to armament school at Hamilton to do a fitters armaments course. (Ken Phillips, Cohuna)

No Fooling

I well remember the occasion when the Chief Pilot was doing a route check with our number two pilot. They had just departed, climbed to about 1000 feet, when the aircraft stopped climbing. The pilot then performed all of his emergency drills, and not finding anything out of the ordinary, looked to the Chief Pilot, and said, “What have you done this time, you bastard.” The Chief Pilot sat there with a look of astonishment, when one of the passengers tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the left hand engine. With that, the Chief Pilot turned to his colleague and stated, “Mate, this time I haven’t done anything, it’s the real thing.” A quick change of direction, and everybody was safely on the ground. (Mark White, Garbutt)