Warbirds

The elderly C-47 had previously suffered an engine failure on August 15 while en route from Bali to Jakarta. Then the left engine blew a cylinder and the aircraft flew for some 25 minutes on the right engine while diverting into Surabaya, East Java where it landed.

The engine was replaced in due course and the machine continued on its way to Guilin, China.

The flight over the Hump, the Himalayas, was successful and the aircraft was some 10 minutes from landing at Kunming Changshui Airport, in China’s Yunnan province, on October 15 when the right engine blew a cylinder resulting in another single engine landing.

Fortunately China is covering all expenses, and so important is this delivery flight to Guilin that a replacement engine will be purchased and air freighted from Los Angeles to Kunming to get the aircraft back in the air. It is expected that there will be much jubilation when the aircraft finally arrives at Guilin.

Buzz Buggy may be en route to a museum but it is having more than its far share of adventures along the way. The aircraft, ex A65-41 with the RAAF and VH-MMF in civil service in Australia, is destined to be part of the Flying Tigers Heritage Park and Museum at Guilin. More detail on the aircraft and its flight may be found in the October issue of Australian Aviation.

Well known DC-3/C-47 Australian pilot, Alan Searle, is one of the crew members of Buzz Buggy.

New rules for warbirds operations

In early November CASA announced that new rules had been instigated for the operation of ex-military and historic aircraft. The new regulations, called Part 132 of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations, will provide for all operators to be members of an approved oversight organisation.

CASA says the new rules are said to provide more clarity around operations of these unique types of the aircraft.

The new regulations will also embrace not only warbird operators but for the first time personal use, glider towing and air racing as authorised operations under the regulations.

The Australian Warbirds Association will play a key part as an administrator and oversight body conducting compliance on aircraft under this category.

Australian Warbirds Association CEO Mark Awad welcomed the signing of CASR Part 132 into law.

RAAF Townsville Airshow

The Defence Force Air Show held on October 15, part of the Townsville 150th birthday celebrations, saw a flying feast of ADF aircraft for the enthusiast and general public alike.

Included amongst the display of current military aircraft, in the air and on the ground, were a great selection of warbird aircraft. The Temora Aviation Museum Lockheed Hudson VH-KOY/A16-211 was present along with Caboolture-based Mustang VH-MFT ‘A68-769’. HARS provided Catalina VH-PBZ/A24-263, Neptune VH-IOY/A89-273 and Caribou VH-VBA/A4-210. Several of the warbirds had been based at Townsville during their ADF service.

Bob Hoover dead

Famed American pilot, Robert Anderson ‘Bob’ Hoover, died of medical issues on October 24, aged 94.

Hoover was one of the best known pilots of his generation. Serving in the USAAF in WW2 he was shot down and spent 16 months in a prison camp before escaping, stealing a Luftwaffe Fw 190 from an unguarded airfield, which he flew back to allied lines.

After the war Hoover served as a test pilot in the USAF (he flew a P-80 chase plane during Chuck Yeager’s first supersonic flight in the X-1), before leaving the Air Force in 1948. He worked for North American as a test and demonstration pilot, and then in the 1960s began displaying first the P-51 Mustang (most famously his second machine was named Ole Yeller) and then the Rockwell Aero Commander Shrike Commander at airshows across the US.

Many an Aero Commander was sold on the basis of Hoover demonstrating the machine on one engine and sometimes none at airshows and aviation gatherings.

Hoover was also famed for his starting call at the Reno Air Races: “Gentlemen, you have a race”.

Hoover visited Australia in 1992 soon after the FAA cancelled his pilot’s licence on the grounds of incompetence. He obtained an Australian licence and was a feature of the 1992 Tasmanian air races. His FAA licence was later reinstated.

Bob Hoover, often said to be a pilot’s pilot, retired from airshow flying in 1999 and stopped flying at age 85 in 2007. He was an icon who inspired many pilots, and became a living legend.

Register update

S. E. 5A replica VH-EWJ c/n SE5A-AF-5447 was added to the register on October 12 to Ross Bates of Bellmere, Queensland. Powered by a Ford V6 of 3. 6 litres the aircraft is reported to have been built in 1996 by Albert Braun of Missouri, USA.

VH-AOE, a BAC 167 Strikemaster Mk 80A with c/n EEP/JP/4091, was added to the register on October 27 to Miltek Aviation of Carrum Downs, Victoria.

This Strikemaster was built in 1976 as serial number 1125 for the Royal Saudi Air Force. After being demobbed it became ZU-PER, then with makers marks G-27-154 in the UK and then G-CFBK. It was taken off the UK register on June 24 2015.

QAM’s Mirage arrives

The Queensland Air Museum at Caloundra took delivery of Mirage IIIO A3-16 on October 24. The aircraft arrived dismantled on two low-loaders having been trucked from Adelaide where it had been with the Classic Jets Fighter Museum at Parafield. The CJFM has downscaled and the Mirage was one aircraft to be disposed of.

The QAM had been after a Mirage for some 29 years. Its new acquisition was built in 1965 and operated with the RAAF until it was written off in a landing accident at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport in 1974.

Eventually acquired by Bob Jarrett’s Classic Jets Fighter Museum, A3-16 was restored to static display condition at Parafield.

The QAM considers itself lucky to have obtained A3-16. After reassembly the fighter will go on display with the museum’s expanding collection.

Temora Warbirds Downunder Airshow on hold

The Temora Aviation Museum (TAM) has announced that the Warbirds Down Under Airshow, nominally scheduled for November 2017, has been put on hold.

In making the announcement new Temora Aviation Museum CEO Murray Kear, who took up his position on October 1, said that planning for the airshow takes 12 months and that given the recent change of management the November 2017 date was not ideal given the amount of organisation required.

A decision regarding the next Warbirds Down Under Airshow is expected to be made in the next few months.

Kenny Love, the previous Temora Aviation Museum CEO, stepped down in September to take up a position with David Lowy’s firm, LFG. He had been at the helm of the museum for 17 years.

Not so solo

The UK’s Light Aircraft Association (LAA) has rescinded the Bill Woodham Trophy award that it had previously awarded to long distance flyer, Tracey Curtis-Taylor, the so-called ‘Bird in a Biplane’.

Curtis-Taylor became known for her long distance flights in a Boeing Stearman biplane named Spirit of Artemis from Cape Town, South Africa, to Goodwood in the UK in 2015 and her 2015-16 flight from England to Australia.

It has subsequently been revealed that for the majority of both flights and in her subsequent flight in America that the owner of the aircraft, Ewald Gritsch, an experienced pilot, flight instructor and aircraft engineer, was aboard the aircraft, in the front cockpit. It has been said that Gritsch, aged 50, has some 14,000 hours logged. He has an Austrian ATPL and has both single and multi-engine ratings.

It was the 3G Classic Aviation Company, owned by Ewald Gritsch, that built up the aircraft for the trips. The machine is a 1943-built Boeing B75N1 Stearman, N56200. In photographs taken of the African and UK to Australia trips a second person is seen in the front seat of the machine.

Before departure from the UK the Boeing taxied into an R22 helicopter and in the USA the machine suffered an engine power loss at Winslow, AZ. In both cases there was an un-named passenger on board. In the Winslow event Gritsch was seen to scramble from the front cockpit. The machine is understood to have suffered an over-rich mixture due to the 7,000ft high density altitude by the mixture not being leaned back on takeoff.

Curtis-Taylor has countered the accusations by stating that there may have been someone else in the aircraft but that she was the sole person on the flight controls. In earlier communications and media reports it was stated that this was a solo flight but later it became apparent that the front cockpit was occupied by an experienced pilot for the majority of all three flights.

Following the Winslow accident the aircraft was shipped back to Hungary where it was rebuilt by 3G Classic Aviation.

The Light Aircraft Association was so upset by the revelations that it saw fit to take back the award at its October AGM.

In brief

-Sea Fury VH-SFW was restored to the British aircraft register under its earlier registration, G-CBEL, on June 1 to Anglia Aircraft Restorations of Sywell. The big fighter carries the markings of the Sea Fury F. X prototype, SR661, with an arrester hook but no folding wings. It also carries the letter P in a circle behind the roundel to indicate that it was a prototype.

Contact Dave by email: flyer02@optusnet. com. au