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Post by delticman on Feb 22, 2017 9:41:27 GMT 12
Hi to all. Found this oddity in the box of photos I'm presently going through. Looks to be a Dakota that it's attached to. Part of the drogue towing set-up? There appears to be a set of rollers beneath this Cheers, Pete M. Nice photos. It is the target tug NZ3546. As far as I'm aware it was converted to a tug in 1961 when it was returned from NZNAC as ZK-AWQ in April 1961 and remained with those external fittings until be coming ZK-AwQ again in 1978.
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Post by tbf25o4 on Feb 22, 2017 15:57:40 GMT 12
Indeed it is the rear end of NZ3546. each of the tubes contained a drogue, each attached to the drogue wire which played in and out between the rollers. the winch operator could release a drogue which then streamed behind the aircraft on a very long wire ("we are towing it not pushing it syndrome") up to 5000ft of wire. The drogues typically trailed some 80-100 ft below the aircraft when deployed. If a drogue was badly shot up, a traveller was released by the winch operator which moved down the tow wire and tripped a release. the next drogue would then be streamed down the wire. Incidentally, the winch used on NZ3546, came from Avenger NZ2504, and was reused by the Dak until they were retired from towing duties. It was one of the items we located at Ohakea and had moved to Wigram when we rebuilt NZ2504 into its target tug configuration. In addition to the drogue stowage, there was an astrodome mounted on the rear door which allowed the drogue operator to see the drogue's streaming. Was often used by SATS travellers to look at the NZ countryside as we slowly winged our way up and down the country at 140kts! NZ3546 was operated by NZNAC as ZK-AWQ from july 1952 until April 1961 when it returned to service. Reverted to ZK-AWQ when retired by the RNZAF
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Post by foxcover on Feb 23, 2017 2:46:50 GMT 12
I thought you knew everything?
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