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Post by Gavin Conroy on Nov 23, 2007 20:37:04 GMT 12
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Post by agalbraith on Nov 23, 2007 21:41:12 GMT 12
Great photos, thanks for posting them.
What a lovely aeroplane. I wonder what will ever happen to them? Wouldnt you just love to own one???
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Post by lumpy on Nov 23, 2007 22:05:43 GMT 12
There may not be an " open to the public " offical museum at WB , but there are several very old '" Instructional " air frames . Would be nice to think they will keep the Devons , Sioux , Strikemaster etc for a long time to come
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Post by vs on Nov 24, 2007 10:35:40 GMT 12
NZ must have one of the highest number of surviving Deavons in the world!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 24, 2007 10:55:39 GMT 12
Lovely photos. Thanks Gavin
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Post by flyjoe180 on Nov 24, 2007 14:36:59 GMT 12
Did they ground run them at all Gavin? They sound real nice when being run up. I recall a Strikemaster being ground run by the perimeter fence one year, the grass caught fire as it was very dry, and the firey's got to play with their water cannons.
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Post by beagle on Nov 24, 2007 16:57:16 GMT 12
their high light of the week. I remember being at WB when we had a barrack arsonist. when they had the bigger of the 2 or 3 fires, I remember talking to one of them as they used to drink in the Cpls Club and he was saying that he heard the arlarm go off from his house then looked outside and saw the flames in the sky and thought yippee this will be a good one. Washing fire engines and checking estinguishers around base would be routine for them I think.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 25, 2007 10:34:54 GMT 12
Hi Beags, I remember being told about the barrack fires when I joined but never knew it was an arsonist involved. Do you have more details? Was it two barrack H Blocks that were burnt? I can't recall. I know the 4TTS barracks had a few newly rebuilt wings.
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Post by Gavin Conroy on Nov 25, 2007 15:53:09 GMT 12
Did they ground run them at all Gavin? They sound real nice when being run up. I recall a Strikemaster being ground run by the perimeter fence one year, the grass caught fire as it was very dry, and the firey's got to play with their water cannons. I was in a rush so didnt see them ground run but I am sure they did have plans to.
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Post by p40fanatic on Nov 25, 2007 19:19:22 GMT 12
When was this, Gav? I've seen the Warbirds one parked there for a week now.
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Post by beagle on Nov 25, 2007 19:53:44 GMT 12
when I was there is the mid 80's, they were ground run quite a bit. Part of Aircraft technicians course I think. They did have an accident once where one jumped the chocks a bit and ran into the battery cart. Did awee bit of damage from memory but was probably rebuilt.
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Post by beagle on Nov 25, 2007 20:06:04 GMT 12
Hi Beags, I remember being told about the barrack fires when I joined but never knew it was an arsonist involved. Do you have more details? Was it two barrack H Blocks that were burnt? I can't recall. I know the 4TTS barracks had a few newly rebuilt wings. It was either 86 or 87 that the fires happened. I was living at the infamous Pub Pet Palace at the time with Jim 'Jimbo' Benbow and Dave 'Ocker" Oaks. an old farm house that was costing us $10 per week in rent for the whole place, not each. From memory the first fire was in a baggage room and did not cause too much damage, just made a few people jumpy. Then there was another one, cannot remember too many details, then there was the big one which more or less destroyed a whole wing of a block. People who were living in the block with the first fire were a bit scared and some moved uninsured expensive materials such a sstereos etc into other mates rooms as they thought it was their block that was unde rseige, but not long after the block where people had transferred their belongings to was set alight. i have heard of guys litterly throwing things like tv's and stuff out windows to save then then climbing out thenselves. Pretty sure not one got injured, but a few were left with nothing but the blankets they wrapped around themselves after escaping. One funny thing i remember was seeing a lot of them walking to the old $tts in just blankets and my Sgt at the time "scobes" yelling at these guys to sort themselves out and to put the blankets back. he even called them liars when they tried to explain what had happened. he was a real jerk. He was such a mean bastard he did not have aTV at home and the kids had to listen to the national program on the radio. When he got out after 20 years he did buy a tv with his super, but I heard it blew up after only a few months. I also remember seeing a big jar on the counter at the canteen for donations to the people who had no insurance. Somebody out there must have some photos of the fires.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 28, 2007 11:44:23 GMT 12
Yes, the reason we were told of the fires was due to the fact we had to get insurance. Kind of scary to think of those old wooden barracks ablaze.
As for Devon accidents, I recall one of the 2TTS Inst Airframe Devons was taxiied into by an Andover at Wigram when i was there. The Andover pilot didn't see the Devon doing an engine run in front of him as he was watching the groundie! And the groundie who was marshalling him thought there was enough room, but their wingtips crunched. Ouch!
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Post by phil82 on Nov 28, 2007 12:50:03 GMT 12
Yes, the reason we were told of the fires was due to the fact we had to get insurance. Kind of scary to think of those old wooden barracks ablaze. As for Devon accidents, I recall one of the 2TTS Inst Airframe Devons was taxiied into by an Andover at Wigram when i was there. The Andover pilot didn't see the Devon doing an engine run in front of him as he was watching the groundie! And the groundie who was marshalling him thought there was enough room, but their wingtips crunched. Ouch! It's called "Wing-tip gain", the process by which, in an aircraft turning on the ground, the outer wingtips extend past the point they were at when parked!
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Post by paddy on Nov 29, 2007 5:50:31 GMT 12
When I joined in 73 we were told that the H Blocks were fire traps and that we would have 30 seconds to get out due to 40 years of floor wax in the old floor boards. Apparently it hung in festoons between the boards underneath the barracks.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 30, 2007 14:39:01 GMT 12
Yes, we were told the same thing Paddy. Of course they lied to you as the barracks can't have been more than 35 at that time. :-) Nowadays they're soft as butter and have nice safe fireproof carpet...
Colin, 'wing tip gain'. I like that one.
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Post by skyhawkdon on Nov 30, 2007 18:34:40 GMT 12
I was staying in the barracks at Woodbourne when they were set on fire. I have some good photos of the damage which I'll dig out over the weekend and post here.
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Post by beagle on Nov 30, 2007 20:40:49 GMT 12
Cheers Don., that would be good. I was on basicengineering in 1980 when the airmens club went up.
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Post by lumpy on Nov 30, 2007 21:05:32 GMT 12
As a born and bred local , I recall the barracks fires creating quite a bit of news ( as arson does ) . If memory serves me right , wasnt the airmans club fire explainable ? ( I remember the photo of the melted clock in the local rag )
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Post by beagle on Nov 30, 2007 21:09:46 GMT 12
airmans club fire was an electrical fault in a switchboard by the toilets from memory.
also I think the person that they suspected that was lighting the fires left the air force not long after the big fire.
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