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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 11, 2011 18:39:25 GMT 12
I voted other because there wasn't a I couldn't care less option.... At least with soccer we all learnt a new word.......vuvuzela...
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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 11, 2011 8:53:13 GMT 12
Would be pretty small club,it must be 30 years since the last Agricola topdressed,and probably 40years since they were around in any number.
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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 10, 2011 21:17:20 GMT 12
Dunnies didn't look to flash...
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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 9, 2011 6:02:15 GMT 12
Looks like Matamata,there was an aircraft engineer based there in the '50s-60's.
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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 7, 2011 21:18:32 GMT 12
One would think practically none,it would be nigh on impossible to see one closing in in the dark,plus to get a deflection shot at a plane underneath your feet you would need a lot of window to see it and you would have to be quite flexible to shoot vertically down with a machine gun. Schräge Musik the vertical firing guns werent used until later in the war,by that time they would mainly be coming across Lancasters.The Germans also had radar to track the bombers H2S and tail warning radar,and the German night fighters packed a huge punch with thier own forward firing guns. Mosquito night fighters were more of a worry to the Germans. I dont think they ever used it at night,but at the end of the war the Germans had operationally tested vertical firing rockets fired by photo electric cells when it passed under a day bomber.
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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 7, 2011 19:05:15 GMT 12
Good old Pa-25 Pawnee alright,you have to ask why?. Its actually in Argentina I think its the firm that has the rights to build Pawnees,conversion trainer for ag pilots.Doesnt look like a Pawnee though,they scrub up well with a few mods. someone else has control.....
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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 7, 2011 6:18:11 GMT 12
Factory aircraft.6 cyl Lycoming.
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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 6, 2011 20:14:34 GMT 12
A racy little sporty number.... [a href=" "] [/a]
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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 6, 2011 13:01:19 GMT 12
Interesting film of the Icelandic DC-3 topdressing.I think this one was converted in NZ way back.
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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 6, 2011 7:53:17 GMT 12
Don't forget they have been putting turbines in Fletchers since the mid '60s,thats 45 years ago. The tail detaching problem has been known for about that long too. The Opotiki and Fox crashes had nothing to do with structural issues. Dont think there will be any interest in cheaping the XL,theres supposed to be a big military contract about to be concluded,and I think the Cresco is out of reach for most operators,I heard a figure of $600k to overhaul a PT-6,that would drain the bank account. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Piper Cub make a comeback as a topdresser.
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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 1, 2011 20:51:40 GMT 12
Its only been thirty years,too soon to let it go yet.......lest we forget..
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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 1, 2011 15:28:57 GMT 12
No doubt the next ones will be in South African,Australian and English schemes incase we choke at the Rugby World Cup...
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Post by The Red Baron on Jan 31, 2011 21:24:26 GMT 12
That big hole thing always makes me wonder who would have bothered to dig a huge great hole to bury a plane when it was quicker to push them up in a heap and burn them,which appeared to be the favourerd method of disposal after WW2.
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Post by The Red Baron on Jan 31, 2011 21:19:15 GMT 12
Good to see a lot of Ag Tigers... AVI's a favourite,because it was used by James and Robertsons,which there must have been a good reason for James to have sold her to the opposition,and post topdressing she was towing gliders for the Piako Gliding club,where my youth was misspent,until she was replaced by a Pawnee.When she went to the gliding club she was accompanied by several of Robertsons other tiger hulks which formed the basis of the playgound until they were snavelled up by Tiger restorers.
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Post by The Red Baron on Jan 30, 2011 20:29:31 GMT 12
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Post by The Red Baron on Jan 30, 2011 14:36:45 GMT 12
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Post by The Red Baron on Jan 29, 2011 20:51:40 GMT 12
Be interesting to see if they get from Devonport to Waitangi without breaking down.
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Post by The Red Baron on Jan 29, 2011 7:06:57 GMT 12
I'm thinking this may be an incident when ASB was taken out of its hangar at night,started and let to run away across Rotorua aerodrome c1950.Looks like a bit too much damage to be the other party in the midair. Great photos too..
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Post by The Red Baron on Jan 27, 2011 22:12:59 GMT 12
1965 Ag Figures
76 Fletchers 74 Pipers 62 Cessnas 14 Beavers 8 Tiger Moths 3 Austers
plus there would have been DC-3's,Lodestars,Ceres,1 Airtruk
240 pilots 223 loader drivers 60 operators flew 130,625 hours,spread 923,206 tons of fertiliser and sprayed 2,261,162 gallons of spray.
The spraying amount is huge,it must only be a fraction of that these days. Also in the '60s if an aircraft was destroyed its registration often stayed on the registers for years later as it didn;t cost anything to leave it registered in those days,which distorts the actual active aircraft figures,as seen above there weren't 8 Tigers active in 1965.
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Post by The Red Baron on Jan 27, 2011 16:12:32 GMT 12
There definitely werent 99 Ag Tigers in 1964,2 active would probably be closer.They had pretty much been retired by the late '50s. Figures can get distorted for ag aircraft as they are sometimes taken from the number of aircraft that were 'licensed' to an operator in a specific area.Often they held a license for a type that wasnt in service,you had a license to topdress in an area with specific aircraft types. Around 300 Fletchers were built from '54 until the early '80s.
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