From Joe's 'Archives' - 40 SQN Formation

[flyjoe180]

Discovered this article in my 'archive' and thought it might be of interest. From the NZ Herald 23JUN98, caption under it reads:

The five Hercules and two Boeing 727s of the Air Force's transport squadron 40 prepare to take off from the Whenuapai base for their first flight in formation for 18 years. Flight Lieutenant Glenn Gowthorpe said formation flying was a necessary part of military training, but it had always been difficult getting all seven planes together. The planes flew over Auckland for an hour yesterday.

[Bruce]

hey - theyre all going!!!

[Dave Homewood]

Fantastic cutting, cheers for that Joe

[flyjoe180]

There are lots more cuttings to come, but it takes me hours to scan anything. Lots of goodies that date back to the 60's even, thanks to Dad keeping a whole heap of stuff too...

[beagle]

I like the bit when they said it has been 18 years since all the aircraft were flying together in formation, technically I am not sure they are not permitted to fly in a true formation.
Also, the photo was 1998, using my abacus, they are saying that they last flew all together in 1980. Still with me.... The boeing 727 did not arrive into service until 1981, and I am sure they also did fly together , all 7 a/c in the early 80's

[flyjoe180]

I think they meant the Squadron, not necessarily those specific aircraft.

[Bruce]

I would take a guess that there may be some maintenance items deferred on Minimum Equipment List (or whatever Military equivilent) to get all of them airworthy together! I know we had enough of a job getting our 4 CityJet Bandits together for a photo shoot! (and that was ground only - two were actually in maintenance at the time!) I'm sure that there was an "all up" formation in the early 80s as well (I think the herks still had blue stripes).

[beagle]

First cameoflague was 1988

[mumbles]

bruce said:

I'm sure that there was an "all up" formation in the early 80s as well (I think the herks still had blue stripes).

Definitely. If not all up, at least three Herks. I have a couple of glossy prints of it somewhere that Dad sourced for me at the time.

[Dave Homewood]

On page 169 of 'Portrait of an Air Force' by Geoff Bentley and Muarice Conly there's a photos of a formation of all five Hercules in close Vic formation and one Boeing slotted in tight in the centre of the vic.

So at least six of the seven are pictured there in a photo predating that of above (the book came out April 1987) and possibly the second Boeing was the camera-ship - as it's air to air.

[beagle]

you would think though if there was a second boeing in the sky then they would be taking photos from something else and from memory it was an orion.
This could be the moment I was thinking of but only 6 of the 7 a/c up.
The other boeing was probably at Air NZ maintenance on c check

[Dave Homewood]

Or it could have simply been trimmed from the photo by the book's editor of course, so it fitted the gap on the page nicely. It may well have been in the sky too.

[mumbles]

Whilst looking through my poster collection for something else entirely I found these photos:


No idea when but given that the 727's arrived in '81 I'm thinking early 80's.

[Dave Homewood]

Bloody excellent!