|
Post by Antonio on Aug 11, 2022 12:12:22 GMT 12
Oh that is soooooooooo true
|
|
|
Post by kevsmith on Aug 11, 2022 22:53:44 GMT 12
Here, Here, Dave!!!!!!!!!!!
|
|
|
Post by tbf2504 on Aug 12, 2022 9:09:38 GMT 12
The Press in those days had a keen aviation reporter, who managed to get a good coverage of things aeronautical in most editions
|
|
|
Post by denysjones on Aug 12, 2022 15:51:45 GMT 12
Sounds like you're referring to Les Bloxham who did tourist type stuff as well as aviation (logical link there) and he springs quickly to mind but could also be Hans Petrovic as his name is on some clippings I have.
|
|
|
Post by tbf2504 on Aug 13, 2022 9:55:04 GMT 12
Hi Dennis, neither of those my poor old memory can only recall his first name "Dave"
|
|
|
Post by davidd on Aug 13, 2022 13:43:51 GMT 12
Dave Wilson? Well known reporter, with a particular fondness for aircraft, and from those times too, so far as I know.
|
|
|
Post by tbf2504 on Aug 13, 2022 15:19:50 GMT 12
Hi David, spot on thats the man, had a keen interest in aviation and was always willing to cover what was happening at the air force historical centre
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 13, 2022 16:23:20 GMT 12
David Wilson still has a fondness for aeroplanes. We are friends on Facebook, and I suspect he may also be a member here too.
We need more mainstream media reporters like him, keeping aviation stories in the public eye. These days it usually only gets covered if there is a tragedy or someone does not want the government to spend money on the sector.
|
|
dsw
Leading Aircraftman
Posts: 1
|
Post by dsw on Aug 13, 2022 19:11:24 GMT 12
Hi folks.... I can confirm I was the Press aviation reporter from 1987 till 2000 with a strong interest in aviation and especially the activities around Wigram air base. Les Bloxham, referred to in an earlier post, was the Press' travel editor and Hans Petrovic was the paper's movie reviewer.
I agree we need more mainstream reporters with an interest and knowledge of aviation but sadly today's crop of journalists are appallingly ignorant of aviation history and show no interest in the subject. I was fortunate to live close to Ferrymead and work for a paper with a strong interest in NZ's military and aviation history, so Ferrymead, Wigram and the Fighter Pilots Museum at Wanaka plus Tim Wallis' collection and the Warbirds Over Wanaka shows were regularly featured.
|
|
|
Post by denysjones on Aug 13, 2022 21:58:02 GMT 12
First mission of the day was operation 2 for our lifting gantry to do an enhancement swap on BRF. The NAC retirees working on her back in the 1990s managed to gather up four sets of sufficient Dart cases to enable them to cobble up units that could be hung in the aircraft and support props. However such was the engineering that the props could never be turned. A few years ago we began making up a couple of enhanced items, one being Tim's project, but stalled as we were missing one case spacer for the second. Then for all the usual other priorities the job has sat on the sideline. This morning we did the swap on the starboard inner. Job setup, prop drop, casing out, new unit in, prop back on, site tidy up in less than two hours ...thanks to the reprobates on the job. A great enhancement this morning! Then a teardown of the removed unit provided the long missing part for new unit 2. A second compromise from the 1990s was the nose intake cowl rings. The ones fitted to BRF were F27 ones and the latchings are different in their spacing but we'd got some Viscount ones, one being on this morning's unit. So this week's homework job is the ring to go on new unit 2 and we'll then repeat the swap out on starboard outer. More time will now elapse :-)
|
|
|
Post by davidd on Aug 14, 2022 11:00:52 GMT 12
You and your reprobates are doing sterling work there Denys. And that is the sort of work that entails an awful lot of effort for a result that the vast majority of visitors will never notice or appreciate. So truly achievements above and beyond.
|
|
|
Post by ZacYates on Aug 14, 2022 11:57:44 GMT 12
Lovely to see!
|
|
|
Post by denysjones on Aug 20, 2022 21:02:13 GMT 12
Last week's salvaged part was attended to, as in the usual clean, prime and paint, and so I handed it over to Dean and Barrie today (Devil makes work for idle hands stuff) and they dealt to the front end assembly of our new unit 2 for the starboard of BRF which now stands ready steady go. That small ring you can make out second down from the top of photo is the beast but it is the rear support for the prop shaft and so is buried inside the third stage down. This week's homework for me on a nose cowl for said unit has taken us not only into the realms of aviation heritage but into the field of music as well. The chosen piece had a very degraded, scuffed and flaky, coat of a creamy colour and so out came the paint stripper. Once removed an underlying two tone scheme came to light, a silver rear and gold front. There was a part tag from "I.T.S. Aviation Inc." still attached and thus even the name suggested North America. I reached out, as the modern vernacular goes, to Brian Burrage of VickersViscount.Net and he reverted that Ray Charles (youngies reading this feel free to Google him) had used a Viscount painted extensively in a gold shade as his tour coach, so to speak. Heaven knows how that cowl made it's way to these shores. This also brought to light that this cowl is a Vickers one fitted with Dunlop heating being the area painted gold whereas the cowl on the unit we installed last week was a non-standard one made by Montgomery Inc of USA. The latter has the heater elements imbedded in the fibreglass of the cowl while the former has them in a rubberised layer and the boundary between the two colours so formed by the lip of said layer. As NZ followed the UK certification rules it is unlikely that the US variant was ever used by NAC so it looks like another change out is looming to swap the nose cowl off our work last week for one of the correct type :-( Ah well there were three to choose from in store so that kept me busy for the afternoon. (Well actually not all afternoon as some stuff on 2035 took place but that will come into play shortly.) A minor point is that these units of ours are composite builds of assorted bits but amongst them are brand new Dart 510 makers plates gifted us some years back from the Dart facility here in CHC.....should we raise our own serial numbers and stamp the same with them? :-)
|
|
|
Post by davidd on Aug 21, 2022 11:06:11 GMT 12
Ethics? Authenticity? Oh God! Beautiful looking plate though, hard to resist. Look at the shine!
|
|
|
Post by denysjones on Sept 3, 2022 21:38:52 GMT 12
Another day at the coal face. First up Dean, Barrie and I did (hopefully) the last swap of Darts and cowls. The starboard inner now has the US lip cowl replaced with a genuine Viscount UK one, Dean having a chance to skive off and take the shot while his supporters dealt to the fine details :-) So now the starboard side features matching props and cowls and more importantly the cowls can be latched shut unlike the outers having to be strapped shut with a ratchet strap. Then as I was packing up for the day the mists started to fill the hangar and the laser lights warmed up for BRF to get ready to receive the nights visitors as part of the Illuminate @ Ferrymead night event which is in its third, and final, weekend. Reports say in the dark of night its a very spectacular sight. '
|
|
|
Post by ZacYates on Sept 4, 2022 9:49:25 GMT 12
Bravo team!
|
|
|
Post by denysjones on Sept 10, 2022 22:07:44 GMT 12
Time to report on a couple of other projects, other than things Hudson and Viscount, on the go.
The story of Harvard 1058 is that some years back Andy Day commenced work on her, partly as a sentimental matter as his father had her recorded in his log book from his Air Force days.
Andy removed all the fittings etc from the fuselage tube frame and separated it from the airframe so it could go to local firm of Hendriks Sons and Daughter who kindly sand blasted it and then epoxy coated it for its longevity. After its return and reinstatement Andy began reinstalling the fittings but family and business commitments sadly resulted in his leaving us and the project being halted.
Recently a new team has taken up the task with Gerry and Barrie joining us and so now Team 1058 are back into the job.
Also in the rotor section Rob has been busy breaking down a Hughes 500 body to extract ribs and stringers from the lower areas to be used to rebuild the same damaged areas of the body of the same type project. Now denuded of skin it has the elements he's after exposed.
Meanwhile just another day with tube stock and benders saw the last of the cross-centre-section hydraulic lines to the undercarriage units made up and the two (port and starboard) lines from the engine cases to the respective oil pressure gauges likewise prepared.
ttfn
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 11, 2022 23:41:55 GMT 12
Does the collection still have the Miles Whitney Strait, Denys? I don't recall ever seeing or hearing about that before. And did the Dominie eventuate in the end? Which Vampire was that too?
Aircraft for Ferrymead
The Ferrymead Aviation Society hopes to have the Dakota aircraft given by the United States Navy to the Ferrymead Trust five years ago moved to the site in about two months. One of the problems in the past, said the society’s secretary (Mr D. Jones), had been that there was nowhere to store the aircraft securely. Since then, the society’s members had put up a security fence round its area at Ferrymead, while an old hangar purchased from Wigram was now being put up on the site.
Mr Jones said although nothing had been taken to Ferrymead, the society had a variety of aircraft, and items of aviation interest, scattered about Christchurch and the South Island. “The society has a Miles Whitney Straight aircraft of 1940 vintage, which apart from a coat of paint is in very good order,” Mr Jones! said. “It is housed at Yaldhurst at present.
“There is also a Mosquito trainer. We have virtually the whole aircraft in bits and pieces. We bought the fuselage from a farmer at Oamaru, and were given other parts for it by another farmer at Pigeon Bay. We now need two Merlin engines. We have been unlucky in New Zealand, and have been checking the possibilities of finding them in Australia.”
Mr Jones said that Mount Cook Airlines had promised a Dominie aircraft, while two weeks ago a person had arrived at the Ferrymead site in a Bentley car and inquired if the society was interested in obtaining a Vampire.
“We told him that we were—and he promised to see what could be done,” Mr Jones said. “Apparently there is one at Cave.”
"There is also a Hudson bomber, used by Coastal Command, in Blenheim which we have been told we can have provided we pay for its transportation to Christchurch, as well as the $31 it cost the farmer to get it back to his property after the local aviation society he gave it to went broke.”
Mr Jones said that the transportation of aircraft to Christchurch from various parts of the country incurred the biggest financial outlay.
As most of the society’s 23 members were, or had been Air Force tradesmen the restoration and maintenance of the various machines was virtually a labour of love. The Ferrymead Trust had made $200 available to the society initially, but what it really needed was about $2500 to put up a proper workshop on the site.
The society had a growing collection of items of aviation interest made available by the Royal New Zealand Air Force base at Wigram. These would ultimately be displayed in the hangar which was being constructed by members of the Ferrymead Museum of Road Transport.
“Their society will use two-thirds of the hangar for display purposes while we will use the remaining third,” Mr Jones said. “Like everyone else at Ferrymead, we are preparing for the Commonwealth Games period. February, 1974, is the target set by which to get some sort of display mounted.”
PRESS, 28 JULY 1973
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 12, 2022 0:03:09 GMT 12
Great photo here from The PRESS, 28 SEPTEMBER 1973
|
|
|
Post by denysjones on Sept 12, 2022 9:12:34 GMT 12
Dave, the Vampire in question is the one we now have which came from the disposal auction of Gerald Rhodes. The visitor in the car was Eric McNeill who was offering to buy it for us. His offer wasn't taken up in the end because the Ferrymead Trust arrange to buy an assorted collection of items one of which happened to be the Vampire. The Dominie was going to be AHS and the deal was that it would come once the ex-Wigram Sockburn era hangar was erected at Ferrymead. That project was being handled by the vintage car group Ferrymead Museum of Transport but the task proved beyond their abilities and enthusiasm and the building perished along with the acquisition of the aircraft, including the Whitney Straight. As you carry on with your reading of the Press you'll no doubt bump into the reports of the demise of said hangar. Re the photo above...The chap immediately right of the K-loader is Major McGaw the then CO of the USAF cargo detachment at Harewood. When the C130 arrived Warren Rintoul and some other RNZAF guys shot off across the hardstand to the US cargo yard and returned with the K-loader and 2 forklifts. The good major looked out his office window to see his equipment disappearing across the field so hopped in his pickup truck and came for a look. After a while, and by the time we had the aircraft nearly on the truck to take it away the major, walking around hands in pockets as you see here, declared "it's time for golf and you seem to know what you're doing" and departed. Correction: Name above Eric McNeill corrected from Eugene McNeill after more trawling of the grey cells.
|
|