C-133 Cargomasters

[denysjones]

Does anyone out there know how many occasions were we visited by C-133's?

I've always been impressed by them (visually and audibly) and I recall a couple of visitors to CHC (including watching one who impressively landed on the short runway) but given that there were only ever 50 of them built it would be interesting to know what % paid us a visit.

thanks

[skyman]

In one of my father's photo albums there is a b&w photograph of USAF C-133 serial 90533 at Wellington in December 1963. I also saw the aircraft when I passed through an hour or so later and from what I understand it had delivered a ship's propeller shaft. I don't know where it went from there.

Al 

[steveh]

I've been doing a little reading up on these, Roden has announced a fortcoming 1/144 scale kit of the C-133 & I'd quite like to model one that graced our shores. From what I've found so far, only one ever made a trip to the ice 57-1610 from memory & another 2 or 3 made supply runs into Harewood. My reading was mainly about Op deep freeze so I've no idea what visits there were to other airports around the country.
Steve.

[denysjones]

I've had a wee bit of time today and going through the AHSNZ journals of old have found that

57-523 arrived CIAL 15/10/60
57-527 arrived CIAL 16/10/60
54-135 arrived CIAL 27/10/68 (this one brought 3 helicopters to tranship to the ice via C-130's)

these came to hand easily as those years of the journals are indexed but we have to rely on the reporting in the first instance and then the indewers.

The 1968 one would be a candidate for my recollection of the cross-wind landing but I stand correction.

Of course the question has to be what about visits to other than CIAL?

[davidd]

Might by something extra in A A (Tony) Phillips' book "Gateway to the Ice", but I think that Denys's short list is probably complete. Seem to recall that one of the C-133s brought down a large "snow-milling" machine which was required at McMurdo for some upgrade of the base, and I have an idea that a prop shaft for an icebreaker may have been another of the "outsize cargo" items brought to Christchurch. All my reference books are packed away at the moment ready for an imminent house move.
David D

[tbf25o4]

I have a photograph of C133 0-40142 taken at CHCH in the mid 1960s, parked near the Deep Freeze hangar.

[denysjones]

I got around to looking at my copy of "Gateway to the Ice" today and it expands the list and also somewhat confuses things as well. In it there are not dates of the visits but rather references to the Deepfreeze season the visit was in support of. The seasons are regarded as runing from after the end of one year's season (they close late Feb or early March weather dependent) to the end month in the next year but are identified by the latter year. So 61 runs from April 1960 to March 1961.

Season 61 confirms the first two visitors in my earlier list but changes the a/c serials from starting with 57 to starting with 59.

Season 69 confirms 54-135's visit but she was also here in season 71 and on that occasion went down to the ice.

Other visitors were 59-533 (Season 64), 54-142 (Season 68),and finally 56-2004 and 57-1613 (Season 71).

So unless other C-133's came to NZ for other reasons we got to see 7 out of the 50 .

[baronbeeza]

[oj]

Amazing and frank film of a great era of radial engine operational challenges.

Just two years later in 1963 I joined the NZ Antarctic Society when at Ohakea and remained a member for about five years.
The Society's monthly magazine "Antarctic" always had a lot of detail and photos about these flights and I followed such things with great interest.
This continued with the introduction of the C130 and then C141 aircraft.

I used to buy every new book about the Antarctic and had some good stuff among them.
Sadly I had to sell them off about 40 years later during a period of financial hardship.

[isc]

The only thing they seemed to get wrong was Scott's expedition, they put the date at 1919, it was 1911/12. A good film, saw quite a bit of the C-124s at Harewood while on a block course at NAC engineering school, in those days you could wander over to the Deep Freeze Base, clamber around the aircraft, chat to the Americans, there didn't seem to be any restrictions to us, I only wish I had A camera at the time. isc

[avenger]

A C 133 at Christchurch, unable to date though. But see another poster has! Tks.