Author: bauple58
‘never…except by aeroplane’
Like other eminent organisations, Qantas too has its own foundation narrative – concerning two recently demobbed Australian airmen (Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness) who, in an epic 2,180 km overland journey in a Model T Ford, successfully surveyed the continent’s northern aerial route from Longreach (Qld.) to the Katherine River (N.T. ) railhead in preparation […]
Unplanned
In early June 1944 the RAAF’s No.457 Squadron, one of three Spitfire units recalled from Britain for homeland defence, began exchanging its near-obsolete Mk.V aircraft with more effective Mk.VIIIs. As deliveries of the latter began arriving in the Northen Territory, squadron pilots would ferry equal numbers of the former south for overhaul and re-assignment – […]
Ipswich Railway Workshops
As a consequence of the 1939 British Air Mission to Australia, the state railways in Victorian, New South Wales, and South Australian each became involved in the production of military aircraft and aero engines. Following a visit to Queensland in March 1939 by the Mission’s Technical Member L C Ord, serious consideration was also given […]
Toy Story
Yesterday I visited – for the first time – both the historic Evans Head airfield in northern New South Wales, and the co-located museum run by the Evans Head Memorial Aerodrome and Aviation Association. Although filled with heavy – and light – metal of the kind you’ll see replicated in similar museums throughout the continent, […]
Gundaroo’s Ventura
I just remember the biting cold thinking, all the while, that perhaps we shouldn’t have been traipsing – in winter – through bush-land in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, especially while it was sleeting. Thoughts of all that wasted organisational effort might have dissuaded me from postponing, along with the knowledge that any […]
Down on the Downs, twice.
In early February 1942 an American single-seater aeroplane – low on fuel – force landed in a paddock on the Darling Downs west of Brisbane whereafter, the hapless pilot presented at a nearby homestead asking to use the telephone. Two days later, at about 8 p.m. on Tuesday, 10th February 1942 an American Sergeant of […]