Amuzing Tales from Australian Aviation Jan/Feb 2004

Couldn’t resist posting these! The first two were submitted by T.Hamilton and the last had no name attached!

During the Ruby World Cup a number of Army Blackhawks were operating out of RAAF Richmond. A lot of their flying was done at night with NVG’s. Their only point of reference was the rear helicopter which activated its red rotating beacon. One night as five of the choppers flew low and slow over our house my wife noticed the red beacon and called out, “Hey Ruldoph, shouldn’t you be up front?”

During a visit to RNZAF Wigram, one ex-member was telling me when the first of the ‘new’ second hand 757’s arrived in New Zealand, it taxied up to the awaiting VIP’s and after a delay the embarresed crew had to shimmy down a rope from the cabin as someone had over looked the fact that the aircraft needed steps. (It’s predecessor, the 727, had built in Airstairs).

I spent 10 years in Papua New Guinea in the 1970’s. At one stage I was in Mendi in the Southern Highlands and used to go to Port Moresby at regular intervals. The New Guinea Highlands being what they are and there being no roads from one side of the island to another, air travel was a must and Talair was the carrier on this route. Servearl instances among many stand out.

One time I was going down to Moresby and directly to the South and South East was an enormous black wall that stretched as far as the eye could see upways and lengthways. As we were in a Barron the ceiling was about 12,000feet and we didn’t know if we could get anywhere.

So the pilot boardcast, “Delta Lima Charlie (or what ever the callsign was) enroute to Port Moresby from Mendi. We have this huge black cloud in front of us can anyone let me know what are the dimentions of it?

From the ether came a disembodied voice, “Delta Lima Charlie, this is Viper 3348 on Operation Sky Piksa we are skimming the tops at FL600”.
Us “Delta Lima Charlie Ummm Operation Sky Piksa Viper 3348?”
Voice “Viper 3348 RAAF Canbera photographic reconnaissence, still on top of it at FL600”
Us “Delta Lima Charlie, Viper 3348, thank you. Madang, I am returning to Mendi!”