Changi 1961

Postfade, Supurb photos from your collection ! A couple from Seletar, used in an earlier thread on this forum.

Super Sioux: CKing’s father’s picture of the MEA DC4 does look remarkably like it has only the single engine on this side…a matter of camera position though I’m sure.

I brightened it a bit as I was dying to see some more detail …since I ‘knew’ that ground so well!
Two Meteors in the background. When I went there in mid 61 the Meteors were at Seletar and moved back to Changi in mid 63.

Likewise I wanted to know which Air India Super Connie!
It’s the first L-1049G Super Constellation “Rani of Nilgiris” VT-DHL.
Surely the most superb looking of all ‘the big props airliners’!

I await more from your father with great interest.
DT

Pen Pusher: Any photos from Seletar hidden away?
David Taylor.

Unfortunately not. I was only 6 when we arrived.:D

Brian

Twin engined DC 4 ?

Am I the only person to see the DC 4 as twin engined ? The photographer took the picture from a position which suggests only one engine per side !
I well remember TMA from 60-62 at Nicosia, Singapore seems a long way from their usual Middle East stomping ground. Maybe they were on a charter?
Excellent photos.

<>

Yes I want to see more pics from the ‘glorious 50’s,60’s and 70’s!

CKing, Thanks for linking to the other pics on the Warbirds site.
Loved the Navy Super Connie. ‘El Paisano’ Not the WV-2 version that I’ve already posted here, but a transport version. It has been adorned with a ‘kangaroo’ I note. I’ll do a thread on ‘kiwis and kangaroos’ sometime as they were a common sight…any plane that went near Oz got one! It also has ‘flags of many nations’ on it’s front u/c doors, rather like a ‘Caravan Club’ member that.
The Beverley (with the Hastings) is also interesting…from the time when 48 Sqn had 4 Bevs before they moved to become 34 Sqn at Seletar.
The others are of a Royal Malayan Twin Pioneer and a pair of Aussie C-130’s.
Your dad will find that the scanner picks up dust etc and if he doesn’t have it I’d be pleased to clean them up with Photoshop.
As I said before, I scan at 2400dpi…might be extravagant that but I want all the detail. I even leave ‘colour neg’ set to retain the most I can, even though my pics are ‘grayscale’. I’m sure someone can tell me if I’m wasting disc space…but that’s cheap now luckily.

I have also done some experimenting with ‘hand colouring’ on a couple of black and white pics. Sounds ‘false’ I know but if I can get a bit more experienced at it I think you’ll be hard pressed to tell that pics weren’t shot in colour. You do need a colour pic to hand to match too though.
Your dad though has got proper colour slides, which will need some tweaking…slides from that time all fade but it’ll all be worth the time spent.

Pen Pusher: Any photos from Seletar hidden away?

Keep them coming, we must preserve the past!

David Taylor.

Hi David
My father was an engine fitter in the RAF. He was out there from 1959 to 1962. I posted some RAF stuff over on WIX to spread them about a bit and to show our American chums something other than Mustangs!

Rgds Cking

My dad worked on engines, at Seletar, and we were there from 1959 – 1962 as well 😀

Brian

What fabulous stuff.
The Britannia just under the TMA C54 is either G-APNA or B. It still has the BritCommonwealth trim lines
Excellent -MORE PLEASE i’m greedy

Hi David
My father was an engine fitter in the RAF. He was out there from 1959 to 1962. I posted some RAF stuff over on WIX to spread them about a bit and to show our American chums something other than Mustangs!

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=27669

He says the scanner was ordered over the weekend and he will send a disc to me ASAP.

Rgds Cking

CKing….really great, I’m so pleased to see some others from that period. Your dad had a telephoto lens as well by the look of the Air India Super Connie. I have very similar shots but as I was ‘behind the wire’ at Paya Lebar the planes on the far side of the pan are rather distant.
Air India were the first to take the big jump and go from Super Connies to Boeing 707’s and their Connies stopped during the end of 1961.

The BUA Brit and the Malayan Airways Viscount are also at Paya Lebar.
I haven’t finished scanning my own Paya Lebar shots. I made regular trips there, getting off the bus on the Tampines Road and walking through a wonderful Malay ‘kampong’ to get to the airport. The frequency of flights at that time was very different to those today. There would be only a few ‘big props’ or jets in and most movements were local Dakotas or perhaps something like an Electra.
A common jet was the Convair 880M though. Qantas had the ‘short’ version of the 707.

Your father’s picture of the Trans Med DC4 is taxing out of the ‘Maintenance Flight’ area at Changi. Interesting that – visitors were always in the ‘Western Dispersal’ in my day.

Do tell me what you’re dad was doing in Singapore and how long he was there.
I posted some on another forum so I’ll put a couple of them here.

Qantas Super Connie has a smokey start.

A BUA Brit gets it’s wheels up early!
In fact I should explain that it was ‘airshow’ day at Paya Lebar and the BUA pilot must have been ‘playing to the crowd’.

General view looking from the Flying Club end. Malayan Airways had lots of Daks and there’s one of their Friendships in the maintenance hangar.

Good luck with the scanning…I can’t wait to see colour shots!

David Taylor.

Great stuff – I just love this period and can’t wait to see what you have in colour. Incidently, that ‘DC-6’ of TMA is in fact a DC-4.

Thanks for sharing!