OzMattMark,
Had a look at the eBay site for the compass and I’d strongly advise that you do let it go through to the keeper – primarily because of its incompleteness. There’s still a reasonable number of them lurking around Oz.
You’re always welcome up here mate. Unfortunately my workshop (as you know) isn’t anywhere near as good as I’d like it to be but the situation’s being addressed slowly while also trying to progress the Wirraway. Would be great if your son will help on the project.
Funny you should mention JDK and I making a pilgrimage to Moorabbin because we’re actually doing just that, tomorrow afternoon. It’s just down the road though so I could definitely make myself available for another such trip at some time.
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattG’day Chris (TNZ),
Was a pleasure to meet you as well mate. Will definitely have to catch up again sometime. You’re welcome to drop in over here at any time. We might have to talk about you back-seating the Wirraway sometime after I get to front-seat the beast. One day…. 🙂
Haven’t been able to test the helmet yet unfortunately. Probably won’t use it in the Warrior but will when I fly the Yak 52 in the not too distant future. As you can imagine, I can’t wait to try it out!
Have a great weekend mate.
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattMark,
There’s a Wirraway connection with the O2 compass that you may or may not be aware of. Still haven’t got to the bottom of it myself yet but it might be another thing to discuss when we catch up sometime. I’ll be calling you in the near future on another topic.
Olivier,
Great information there mate. My sincere apologies that I haven’t made any reply to your note after sending the manual. I haven’t forgotten and will get around to it sometime. Sorry mate.
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattUnfortunately a lot of the pics can’t be distributed as per owner or caretaker/restorer requests but one that I’ve scanned in so far is of the Mk.XVI Spitfire on display in the Auckland Museum, and I’ve attached with this.
James,
Will have to try to remember to bring the pics this weekend.
Phil,
Don’t worry mate, I don’t think the Kiwis corrupted me too much while I was over there. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to bring either of the Shorts home. Although it’d be nice to have one over here, there were a few other aircraft that I have to admit I’d prefer to extract in preference. One of the Hawker Hinds would do nicely or a Mossie with new timber. Saw both while there and was highly impressed (also happened to meet Jerry Yagen).
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattThanks for the link BlueRobin. I admit to believing that most warbirds (and all aircraft in general) should do what they were originally designed for and fly, however this Corsair is an example of an aircraft that I wholeheartedly believe should remain groundbound. It’s a priceless example of just how Corsairs were during their service life.
Well done to the FAA Museum for their fantastic efforts with this.
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattG’day Phil,
A bit cold here today alright. It snowed for a considerable part of the day. Didn’t settle on the ground though. Have to agree with people that Ballarat can get cold but so many of them say that it’s the coldest place they’ve ever been in Australia. We don’t get quite THAT cold.
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattG’day Chris,
Would be good to catch up with you and Gnome as well if possible. Of course it wouldn’t be a bad thing to sample some local beer also. Have sent you a PM mate.
John,
Don’t worry mate, you’ll be well looked after. I should be seeing all but one of New Zealand’s compliment of your favourites and you’ll get a report about them.
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattG’day TNZ,
I mentioned that I was going to most of the warbird centres . . . well Wanaka’s essentially the one and only that I’m not visiting. Would love to get down there but it’s well out of the way from everything else I’m doing over there. Might be a good excuse to finally get over for the airshow down there. Think I noticed that you’re in Wellington mate. Will be spending a couple of nights in the region after Blenheim and before Auckland.
Phil,
You’d like the Solent brought back home then? That lovely four-engined flying boat could test out my abilities as only a student pilot but I’ll scout it out while I’m at Motat anyway.
Cheers guys,
Matt
OzMattG’day Ben,
Unfortunately I don’t have a decent image of this particular starter switch although will keep looking for one. Needless to say it’s not a Wirraway item, just something I’m trying to locate for a mate. Reading some more info tonight, it seems that the switch can be operated either by pulling or pushing the handle (which kind of looks like a smaller Mustang park brake handle).
Hope all is well up your way. Will reply to your e-mail in the near future.
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattI’ve never had any form of communication with Steve but distinctly remember is always positive posts on here and his enthusiasm for the Beaufighter. It’s a shame that his proposed trip to Oz won’t happen as from what everyone has said, it would have been an honour to meet him.
I’m an infrequent poster here but consider the forum to be a community and can admit to Steve’s passing being incredibly saddening. With a couple of other similar events today, it’s been a tough day.
May the skies remain blue for you always Steve.
Regards,
Matt
OzMattG’day Phil,
Well done on being in a position to be given the haul of books. I’m sure Bob gave them to you because he knows they’d have a great home. The book ‘The Road to Riam’ is obviously of most interest to me (can’t think why!). Are there any contact details for Beryl Pederson? If so then I might try to contact her and see if she has any copies left.
Hope all is well mate. Take it easy.
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattHi all,
I thought that I’d better finally get around to making a statement about the proposed forum meet. Unfortunately it will not be happening around the time that was originally discussed. If it was, then it’d be happening within the next week or two.
The principal reason for it not happening is that I’ve been very busy of late. Thankfully some of this has been caused by actually doing things related to the project.
It would still be great to have a forum meet along the lines of that originally proposed at some stage in the future. We’ll see what happens. At least there would be more to look at on a later visit. I might have made some visible progress by then and there are also a few nice, airworthy birds coming to the neighbourhood in the near future.
Apologies for not making this post at an earlier date. Although this full blown meet isn’t happening at the moment, I’m sure there’ll be something of a meet at the Avalon airshow and it’d be great to meet a few people in the flesh.
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattHi Wombat,
No need to worry about not being able to buy Keith Meggs’ books yet – because none of us can! The last time I spoke with him was last March and it seemed like he had finally struck a deal for someone to publish them for him and they were tidying up the first volume (there are 4 volumes planned to the best of my knowledge) in that regard. Although each volume is largely completed, I know that he’s still looking to add more detail.
These books should represent the ultimate publications on aircraft that were produced in Australia. Coverage is right from the first aircraft (Duigan, etc) through to the mid-80s, I think. The second volume is scheduled to solely focus on the products of CAC. Be warned now that these books will not be cheap to purchase if (hopefully when) they are released. Still, you get what you pay for (usually!) and these books will be good.
Although I wouldn’t want to suggest that this is the reason for Stewart Wilson not covering the Woomera in any of his books, I can testify that really detailed information on the Woomera is indeed difficult to find. There’s the general stuff which continually gets reported in different publications but the really gritty information might have left us with the passage of time. While detailed CA-15 information doesn’t exactly grow on trees either, it does definitely exist. With the amount of photos that existed on this machine, the combination proved sufficient for a very interesting ‘chapter’ in the Wirraway, Boomerang and CA-15′ book.
The availability of the Beaufort in reasonable numbers and the Australian Government of the time are the key things to blame for the Woomera never going on to better things.
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattThanks very much for your efforts Ashley and I look forward to any and all information you might be able to provide. There’s no rush at all so make sure you get other things done before worrying about this.
Cheers,
Matt
OzMattCA-4/CA-11 Woomera
Hi Wombat,
There’s no detailed history of the Woomera available to my knowledge. A bit of a shame but I suppose it’s understandable. Hopefully Keith Meggs will get his books published at some stage and I have a feeling that a bit more of the Woomera story will be told at that time.
A couple of minor things. My apologies but I do have to mention that the Woomera was both the CA-4 and CA-11 and not the CA-3. Minor detail and I’m sure you meant CA-4. The CA-3 was of course one of the Wirraway variants. I was watching the DVD of ‘Colour of War: The Anzacs’ the other night and the second episode actually had some footage of CA-11 Woomera noses (with provision for the twin cannons) being manufactured. Was a pleasant surprise to see that.
There’s a fair amount of small Woomera bits still surviving. The biggest item known to me is the rear turret that is on display in the museum at Moorabbin. Other bits exist all over the place and there’s even a few in my possession.
Hope this is of some interest.
Cheers,
Matt
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