February 2022 Outlook Newsletter

DerekB19/02/202222/04/2022

The February 2022 edition of the Outlook / AHSA News has been emailed to members.

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1919 Captain Henry Wrigley and Sergeant Arthur William Murphy departed from Narromine and flew to Nyngan on 19 November 1919 on the forth leg of an aerial survey of a suitable route from Melbourne to Darwin. Flying in the single-engined Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2e B6183, their north-westerly route of approximately 120km took them over Trangie and Nevertire. Source: Tom Lockley, Wrigley and Murphy: Australia’s First Transcontinental Flight; AHSA (NSW) Inc., 2009.

1919 Nigel Love made the first flight from what would become Mascot Aerodrome on 19 November 1919 in an Avro 504 aircraft. Love had leased a number of grassy paddocks from the Kensington Racing Club to use as an airfield for his Australian Aircraft & Engineering Company. On that first flight he carried one passenger, a photographer named Billy Marshall who wanted to get some aerial photos of Sydney. Sources: sydneyairport.com.au and Parnell, N. and Boughton, T., Flypast, A Record of Aviation in Australia, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1988

1941 No. 453 Squadron RAAF was declared operational in Singapore on 19 November 1941 after being equipped with Brewster Buffalo aircraft and completing a period of training. The Squadron was formed at Bankstown, New South Wales in May 1941. In mid July, the men embarked on the SS Marella and SS Sibajak for Singapore with the first section arriving there on 15 Aug 1941. By the end of the month the Squadron had been equipped with Brewster Buffalo fighters. Sources: Units of the Royal Australian Air Force: A Concise History, Volume 2 Fighter Units, Australian Government Publishing Service, 1995; NAA: A1196, 36/501/192, Item ID 200371 "AMOE (Organisation). EATS Squadrons - Proposals to send Fighter Squadron to Malaya. 453 Sqn."

1967 The first RAN Iriquois helicopter of the joint RAN / US Army Experimental Military Unit (EMU) to be shot down (and the first with an Australian pilot to be hit) was a gunship piloted by Lieutenant Anthony Casadio, RAN, on 19 November 1967, during an attack on Viet Cong positions in the Rung Sat Special Zone near Saigon. After his gunship was hit by ground fire several times, Lieutenant Casadio force-landed near the enemy. Once on the ground the Viet Cong immediately attacked the helicopter crew. Despite their relative inexperience, the young American soldiers and their Australian Navy captain maintained control of the situation and set up a defensive perimeter using the helicopter’s door mounted M60 machine guns. The M60s combined with the small arms they all carried afforded the crew a degree of self-protection. Meanwhile Lieutenant John Leek, RAN, in an accompanying gunship circled overhead until his fuel ran dangerously low and he was forced to leave the scene. Before Lieutenant Casadio and his men were rescued by another EMU helicopter, they successfully drove off an unknown number of Viet Cong, killing two of the enemy in the process. A Chinook helicopter later lifted the downed helicopter from the crash site and recovered it back to Vung Tau. Source: www.navy.gov.au/ran-helicopter-flight-vietnam-history website

1996 Concerns expressed in the letter of resignation of the CASA Director of Aviation Medicine Dr Robert Liddell, caused the Minister to ask the Board to reconsider safety on 19 November 1996. Source: Minister for Transport, Media Statement TR152/96; Age,27 November 1996. via aph.gov.au website