Ansett Flying Boat Services – Aviation Historical Society of Australia

DerekB30/12/202431/12/2024

Outlook AHSA Newsletter December 2024

The December 2024 edition of Outlook / AHSA News was distributed to members recently. This edition can be read online in the viewer below....

1924 WGCDR Stanley James Goble and FLTLT Ivor Ewing McIntyre continued their around-Australia flight in Fairey IIID A10-3. At 10.27 a.m. on 24 April 1924 they left Elcho Island for Darwin and carried out a climb test of the Fairey IIID with a full load. The aircraft reached 4,500 feet in under 15 minutes, but as the wind was dead against them at that height they dropped back to 2,000 feet. Many native fires were seen along the way and alligators [sic] were observed diving into the rivers as the aircraft passed overhead. After reaching Cape Cockburn, the course was altered across Van Diemen's Gulf to Goulburn Island where landfall was made at 2.30 p.m. On landing at Darwin they shook hands with each other; Goble said later "because we both had the gust up vertically, and we were frightened the engine might conk out," At Darwin the seaplane was hoisted onto the wharf with a railway crane, and all through the 25th the carburettors and magnetos were overhauled. By 8 p.m. on the 26th, after they had been tested and adjusted, the aircraft was ready for the next stage. Source: The First Round-Australia Flight, 1924 by Neville Parnell, AHSA Journal, vol 6, no 12, December 1965

1994 A South Pacific Airmotive DC-3 on Army charter to Norfolk Island ditched into Botany Bay after engine failure with 25 people aboard, who all survived. The resulting BASI report found that it was overloaded, poorly kept and flown. However, its pilot Mr Rod Lovell disputed all these points. Source: Age, 19 January 1997; Australian, 30 March 1996; Sydney Morning Herald, 5 August 1994 via aph.gov.au website