CAC Plant Reports 1942, numbers 98 – 110

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1942 RAAF Lockheed Hudson A16-139 of 7 Squadron RAAF, crash landed at Bayswater North, a suburb of Melbourne at the foothills of Mt. Dandenong in Victoria at about 1400 hours E.A.S.T. on 26 March 1942 during bad rain and low visibility. All aboard survived the crash. The area may have been called Kilsyth during WWII. The aircraft was on a training search operation to seaward with two or three other Hudson aircraft. The pilot, FLGOFF Adams, had been flying around looking for familiar landmarks in the bad weather and hoped to land at Laverton Airfield. When they became low on fuel, Adams put his head out the window to try to get a better view. Seeing the top of large gum trees he pulled the aircraft upwards very quickly, though managed to clip the top of one tree. Through a hole in the clouds, he spotted a small paddock and decided to land there. The aircraft skidded through two pine trees and slid on its fuselage through some mud into a chicken yard scattering chickens everywhere. The aircraft stopped just short of a verandah at the rear of the farmer's house. One of the other Hudsons, A16-168, was seriously damaged after a crash landing at Laverton Airfield in the bad weather. In December 2000 Kevin Wakeman told Peter Dunn that the aircraft crashed at the corner of Gatwick and Stephenson Rd. in Kilsyth. Kevin was only 15 years old at the time. A friend of Kevin, whose parents had a house at the corner of Durham Rd and Mt Dandenong Rd., told Kevin that the aircraft flew over their house at tree top level on its landing run. It followed the route of the proposed freeway and sliced the top off a pine tree just after crossing Colchester road. It came to rest with the wings against two large pine trees at the other end of the paddock. All these trees are still in existence and still show the scars. The events leading up to the crash are described in Wings June 1991. Lockheed Hudson A16-139 was crewed by a No. 3 Course crew for this flight as follows: FLGOFF Arthur Ernest Adams (692) - not injured; PLTOFF Brian "Barney" Leonard Hancock (406481) - probable injured ribs; FLTSGT Brian Robert Bright (407841) - not injured; FLTSGT Beverley Kilgour Chandler (21351) - not injured. Source: OzAtWar

1968 After two weeks of preparation, Robin Miller and Dr Harold Dicks departed from Paris on 26 March 1968 to ferry two Gardan GY-80 aircraft to Perth. The two aircraft, F-OCLA and F-OCLI, were crammed with radios, peronal gear, spare parts and fuel tanks. Robin flew the less powerful GY-80-160D Horizon F-OCLA (c/n 220, later VH-EOL) and Harold flew GY-80-180 F-OCLI (c/n 215, later VH-CJZ). Source: Aviation Heritage Volume 45 Number 1 March 2014

1987 Adam Boyd Munro set a record for "Speed over a recognised course" (Powered Aeroplanes, C-1e, Landplanes: take off weight 3 000 to 6 000 kg) of 492.05 km/h on 26 Mar 1987 flying a Piper PA-31 Navajo Panther between Hobart and Auckland (New Zealand). Source: FAI Records website, ID=19276

2002 A Low Level Airspace Reform Plan (LAMP) and a National Airspace Plan (NAS) from the Aviation Reform Group (comprising Dick Smith, John Forsyth, Air Marshall Angus Houston and Ted Anson) was put before the Minister for Transport and Regional Services on 26 March 2002. The NAS recommendation was said to be based on an American model. ARG established an implementation group to proceed. On 13 May the Federal Government accepted the schemes. Source: House of Representatives Debates, 12 March 2002, p. 938. Minister for Transport, Media Release A34/2002, A54/2002, Australian, 15 May 2002. via aph.gov.au website