SAAM Newsletter April 2016 - South Australian Aviation Museum

Props & mags
APRIL 2016
SOUTH AUSTRALIAN AVIATION MUSEUM
66 LIPSON STREET, PORT ADELAIDE
P.O. BOX 150, PORT ADELAIDE, SA 5015. PHONE (08) 8240 1230
http://www.saam.org.au
FROM THE PRESIDENT
ENGINE RUN
Although attendance numbers were not what we
expected and the Gnome rotary played up some, the
night was a great success. In one way it was an
opportunity for a lot of the members to get together,
watch a classic movie and see some of our vintage
engines run. The Merlin, yet again, was the hit of the
night with it’s spectacular exhaust flames lighting up
the scene. Fantastic photo opportunity for some.
We will certainly think about having this type of
function again, maybe once a year, to bring our
members together for an informal evening and have
another classic film available.
Thank you Robin and your crew for your organization and running the event…great night was had by all.
GRAHAM ALDERMAN
Graham Alderman “resigned” from the Museum a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t resign his membership: rather he
has decided to stop attending because he feels it is time to put his feet up and relax.
And why not? He’s 93 years young and has put in sterling service since he joined us in 2002, as a founding History
Group member, working on the donations register, writing letters of thanks to donors, compiling albums of press
clippings and many other tasks in the library.
Not all of you may know, however, what a long life in aviation Graham lived even before he joined our museum. He
joined the RAAF in 1942, trained in Cunderdin and Geraldton in WA, did two years in England, came home in 1946
and joined Australian National Airways. He was appointed as manager of the Royal Aero Club of South Australia in
1957 and over the following thirteen years steered the club from 250-300 members flying 3,000 Tiger Moth hours a
year to 700 members flying 10,000 hours a year with a diverse fleet including Victas, Pipers and Cessnas. During that
time he was at the forefront of SA aviation events including the management in SA of the 1964 Brisbane-Adelaide
Ansett Air Race and the 1969 UK-Australia Air Race in which our VH-DOL came second in class.
S.A.A.M.
COMMITTEE
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY ….
SATURDAY 16th APRIL
_____________
MUSEUM PATRON:
THE HON. ALEXANDER DOWNER
AC
_______________
PRESIDENT
PIETER VAN DYK
VICE PRESIDENT
DAVID BYRNE
10.00am History Group Meeting
12 noon B.B.Q. Lunch – Cost $5.00
1.00pm General Members Meeting
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING : Tuesday 3rd MAY
After leaving the Aero Club in 1970 he was made Executive Director of the Bus
and Coach Association in 1971 and from 1976 was concurrently Director of the
South Australian Road Transport Association. He served as Secretary to the
Chartered Institute of Transport (South Australia) for 26 years and was a Rotary
member for over 28 years, including spells as Club President, Secretary and
District Secretary.
TREASURER
JOHN HILLIER
SECRETARY
MIKE MILLN
COLLECTION MANAGER
PAUL DAW
COLLECTION
MANAGER – AIRCRAFT
WAYNNE LEE
MEMBERSHIP OFFICER
ROD KOPP
WORKSHOP MANAGER
GRAHAM BELL
PUBLIC RELATIONS
ROBIN De VORE
Well-wishers waiting anxiously for Graham to cut his cake on 16 March!
[Photo – Ian Jones]
He was a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and of the Chartered Institute
of Transport and a Justice of the Peace for over 38 years. He received a Federation
Award in 1969 from the Royal Federation of Aero Clubs of Australia for his
service to the Federation; and an OAM in 2000 for service to the community,
particularly through the Chartered Institute of Transport and to Rotary
International.
How many of you knew what an eminent person we had in our midst? Not many, I
bet, because Graham is modest to a fault. We will all miss his unfailingly cheerful
presence in the library every Wednesday, and we wish him all the very best in
retirement!
Pieter van Dyk
PRESIDENT
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Nearly didn’t have to use the BBQ, for the
free sausage sizzle
Photos courtesy of Dean Robinson and Paul Daw
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WING TIPS
ERRATA – “IFF” – Props & Mags March 2016
My friend and Honorary Member David Hamilton kindly pointed out a couple of errors in my article last
month, which in the interests of accuracy I would like to correct:
1. I incorrectly entitled the article “Identity Friend or Foe”, when it should have read “Identification
Friend or Foe”
2. I referred to the development of “Radar” in the article. The British called it “RDF – Radio Direction
Finding” and it was the Americans who later introduced the term “Radar” that then came into general
usage.
Since I wrote the article I have also come up
with a bit more information on the Spitfire’s
Identification Lights:
In addition, the radio identification signals
sent in Morse Code were repeated visually
by the Upward Identification Light on the
upper fuselage behind the cockpit flashing
the same identification in Morse (Photo at
right), and by the Under Identification Light
on the lower fuselage under the cockpit seat.
(Photo below). The latter was fitted with
coloured lenses that could be changed to
reflect the colour of the day so as to aid
identification of friendly aircraft.
Spitfire UP-O Upper Identification Light (Clear)
[Langdon Badger]
Langdon Badger
Spitfire UP-O Under Identification Light
[Langdon Badger]
Have you found this?
(see last page)
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END OF SEASON
As the fabric season draws to a close we are actually putting fabric on the Anson’s
stubby wing bits that are attached to fuselage. The starboard side upper and lower
surfaces are done and as we
had time on our hands we
removed the aileron and outer
rear section of the port wing
and are doing that bit too. We
are getting proficient with a
paint roller when applying
dope to the under surfaces
and now have a lot less dope
up our arms as a result.
Having studied other Ansons’
fabric installation we have yet
to find two the same so ours
will be unique too. The best
use of fabric and the least
wastage will mean planning ahead to see where joints and overlaps will look authentic.
The Battle boys are forging
ahead with the new tailplane
with one side showing lots of
shiny new metal ready for
riveting. The tail cone is still
awaiting the same treatment.
The wheels for the Model 1
Cessna are almost complete and
that may stir up some interest
in getting the airframe tidied
up.
We have already stripped the old fabric off the rudder and once sand blasted and
primed with some 2 pack undercoat we will install new fabric covering. Anybody that
has been involved in rigging the controls for a wing warp system, please step forward
as we need help in that area.
Over and out,
Anson Crew, Battlers and Wheely good workers,
5
Here’s an oldie but goldie from Jim Piscioneri. It’s been seen around attributed to Qantas engineers but
this time they’re purported to be UA Air Force tech log entries and the subsequent replies from
maintenance crews.
Pilot: Left inside main tyre almost needs
replacement.
Engineer: Almost replaced left inside main tyre.
Pilot: Test flight OK, except autoland very rough.
Engineer: Autoland not installed in this aircraft.
Pilot: #2 propeller seeping prop fluid.
Engineer: #2 propeller seepage normal.
Pilot: #1, #3 and #4 propellers lack normal
seepage.
Pilot: Something loose in cockpit.
Engineer: Something tightened in cockpit.
Pilot: Evidence of hydraulic leak on right main
landing gear.
Engineer: Evidence removed.
Pilot: DME volume unbelievably loud.
Engineer: Volume set to more believable level.
Pilot: Dead bugs on windshield.
Engineer: Live bugs on order.
Pilot: Autopilot in altitude hold mode produces
200 fpm descent.
Engineer: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.
Pilot: IFF inoperative.
Engineer: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.
Pilot: Friction lock causes throttles to stick.
Engineer: That’s what they’re there for.
Pilot: Number 3 engine missing.
Engineer: Engine found on starboard wing after
brief search.
Pilot: Aircraft handles funny.
Engineer: Aircraft warned to straighten up, “fly
right” and be serious.
Pilot: Target radar hums.
Engineer: Reprogrammed Target Radar with the
lyrics.
Pilot: Autopilot tends to drop a wing when fuel
imbalance reaches 500lbs.
Engineer: Flight manual limits maximum fuel
imbalance to 300lbs.
Pilot”#2 ADF needle runs wild.
Engineer: Caught and tamed #2 ADF needle.
Pilot: Suspected crack in windshield.
Engineer: Suspect you’re right.
Pilot: the autopilot doesn’t.
Engineer: It does now.
Here’s another from Jim Piscioneri. We are
hoping he isn’t suggesting it as a means to
store the Caribou until the hangar is ready.…
This Mig 25 had apparently been buried to
protect it from aerial attack during the last Gulf
War, (now over...). We know that the Soviet
military aircraft are built tough to withstand
rough treatment, but I sure hope they scoop
out all the gravel from those enormous air
intakes!
[From Australian Warbirds Squadron News,
6.
6
Nov 2004 ]
SOUTH AUSTRALIAN AVIATION MUSEUM
SIGNIFICANT AVIATOR PROFILES
JOHN FREEMAN OAM
John Freeman was born on 17 May 1934 and spent his boyhood in Rugby, Warwickshire near Church Lawford
Aerodrome, then an RAF Training Command facility.
This led him to join the Air Training Corps on his 14th
birthday and to his first flight on a RAF Anson that
imbued him with his fascination with aircraft and flying.
John Freeman
Photo – Freeman Family via Mike Milln
He emigrated with his family to Adelaide in 1948 and
immediately joined the Air Training Corps Squadron at
Keswick Barracks. He was awarded a place in a course
at Point Cook where he commenced his flying training
in February 1951. He achieved his Private Pilot’s License
in October 1951 at age 17, but was subsequently
classified during National Service as not being of
commercial pilot material. Fortunately, Reg Ellis, chief
flying instructor at the Royal Aero Club of South
Australia at Parafield disagreed, and John achieved his
Commercial Pilot’s License there in April 1955 on a
flying scholarship.
He started work as a pilot for Rural Aviation Limited in
May 1955 and began a lifelong career in agricultural aviation. This included a stint with Robby’s Aircraft Co in 1956
before he married his first wife, Margaret, and went to England in April 1957. From July 1957 to May 1959 he flew
on jobs with Crop Culture Ltd throughout England, Scotland and Wales – and spent 3 months in 1957 spraying
cotton in the Sudan. This involved a flight of two DH-82 Tiger Moths and an Auster departing from Bembridge on
the Isle of Wight to Lyon-Marseille-Rome-Palermo, then across the Mediterranean to Bone in Algeria then TunisTripoli-Benghazi-El Adem-Cairo-Wadi Haifa and, finally, Khartoum. After three months spraying in the Ghazirah,
the group returned to England in December 1957 by a different route.
During his England sojourn he and Margaret had a son, Mark, and a daughter, Debbie. Debbie was born in January
1959.
John then returned to Adelaide with his family and set up his own company, Trojan Aerial Spraying Co, in
September 1959 in partnership with Alan Jones¹. The company was merged with SA Air Taxis in 1962 to form
United Aviation Co Ltd.
United Aviation was the Piper Aircraft dealer for South Australia and operated United Aviation Flying School at
Parafield Airport, the first flying school at Parafield other than the Royal Aero Club. However, late in 1962 SA Air
Taxis pulled out and United Aviation went out of business some time in 1963, which almost caused the failure of
Trojan as well. United Aviation was liquidated in early 1963, but John continued agricultural spraying as Trojan
Aerial Spraying Co².
________________________________________
¹Alan Jones is standing at left in Trojan’s 1961 Calendar cover in the Attachment
²This section about Trojan Aerial Spraying Co Ltd and later Trojan Aerial Services Pty Ltd is derived from material provided
by John Freeman including his Resume of Experience/Career and his History of Trojan Aerial Services Pty Ltd. The author
also interviewed Mr Freeman at his home several times between January – July 2008
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Prior to the merger the company was originally formed using DH-82 Tiger Moth VH-TSM. Two additional Tiger
Moths, equipped with Micronair A700 Rotary Atomiser spraying equipment, VH-TSE and VH-TSJ, were added
during the 1960 season.
The re-formed Trojan shrank to one Tiger Moth (VHTSE), but 1963 was a good year and John Freeman
and Bill Wauchope, who had joined the company,
expanded with the purchase of two Piper Pawnee
PA-25 aircraft.
John first sprayed a potato crop at Virginia, using
VH-TSE on 26 October 1964, and also had various
spraying contracts. One was spraying Torrens
Island³ against mosquitoes, when he and Bill
Wauchope operated from a beach at Outer Harbour
and parked the aircraft on the front lawn of a
householder across the road.⁴
Parafield hangar from 1962 United Aviation Ltd calendar
By mid-1965 the company had secured a six-week
John Freeman via Mike Milln
contract to spray cotton near the Ord River. This
activity expanded over the next eight years as
Trojan Aerial Spraying Company (Ord River) Pty Ltd (TASCO). TASCO operated Piper Pawnees and a Snow S2D
(with a 600hp radial engine), and John pioneered night spraying with them, when the wind and turbulence tended
to be least. Kimberley Chemicals Pty Ltd was also established at Kununurra.
In 1971 John left the company and returned to South Australia to establish Trojan Aerial Services Pty Ltd. Bill
Wauchope remained in Kununurra and continued operating TASCO.
Trojan Aerial Services Pty Ltd was operated out of Parafield until a new strip was constructed on five blocks of
land off Womma Road at Virginia that John purchased in 1972. He called it Virginia Airstrip and made it the
company’s headquarters. By 1973 he had built a hangar and was operating four to five aircraft including two Piper
Pawnee PA-25s, a Supercub PA-18A and a Cessna AgWagon.
John married his second wife, Sue, in 1973. They had two sons, Jamie born in 1974 and Ben in 1977.
As well as agricultural spraying in the Virginia area, Trojan sprayed vines in the Coonawarra during the period
1972-1982. John also joined the Department of Transport’s central office in Melbourne in 1978 as the
Department’s agricultural aviation specialist in Australia, and John and Sue moved to Melbourne. David Shaw
managed the company while he was away.
_________________________________________
³The 1964 Calendar cover reproduced in Attachment 1 depicts John Freeman carrying out mosquito eradication
spraying at Adelaide Airport, then including much swamp land. The 1965 Calendar shows him spraying
mosquitoes over the Torrens outlet in the vicinity of Henley Beach Road.
⁴This anecdote is from Bill Wauchope’s eulogy of John Freeman
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During his time with the then Department of
Transport from 1978 to 1981⁵, John wrote an
Agricultural Pilot Training Manual and two books on
low level safe flying techniques.
In 1983 John effectively severed his connection with
Trojan and rejoined the Department of Aviation⁶ as
its Central Office agricultural specialist, but this time
attached to the Adelaide Office and based in
Adelaide. During this time he took periodic leaves of
absence to train pilots to agricultural rating standard
and participated in a delegation to China to discuss
the checking and training of Chinese agricultural
pilots. He led the program that eventuated and made
a further eight trips to China throughout the ‘80s.
Piper Pawnee and hangar at Virginia Airstrip
from 1975 Trojan Aerial Services calendar
Trojan also operated a subsidiary company from 1981
to 1984 called Seawings with a floats-equipped Cessna
185 VH-TSF on tourist flights between Port Adelaide and the Coorong, and scenic flights at Goolwa. On Saturday
12 May 1984, John piloted this aircraft to the first float landing on Lake Eyre.
He stayed as the CAA’s agricultural specialist until 1992
when he left the Authority and commenced agricultural
flying training full-time with Trojan under the trading name
Low Level Aviation. He continued with Low Level Aviation
based at his property on Goat Island, Lake Alexandrina, until
2000. By then he had trained 84 pilots to agricultural pilot
rating standard and 74 more in low flying techniques using a
low level safety course he had developed.
He finally retired in 2006.
Trojan’s aerial spraying operations based at Virginia Airstrip were purchased by Bill Wauchope in 1983 on John
Freeman’s departure. He renamed the company Southern Aerial Spraying Services, and in 1989 renamed it again
as Agricair.
The photograph at left shows Bill Wauchope and his
Piper Colt VH-KFB in front of the Virginia Airstrip
hangar on 13 December 1991. By June 1992 an
office extension had been added to the hangar and
the building remains substantially unchanged to this
day.
Agricair was purchased by Godfrey Gardiner in 1991
and the company continued to spray in Virginia for
local vegetable growers John and Geoffrey
Bergamin from Virginia Airstrip until the closure of
the airstrip on 6 June, 1996.
Bill Wauchope with Piper Colt VH-KFB at Virginia Airstrip 13
December 1991
John Bergamin via Mike Milln
__________________________________________
⁵The Department of Transport was formed in 1972 from the previous Department of Shipping and Transport, 9
and was renamed again in 1982 as the Department of Aviation.
⁶It became the Civil Aviation Authority in 1988
9
The hangar, still painted with Trojan’s name as shown in the photograph below, is now a vegetable packing
shed.
The closure of Virginia Airstrip was anticipated for some time prior to this because of its non-compliance with
environmental legislation and regulations. This led to John Bergamin’s decision to develop a new airfield at his
property in Virginia, which he called Calvin Grove after the nearby historic farmhouse built by the pioneer Taylor
family around 1860-70.
The airfield was officially opened for the Bergamin
family on 2 May 1997 by John Freeman, whom John
Bergamin recognizes as the inspiration for his
development of it. Film exists of the ceremony and
John Freeman’s speech.
John Freeman was awarded the UK Guild of Air Pilots
and Navigators Sir James Martin Award for 2006 “in
recognition of the development of low level flying
techniques and low flying courses in Australia resulting
in a significant enhancement to flight safety”. Also in
2006 he was awarded Aerial Agriculture Association of
Australia Ray Mackay Award at its annual convention.
On 26 January 2008 he was awarded the Medal of the
Order of Australia “for services to aviation through the
development of safe low flying techniques in the
agricultural sector”.
John Freeman at site of Virginia airstrip 25 May 2008
Mike Milln
Perhaps John himself described this rich and
fulfilling life best in his book The Golden
Years of Low Level Flight:
John Freeman’s speech to open Calvin Grove Airstrip 2 May 1997
John Bergamin via Mike Milln
“A life full of low flying operations as aerial
spraying operator and pilot for twenty seven
years, then examiner of airmen in low flying
with the Department of Aviation for eleven
years followed by nine years training
agricultural pilots, eighty four in all, plus
seventy two other pilots in general low level
operations. A total of 13000 hours of flight at
lower levels with the only injury being a
scratch on the back of my hand from a split
pin!”
John died at the Mary Potter Hospice on 9 November 2008 after a long battle with cancer, just a year after the
death of his wife Sue in October 2007. He is survived by his four children and grandchildren.
Mike Milln
History Group
South Australian Aviation Museum Inc
August 2013
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LOST PROPERTY
Fellow members, I left a Maserati show bag (left) in
the Museum a while ago.
Inside was a blue
plastic folder
containing an original
red Japanese Map
(right).
I want the next Display
Bay to have an enlarged
image of the map as a
backdrop, similar to the Port Pirie overhead
photograph in the WW II Training Bases
display. We need the original for hi-res
scanning, so it is very important that the
map is found.
Would anyone who has found the bag please
leave it in the administration office for me.
Any help would be much appreciated!
Langdon
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