Low flying

**Bundalene** · 5th February 2009, 11:12 AM

Thirty years ago when I worked at (the now non-existent) Castlereagh Dragway in Western Sydney, the Hercules and Carabu aircraft would fly in really low over the drag strip on their decent to Richmond RAAF Base.
The sound would sort of bounce off the neaby Blue Mountains and it was almost as noisy as a Top Fuel Dragster!!!

Still, it was quite a sight.

Mrs B

Rangier Rover · 5th February 2009, 01:14 PM

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Many years ago I was flying my Auster from Archerfield to Glen Innes on a bright, sunny morning. I was south of Beaudesert, at about 1000AGL, and caught a glimpse of something out of my right eye going under me - looked left and saw the tail end of two Sabres proceeding towards the coast well below me, and doing probably 300kts.

Similarly, flying about twenty-five years ago from Broome to Pt Augusta at 9500ft, traffic passed to me was two F-18s descending from FL180 (18,000ft) to 250AGL travelling at 500kts en route Salisbury to Woomera. Never did see them.

And last night had another Hercules, but this was before dark - did a 45 degree turn over the house about 300ft above terrain, apparently dodging the CB this time.

John

You had an Auster. What was it like looking down in a head wind and seeing trucks gaining going over hills

I still think they were a great aircraft in their day. There is a yellow one up the road from here in good shape. When the engine was rebuilt had a main bearing torn out of the crank case and they were still flying it

.

We have had agricultural air craft including helicopters here look down and see a low flying jet looking up at them

Now putting up a wind monitor tower 70 meters tall so they better be very carefull here at night

I'll give it a few years and some clown will get tangled up in it. Hopefully not a private plane in bad weather

Tony.

**JDNSW** · 5th February 2009, 02:50 PM

Originally Posted by Rangier Rover

You had an Auster. What was it like looking down in a head wind and seeing trucks gaining going over hills

.......

The one I had was a J-5F - clipped wing aerobatic, but speeds pretty similar to a 172. Not really a four seater - 211lbs aft of the front seats, about enough for one passenger back there by the time you take into account the two gallons of oil behind the back seat. And the high back front seats with full harness made getting into the back a bit of an exercise. One interesting point was that like the early Cherokees it had a crank on the roof for trim - but it worked the opposite way. And at the time I was current on both.

The Gipsy Major was quite a good engine - the first light aircraft engine to exceed 1000hrs between overhauls. However, combination of no rubber mounts and in line not opposed meant it was rough compared to typical more modern engines. Also, the permissible oil consumption was from 1 quart to 1 gallon per hour - any less or more you started worrying. I remember reading an account of a ferry flight of a Drover with three Gipsy Majors from, I think, New Caledonia, to Queensland - major concern for the ferry flight was fitting extra oil tanks to extend the range!

John

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