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Old 09-23-2018, 03:53 PM   #284
woofa.express
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Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Tocumwal, NSW, Australia
Posts: 1,745
Default Re: tell a Model A related story

I’ve had 2 accidents and 2 incidents, both incidents resulting in damage. This is about the lead up to each accident and why. There is one story each day. Someday I will exhaust my memory and thus the stories so I will string them out. Plus each report is long enough.
Each story will be told correctly, nothing omitted and I will give the reasoning.
# 1. 1968.


A Callair aeroplane, not a well known type but very simular to, and perhaps a copy of the Piper Pawnee. To fly ag one needs an“ag rating”. This is issued following a 40 hours flying instruction and a flight test by (at the time) a CASA flight testing officer. They were government pilots without ag experience and were pretty meaningless. Every course was about spreading fertilizer with on the job practical experience. There was no courses at all on spraying and my first job was spraying of cotton on the West Australian Ord River Irrigation Scheme. I had flown only 2 hours of ag in 6 months because that period included the off season. I did several trips to Adelaide for annual inspections on the aeroplanes. A distance of 1900 statue miles. Now that’s a long flight for a service isn’t it?
Now back to the accident. A straight forward square or rectangular cotton field where the plant had only recently emerged. The first run was at the low end of the irrigation paddock, the farmer who marked or flagged as an American pilot would say, on a track at the end of the field which was on higher ground. Well I lifted off the crop and struck the ute on the left front pillar. Quite a bang and I left the undercarriage in the next field. I made a good landing on one wheel and very fortunately did not have a prop strike.
Should the ute have been parked on the level with the crop I feel I would still not have cleared it.
Why did I hit the vehicle. Simple. I pulled up too late. I had very little experience in spraying as compared with spreading which is an operation about 100 feet off the ground.

Could this have been avoided. Yes. If the operator had spent just 30 minutes in a two seater aeroplane giving me exposure and instruction it would not have happened.That’s a shame but it is history and cannot be changed.

This operator had 3 Callair planes and by chance some 50 years later one of them has come to live at Tocumwal and used as a glider tow plane pictured here. I am not sure if this is the one I speak about but it is one of the three.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg call air second photo.jpg (6.4 KB, 22 views)
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