Gainsborough Loading Shovel M.O.D.

[Ian coombs]

The only interior I could find, but a lovely front view of the Stinson..

 

[Ian coombs]

Found a couple more, I suppose the passenger area was of less interest when I looked in the cabin..

 

[Ian coombs]

A lovely thing..

 

[skyking1]

Go over to the aviation thread. @farmerlund has one.

 

[Ian coombs]

Go over to the aviation thread. @farmerlund has one.

I saw that video and heard the singing wires, if he hadn’t said I would have thought it was a turbo..not that it would or could have one fitted probably..

Go over to the aviation thread. @farmerlund has one.

 

[Welder Dave]

I went for a ride in a friend's 172 and we landed at a small airstrip that had a radial engine crop duster parked on the grass. The engine was huge but apparently crop fosters need big power to be able to climb fast if need be. Not a lot of creature comforts but pretty cool. Not sure what kind of plane or how old.

 

[Ian coombs]

Years ago welder Dave they were the only ‘water bombers’ we had for bushfires in Western Australia.. they certainly sound the business but don’t carry much, although I still hear them every so often, they’re obviously the cheaper alternative to the rest of the assets used now. This year I have seen, but mostly heard the heavy lift Hueys. Last year there were Blackhawks and the Ericsson sky crane, I’ve got an old phone video of that sucking up water..And a passenger jet converted to a firefighting tanker. I’ll have to google it but one crashed here, I think it was last year. We’ve had ‘squirrel’ Heli tacs.. I’m pretty sure most of them are there for your summer..

 

[Ian coombs]

H

Go over to the aviation thread. @farmerlund has one.

How’s the song go..’regrets I have a few..’.. high up my list is not going for a joy flight in a Stearman.. from Sonoma airport in 2006, I was visiting an aunt who lived in San Francisco then., the whole family have moved to Portland now..

 

[skyking1]

You can get a ride down there. If you make it to Portland you are just about here.

 

[Ian coombs]

You can get a ride down there. If you make it to Portland you are just about here.

The US may be my next trip,its on my bucket list, but I’m into Jeeps so the Rubicon and Moab are up there especially.. unfortunately I don’t think my flying (as a passenger) goal will ever be realised. I have always wanted to go up in a Hughes 500, that’s not impossible, but with Hugh Mills flying it.. I’ve read and re-read parts of his book, incredible.. I know one of his machines is in a museum..

 

[Ian coombs]

You can get a ride down there. If you make it to Portland you are just about here.

Probably ten years ago I worked out a route, in at SF, north to Vancouver, I didn’t have relatives in Portland then. across to Calgary, keep heading east, down through Montana and Wyoming then follow the Rockies down to Moab and Monument valley, then back along the south side of the Grand Canyon..sounds simple ..

 

[skyking1]

Keep us posted. Our tentative New Zealand and Australia trip is 2027 in the spring. I'd like to see wheels at Wanaka. I'd also be happy with wings over Wanaka in 2026.

 

[Ian coombs]

Keep us posted. Our tentative New Zealand and Australia trip is 2027 in the spring. I'd like to see wheels at Wanaka. I'd also be happy with wings over Wanaka in 2026.

Our spring I presume? You certainly plan ahead skyking. Amazing I’ve never been to NZ, I had a plane mad workmate who went to Wanaka, and showed me some video he’d done. One of my daughters was in a bad relationship with a Kiwi and now she’s married to one. So maybe I’m negatively biased. You’ve just got me thinking, a week in NZ couldn’t hurt...
Actually a Kiwi guy at work had my dream job, he used to collect sphagnum moss up in the hills? He’d be choppered up , gather up bundles of the moss, I don’t know whether it was 3 or 33 bundles. The helicopter would come back, he’d hang off a line with a hook on it, he’d have a foot on the hook as they went around hooking up the bundles he’d made. And from what he said it sounded like a 500. of course he had no interest in helicopters, it was just another job to him.

 

[Ian coombs]

My wife tells me to pay attention.. I reread your post I didn’t know there was a WHEELS at Wanaka, I’d only heard of the Warbirds.. next month..!, Wheels next year, think I need to plan a trip..soon..

 

[skyking1]

Both wheels and warbirds are Easter, so your fall, our spring. Anything but peak heat or peak rainy season for us soft Yankees.
Planning ahead is not that big a deal. We will be in the middle of a new home next time it rolls around, and if we don't get down there for the next one we might not get another go at it.
I picked Wanaka because, why not?

 

[Ian coombs]

Well I don’t think you Yankees are soft.. I hate the cold, I lived in Yorkshire for 5 years and in winter it was cold.. but not as cold for as long as you have up towards Canada. And even when I went to Yosemite in 2006, the road want cleared of show all the way through and that was April, even May? That job in Ontario, there was still snow in the tree line in April, and by October it was cold in the evening. I know you’re used to it, you’re prepared for it as we are for our scorching summers. I suppose as humans we individually choose the climate that suits us.. If we’re lucky enough to have a choice. One of my sisters ex workmates, and friend was a Royal Marine, he reckons he lived in snow holes for 3 years of his service. You have to want to do that. Wanaka looks magic.. I can’t believe such a small population use so much equipment, all my daughters ex could talk about was digging holes and how good he was at it..
I’ve got to say that looking at rhe scrapers on the Whhels at Wanaka clip, I wished I was going to jump in one tomorrow morning..

 

[skyking1]

I think we'll get a caravan rental for NZ, and train and plane and bus for Australia.
I forget where you are, Ian.
We have friends to visit in Sidney.

 

[Ian coombs]

I’m as far west as you can go skyking, the most isolated city on earth..Perth the City of Lights..named by John Glen as he orbited earth in 1962..(I knew it but not the detail as I arrived 20 years later).

City of light - 50 years in Space | Western Australian Museum

On February 20, this year, WA will celebrate the 50th anniversary of a very significant event. On that day in 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in the Friendship 7 spacecraft. On this mission, Glenn flew over Perth and the people of Perth turned on their lights to...

museum.wa.gov.au

nearly 4000km from Sydney..
Ozdozer is the true West Australian, I’m the pommy import.

 

[skyking1]

Looks like cheap airfare to get out there.

 

[Ian coombs]

Yes they are pretty good..