[quote name='Ray Bell' date='Jan 21 2005, 18:04' post='1901089']
This is the old tower as posted by Ray back on the first page of this Thread.

That was the new tower.

Didn't we conclude that pic was taken about 1963?

So the 'old tower' couldn't have lasted very long...

Only about a year I think.

Or less! The circuit opened in Feb 61 and there is a photo of the new tower in the August 61 programme and according to the Jan 62 programme the official handing over was going to take place at that meeting.

It was also supposed to be handed over at the November 61 meeting. Must have been put back because of the rain.

Would it have been a temporary structure until the proper tower was built? If so, maybe the one at Huntley was the original frame but with 'new' tin on the outside. I'll post the pic of the Huntley later.

http://s1087.photobucket.com/albums/j475/m...t=020420112.jpg

If it was the original Catalina Control tower then it's not too hard to imagine how it would've looked originally before the outer walls were replaced.

Here is the first of several you-tube videos of my 8mm movie from the Catalina Park meeting on 24th January 1970 (practice).

The quality is patchy, especially the black & white stuff.

I was using my newly-purchased second-hand movie camera, without a shop manual.
I don't remember what make it was.

I was self-teaching, so my aperture settings & focus control were a work in progress.

I used the camera for about a year, trading it in for some new still-photography gear,
when I decided that 8mm was frustratingly inadequate, but that 16mm was out of the question because of the cost.

Damn, I wish video cameras were around in those days!!

Here it is for what it's worth.

At least the colour has held up OK....I've probably only run it through a projector half a dozen times in all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...p;v=MWRrLknlqR0

Great footage, Lynton and the color is wonderful just like when we were there watching in the 70,s.

Fantastic stuff. Can't wait to see more.

A total failure, Lynton...

You don't show the two black stripes!

More seriously, I would guess the Graham Ryan car is still running a Holden engine there?

Ray,

The Graham Ryan issue is for those more knowledgeable.

As for the stripes....I've got some on their way just for you.!

I hope you enjoyed Savva again.

Does anyone know when the Catalina was added to the pool? It must have been around 1947 or so.

I remember going there as a young kid, with the family, to see this 'new attraction'. We went swimming in the 'lake'.

"...and in 1948, the shell of a Consolidated Catalina PBY-5 flying boat was added to the attractions, ..."

ref - http://bmlocalstudies.blogspot.com.au/2010...k-katoomba.html

That will be excellent!



I was figuring you had the camera trained on him in the expectation of a crash.

He had remarkably few problems handling the GT HO, he drove that a lot better than the Alpine. But then again, he did create the biggest single crash in Series Production history.

Thanks Wirra, that sounds about right. what a shame the Catalina was cut up for scrap.

I'm certain that someone, somewhere on TNF knows the answer to ANY question.

Greg if you like Catalina's we have one here at Albion Park, HARS are having a show day on May 6

And you don't even have to have a high speed camera/lense to photograph it.
The HARS show day is a great event, lots of aircraft of all types (HARS seem to like big radial engined aircraft ) and the carpark is just as interesting, as car and motorcycle clubs have displays as well.
Well worth a day out, or a holiday out, as last year I attended and got to talking to a German guy who was out at the airshow, and he flew out from Germany just to see the Lockheed Super Constellation fly, and he talked about a Lufthansa Super Constellation which hadn't flown due to engine troubles. It seemed the might of German technology and engineering had yet to overcome Illawarra "can do".

Had a great day there last year, with the VSCCA crowd. Don Wright [he passed away recently] was a flight engineer on a Catalina during WW2, and handed on some information to the young fellows who were working on the 'Cat'. We had to drag him away in the end, much to the disappointment of the blokes who were picking his brain. Some of the things he told them were completely new to them, and were of great value.

Flight Engineer on a Catalina?

I wonder if he knew Bill Burrell. Bill, from Gilgandra, was a poet of tremendous talent. He was also responsible for keeping a Catalina airborne for something like 36 hours during the war. It was the longest ever flight of a Catalina, with engines leaned off until they nearly melted, then given some fuel to cool them, hopping from cloud to cloud looking for hiding places to avoid the attention of some eager Zero pilots.

They glided into Darwin with the engines coughing from the last of their fuel...

Bit late to ask Don now. He had some amazing tales about his Catalina experiences. One that sticks in my mind, was about when they were in a fully-laden [probably over-loaded] Cat, in the middle of the Pacific, when they started to lose altitude. Don diagnosed the problem as a 'cooked' plug [probably, as you mentioned, due to running lean], and as the Cats were not that big on power, they would soon end up getting very wet.

Armed with a new spark plug, and the required tools, Wrighty climbed out along the wing and changed the guilty plug!

Makes you wonder how many such heroic events took place in those days, that we didn't hear about.

Moving the oil from one (dead) engine to another on the Southern Cross was a great feat...

Some of these blokes were real heroes. But then again, sometimes it was 'do or die'.

Excellent footage!!!

Pretty good to know which of the 56 plugs to change !

My thoughts exactly JY.

So thinking about it, I figure he just pulled them all out, one at a time, until he found the cooked one!

What I admire is how he managed to wait for the induction stroke to get the threads started enough that the plugs wouldn't blow out. That must have been hard to do in thick asbestos gloves! Of course these would have hd rubber gloves underneath to stop him being shocked by the HT.

I guess back then, men were men, or so my old dad used to tell me ;-)

Cheers

Pat

You blokes can have your little snigger.......as there is no danger of [the late] Don Wright giving you a smack in the mouth any more. That's exactly what you would have got for your trouble, if you made fun of his efforts to his face, although I very much doubt if you would have had the balls to do so.

Well Catalinas were capable of landing on water! Maybe they just touched down in the middle of the Pacific, stopped the engines & waited for them to cool, then checked the plugs while the engines were stopped?

No doubt some of the best men in the world enjoyed telling tall stories.And no point to argue--they only get stroppy,and who wants to spoil their fun anyhow,and everybody else fun in listening.Hope he's having a chuckle right now.

Quote Greg

'You blokes can have your little snigger....... '

Don't get your knickers in a knot Greg. That was an old guys 'hero fairy tale' belongs in the same league as 'The older I get, the faster I was'.
Realistically, it didn't happen!

And certainly, were I in the old guys presence, I would not have disagreed with him out of respect.

Pat

Some aircraft had in-flight access to at least the rear of the engines. Not sure about the Catalina though, but Pat is right, on all counts particularly 'respect' .

If you want to read about one such in-flight incident, check out P. G. (Sir Gordon) Taylor, and the abortive Australia-NZ Jubilee Mail flight of 1935

Oops, I see you beat me to it Ray.

Well...

I didn't recall it was the Australia-NZ Jubilee Mail flight.

But that was after the Southern Cloud incident, wasn't it?

Smithy was in a lot of financial trouble by then. Reading the book about that crash was absolutely fascinating.

Jack Myers was killed on 21 January 1962. The date of death of Thomas Rich in unknown to me, possibly April or May 1963.

That's strange, I did a search on this thread and didn't find Thomas Rich!

I'm sure I posted about his demise very early in the life of this thread, nevertheless, it was April or May 1963. I don't have the date either as that was before I started getting Racing Car News (which was a sort of newspaper style at that time).

I arrived at the circuit just as his accident occurred, he did crash coming onto the straight, my recollection is that he spun and came in towards the pit counter.

As a matter of fact, I was talking to John Leffler about this last night. He couldn't reconcile a crash at that point ending with a fatality, but I think he was thrown out of the car or it rolled over him or something. The car was a Triumph TR2 or TR3, the latter I think. It was probably the second race of the day, about 11:15am.

I had always understood that Jack Myers had crashed coming into the Tunnel, but it was before I ever went there (the day Rich was killed was my first at Catalina) and I wasn't even reading about racing at the time of his death.

Jack Myers was killed after clipping another cars rear wheel on the approach to Craven A.

I witnessed the accident, and as Jack was a personal friend and I was relatively young, it drove home just how dangerous this sport is.

Erol

It was around May, 1963, as you say. I was driving the Beetle that day, and was watching that race from the pits,near the Tunnel exit. Rich 'lost' the TR [2, I think] on the exit, and ended up against the pit fence....either upside-down, or on one side. I, along with many others who witnessed that accident, was quite shaken.

There was a colour pic on "The Roaring Season" of Tom Rich's accident just after the car had rebounded on its side off the inside(pit) wall, the driver already out of the car

From what (little ) I know of PBY's and those P and W 14 cyl radials, it's certainly a credible account; depending upon the configuretion. These engines were NOT renowned for their longevity..as I recall 600 hrs between rmajor services was about their limit
It's likely that there were cylinder head temp gauges.
It's also likely that the flight engineer was quite experienced in interpreting the gauge readings
It WAS standard form for the flight engineer to visually check the exhaust flames, esp to monitor rich/lean mixtures
Bearing the above in mind, it's quite possible that the defective engine WAS quickly identified and equally possible that the defective cylinder/spark-plugs were similarly identified.
Then again, the engineer could have spat on the suspect portion of the ( still hot) exhaust manifold...and checked the colour of the spittle........always a reliable diagnostic tool!!
It's certainly a matter of record that PBY flight engineers were MORE than capable of replacing jugs and heads in situ and in the most inhospitable locations.

I think that the story is quite believable
Neville MILNE

And so do I, Neville.

Yesterday the HARS Catalina did a splash & go on Lake Illawarra then a landing & take off, it will be on dispaly this Sunday at the Wings Over Illawarra air show.