tiabunna's photos with the keyword: Ansett

"Islander" , a Short Sunderland converted for passenger-carrying, as it arrived to return us from Lord Howe Island in June 1974. It is in "white tail" paint scheme (ie, the airline livery has been removed) because it was being taken out of service by the airline. Note the old wartime "Blitz" truck on the jetty and the surf on the reef beyond. This aircraft now is in the "Museum of Flight" in Florida, USA. Happy Fence Friday!

I'm just home from travels and still catching up, so here's a favourite archival image, copied from a Kodachrome slide. These two DC3s (then still in regular airline use) were at Melbourne's Essendon Airport in 1965. The nearest was owned by Bush Pilots Airways, the other by Ansett - both airlines now long since gone and the airport turned to general aviation following the opening of Tullamarine Airport a few years later..

The flying boat on which we had travelled to Lord Howe Island was blown aground by a gale, leaving us castaway (unfortunately in winter) for a week before another flying boat was able to retrieve us. We began our take-off run from alongside the stranded flying boat, with choppy seas. Airport runways are always smooth, but not so for flying boats. Our first takeoff run needed to be aborted because the boat was being badly affected by waves: we left without problem on the second attempt. Islander , the flying boat on which we left, is now in a museum in the USA. The damaged flying boat Beachcomber was repaired and eventually went back to England, where it has pride of place in a special museum. Second photo in note. View on black.

When I visited Lord Howe Island in 1974 an airstrip was being built to enable normal air services, but it was incomplete. The only way to fly to the island was by flying boat. This was the last regular airline service in the world still operated by flying boat, but they had been sold and were being retired. One had been taken out of service to prepare for the trip overseas, by replacing the seats and other fittings with long range tanks, but this one was doing limited service until the airport opened. Our return trip was to be two days later, but a gale on the second night broke the flying boat’s moorings and washed it aground. These flying boats had been the island’s lifeline for many years, and it was a disconsolate crowd of locals and visitors who gathered around the damaged aircraft on the beach next morning. The good news is that the aircraft was repaired on the spot, flown out, and in September 1974 it became the last flying boat out of Lord Howe. The aircraft is now housed in a special aviation museum in Southampton, England. As I mentioned though, the other flying boat was out of service being refitted, and the runway was unfinished. We had become castaways on a sub-tropical paradise! Unfortunately it was winter and the weather was poor: you can't win everything. :) Insets Another view of the beached aircraft; The wingtip dug into the sand and damaged; The damaged float removed from under the wing. From Kodachrome slides.