tiabunna

tiabunna club

Posted: 10 Jun 2014


Taken: 09 Aug 2006

27 favorites     19 comments    1 413 visits

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Keywords

film
flying boat
Beachcomber
Ansett
Sandringham
Minolta SR1
Scanned slides
Ansett Flying Boat Services
Lord Howe Island
Aircraft
Short
Australia
slide
scanned
manual focus
kodachrome
damaged
1974
beached
50mm 1.8
VH-BRC


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Photo replaced on 12 Jun 2014
1 413 visits


Castaway by Flying Boat!

Castaway by Flying Boat!
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.

Marco F. Delminho, ©UdoSm, Howard Kilgour, HaarFager and 23 other people have particularly liked this photo


Comments
 Diane Putnam
Diane Putnam club
Uh-oh! Wow, what a series this is!
7 years ago.
 Berny
Berny club
Very interesting story and images!!
6 years ago.
 HaarFager
HaarFager club
That's a great series of photos of this plane!
5 years ago.
 tiabunna
tiabunna club has replied
Thank you very much.
5 years ago.
 ©UdoSm
©UdoSm club
Oh, oooh, that doesn't look good. Thank God, no people have been harmed...
4 years ago.

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