What is this plane? #32

[howardwhite 3]

OK, I think this one is really obscure.
Which, of course, means some one will get it right almost immediately.

HW

[diverdriver 5]

A tiger?

Chris Schindler
www.diverdriver.com
ATP/D-19012
FB #4125

[howardwhite 3]

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A tiger?

Nah. A Tiger has a free-swiveling (not steerable) nose gear, meaning ground steering is via brakes.

HW

[377 20]

Howard,

How did you get such a collection of rare jumpship photos?? I even poured through my old Janes volumes and cannot identify that little plane. It looks a bit like one made in the UK, but not a match.

There is a guy on here who managed to bribe his way into a TU 95 Bear jump in the old USSR. Sure wish there were a photo of that! Bear is like a turboprop B 52 for those unfamiliar.

I almost got to jump with some military friends from a USAF HC 130, but the aircraft commander killed our plan before takeoff, wisely thinking that if anyone got hurt he'd be flying a desk for the remainder of his career.

I have heard that other jumpers have been successful in sneaking onto military jumpships. Not me. At Pope valley CA in the 70s we used to get an occasional ANG Huey helo landing for lunch. We all begged to ride the skids up to 2500 but they refused.

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[thegrump 0]

Even though it seems smaller it reminds me of a Navion. it has been a long time since I have seen one. I did a bunch of tandoms a a small DZ just outside of Elkton MD in the mid 90's, there was one there kind of slowly disappearing.

[377 20]

Not a Navion. Got my first airplane ride in a Navion. Love em. A friend had a Navion that made a dead stick landing in a remote cow pasture back in the 60s. Engine threw a rod and was not repairable. They came back a week later and the cows had chewed the structure to the point where repairs were not worth doing. I didn't believe it until he showed me a photo. I could see maybe a fabric plane being munched, but not a metal one like a Navion. "The cows ate my plane", sounds like "the dog ate my homework."

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[howardwhite 3]

Quote

How did you get such a collection of rare jumpship photos?? I even poured through my old Janes volumes and cannot identify that little plane. It looks a bit like one made in the UK, but not a match.

I am a squirrel.

It is listed in my "Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft," Barnes and Noble 1998. The one in this picture (serial #14) seems to be still registered.

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I have heard that other jumpers have been successful in sneaking onto military jumpships. Not me. At Pope valley CA in the 70s we used to get an occasional ANG Huey helo landing for lunch. We all begged to ride the skids up to 2500 but they refused.

Until roughly August, 1976, it was not hard to get jumps out of Hueys. At Pepperell, MA, we often got free jumps from Hueys based at nearby Ft. Devens. We also had them for meets at the West Point cadet DZ at Walkill, NY.
Something happened in 1976 that stopped all this, but that's for another day.

HW

[pilotdave 0]

Reminds me of the pacific aerospace airtrainer. Maybe a predecessor?

Dave

[pchapman 261]

Airtourer.


The name just popped into my mind. No idea why. Knew it wasn't a British Bulldog. I looked at a lot of airplane books when I was a kid.

Honestly only after thinking of the name did I check "Airtourer" in wikipedia to see if it might be right.

[pilotdave 0]

Looks right... which makes my guess right too! Go me!
Dave

[Amazon 7]

Reminds me a whole lot of the American Yankee trainers we had at our Aero Club at Geiger Field back in the 1970's

[Rover 9]

CT4 made by PAC in NZ.

2 wrongs don't make a right - but 3 lefts do.

[howardwhite 3]

It is in fact an Airtourer 115, built by Victa Ltd. in Australia. This one was first registered in March, 1967, and is still registered in Queensland.
The design was later sold to the New Zealand company that became PAC and made the CT4 (and PAC 750).
The Airtourer does look sort of like the American/Grumman American line (based on a design by Jim Bede of BD5 Jet fame), but as I noted earlier, the nose gear on those was quite different (picture attached). Taxiing them without nosewheel steering took a little getting used to. The fuel gauges -- at least in the original AA1-A -- were plastic sight tubes in the side walls. Flaps, even fully extended, were pretty ineffective.
HW

[jimjumper 25]

The caption of the picture in the book "Skydiving" says that it is an Australian Victa Airtourer. It also says it can accommodate 3 jumpers.

[jimjumper 25]

In Okinawa because we were a MWR sponsored club the military provided us with either a CH-53 or CH-47 helicopter to jump from. That was in '95-'96. There weren't any civilian aircraft on the island at the time to jump from. We only got them once a month and only 4 hours of flight time but I usually got 4 jumps every time.

[pilotdave 0]

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as I noted earlier, the nose gear on those was quite different (picture attached). Taxiing them without nosewheel steering took a little getting used to.

The last planes I flew were grummans. I was surprised how easy it was to get used to not having nosewheel steering. Really the biggest difference was on takeoff... had to add power very slowly (or line up with the nose cocked to the right a little) to get going straight down the runway.

Dave

[howardwhite 3]

Yup. I guess that's where I stole the picture. That's what it says, but no way it will hold three jumpers.

HW

[riggerrob 558]

Agreed!
It only took me a couple of flights to get comfortable with steering a Grumman American Cheetah with brake pedals.

[jimp 1]

Great memory, Peter!!

A bit more trivia about this photo.

The aircraft is VH-MTH, the pic was taken on 18 May 1969 at Tumut NSW by Peter Ford, a skydiver and a photographer for The Canberra Times. The next shot in the sequence was published in that newspaper on 20 May. I have a print of it, which I will post for you when I can do a scan.

The Victa Corp. of Australia's primary business was the manufacture of lawn mowers; MTH was used for pilot training at the Tumut Aero Club.

The jumper? Take a guess!

Jim

[jimp 1]

Took a while, here we are.

Pete Ford used a Mamiya C22 twin lens reflex for this sequence - no motor drive, just the old fashioned hand crank method to advance the film.

I learned recently from Dave Smith in Australia that Pete died a few years ago. He was a good friend, and will be remembered.