Trip Report: King Island on a DC-3, with a jumpseat!

[Maikha Ly]

G’day all

Thank you for tuning into this trip report, it’s been a over a year in the making (Most of which through complacency!) as I’ve added bits and pieces wherever I can, and with a current lull leading up to Christmas, I thought I’d finish this trip report off once and for all.

If you love DC-3s, love old modes of transport, good food, the past, and some nice views, I hope this Trip Report is for you, so sit back, relax and enjoy!


Background

Aviation, as a hobby for me personally, has really intensified in the past few years, through many means like actively and regularly photographing aircraft, travelling to airshows, and since I made this trip, getting a commercial license. Of course, little did I realise what a mission that would be, however that’s another story altogether!

I’ve always had a fascination for old stuff, old cars, buildings, maybe the odd old train here and there, but rarely was there an opportunity to experience old aircraft, that was until many years ago in 2006, a friend and I, in our youth and just got our driver’s licenses, would hang out at Bankstown Airport a lot watching all the little aircraft do touch and gos and envying the chaps (They weren’t that much older than us!) in those planes. Then low and behold one Sunday afternoon, a freakin’ DC-3 comes in to land, having just come back from a sunset flight over Sydney Harbour. Immediately, we both jumped in the car, raced over to the Aviation Museum at Bankstown and watched as a few folks were being offloaded from the aircraft. The sunset was a passionate fiery red and orange and it was my first ever visual of a DC-3, its distinctive nose pointing to the sky with this sunset in the background, fortunately, I have a photograph of.



My next opportunity to be able to jump on this plane for a flight, was thwart when I was accepted into University, and pretty much shifted away to a country town called Wagga Wagga, where, my aviation interests were to lay dormant for a few years while study (Pfft, yeah right!) and other things took precedence.

Three years later, after finishing uni, and returning to Sydney, it was to my shock that, the DC-3 I saw landing at Bankstown those years earlier, was broken into pieces and now living in a paddock in Molong, the others in the fleet suffering the same fate, and the museum all but landlocked from the airport. The flights out of Sydney no longer exist!

It was about two years later. I was at a friend’s party in suburban Melbourne (Broadmeadows), we were just sitting in the backyard, it was sunset and the sky was also this fiery mixture of red, orange and yellow. Out of no where, we see a DC-3 fly overhead us, slowly and majestically, banked and descended, into a circuit to land at nearby Essendon, the silhouette of the aircraft moving along this mixture of colour in the sky. I was amazed, stunned, and delighted to hear one of these still flew regularly out of Melbourne. Like my first encounter at Bankstown, that image ingrained in my memory forever, and I told myself one day I really am going to go for a flight in one.

Another two years on, it was May 2010. Having moved back to Sydney for my newly forged (But soon to finish) career in the media, I had just taken up flying lessons at Bankstown Airport, it seemed an ordinary afternoon while I was preflighting Warrior VH-IMX. Ordinarily enough until my then instructor comes running out of the building, and yells at me to look up, then it appeared, DC-3 VH-CWS did a low, slow, yet beautifully majestic fly by of Bankstown Airport over Runway 11C. I immediately turned on the scanner I had, and heard the conversation with tower. The Captain thanking the tower for allowing this, and the aircraft then rejoined the circuit for a landing on Runway 11C, I can still remember it, the aircraft majestically keeping the tail up as it glided above the runway and almost effortlessly, touched town. It was two hours later, and concluding my flying lesson, I drove by the other side of the airport to check out VH-CWS… which to this day, continues to sit in a limbo at Bankstown, awaiting a purchase.



One year later, it was June 2011, I just happened to be down in Melbourne for a short holiday. I remembered the DC-3 from years before was still doing flights, and I had to jump onto it, booked the King Island Lunch flight two days before the trip, and even managed to arrange a jumpseat on the aircraft. However, just imagine the quantity of emotion that was very soon dissipated, going from excitement that moment after booking and paying for it…. to disappointment to get a phone call hours later that the flight had been cancelled, due to technical issues. I was accepting of this, safety is first and nothing else. All this meant was instead of King Island, I spent my day at the Point Cook RAAF Museum, followed by the Aviation Museum at Moorabbin that afternoon, the photos I’ve previously posted can be found here.

It was now September 2011, an email came to me from Shortstop Jet Charter, telling me of the DC-3 flights that were on again that season, it just so happened one particular flight to King Island was happening on a Sunday I’d just be in town that weekend!


Quickly did I grab the phone….


That Weekend, Planes, Trains and Automobiles (And Trams, and Boats and Horse and Carriages!) – September 2011

There was something peculiar that just lined up with this weekend. I’d be coming down on the Friday, and spending a free day checking out Melbourne. I was due to go on a cruise on a vintage 1920s ferry around the Docklands area. To get to Docklands, I’d have to catch a vintage 1930s “W” Class tram from Spencer Street station. The following day on Saturday, the main reason I was in town, was to catch up with some friends and go for a steam train ride, from Melbourne to Bendigo, hauled by two “R” Class Steam Locomotives, dating back to the 1950s. In Bendigo, I had the opportunity to hire a 1920s Chevrolet to go from the station to the pub where we were all gathering for lunch. The Sunday… was the DC-3 flight (Oh and adding to this, a Horse and Carriage ride on Sunday night!).








I organised all this to happen, but didn’t see it line up until the day before I left for Melbourne, I was spending the whole weekend travelling on as many old modes of old machinery as there are operational, this was going to be a great weekend.



Up to Sunday, I did everything I planned to do as the photographs illustrate. The flight was the only thing left! I was staying out of the Airways Motel located across the road from Essendon Airport. It was the worst night’s sleep I’ve ever had, people banging their luggage against walls as they walked down the hallway, and jet aircraft flying over keeping you awake! Oh wait….


VH-OVM



(Information courtesy of Aussieairliners.org which can be found here)

VH-OVM started out as a Military version of the aircraft, the C-47, built by Douglas Aircraft Corporation in Oklahoma City in April 1945, delivered to the USAF and flown to Brisbane the same month. The RAAF then took hold of it, registered as A65-98, under the registration VH-RFO, and found operation up in Butterworth, Malaysia between 1964 to 1975 as VH-HJZ.



Afterwards, the aircraft was transferred to RAAF Wagga Wagga and then to the RAAF Museum Point Cook, before entering the Australian civilian register in July 1989 registered to the museum. In November 1989, it was purchased and registered to Shortstop Jet Charter and re-registered as VH-OVM, where it continues to operate charters and joyflights to this day and to which I had the delight of travelling aboard.