A lot happened in Queenstown in the
early seventies.
Sir Tim’s new base was modern, well
equipped and inhabited by some
interesting characters.
The stalwarts around the place were
Rex and Noel – absolutely the best
and most professional aircraft
maintenance engineers you could ever
have the privilege of knowing.
Aussie Bob, as Chief Engineer, reined supreme
and introduced me to the good life
of Italian wine, good food, parties
and Roberta Flack – I missed the
eventual heart attack, he didn’t.
The other local operators also had their
aviation icons such as ace
tail dragger bush and
mountain ski plane pilot Tex
who patiently spent some
time with me instilling some
of his invaluable mountain
flying and “wheeler” landing
tips in ZK-BYJ the company
C180.
It was the pristine climate that
caused Ed the Walrus to nearly meet
his demise.
The alpine weather meant
that day after summer day were picture
perfect blue skies, allowing the
high altitude bush to dry out and
increase the probability of wild
bush and grass fires raging over the
mountain slopes.
Ed was out on the big concrete
helipad in front of the hanger, resplendid in his white
overalls in the midday sun, slowly working
on a Hiller.
“Yabba yabba yabba” he
went with that English accent,
talking his head off to most people
who didn’t have time to listen as he vainly trying to look busy while
continually curling and twirling his
huge whiskery silvery white
handlebar moustache.
“Yabba yabba
yabba” – no wonder his overalls
never got dirty.
Bondy was a quiet young pilot who
had been through a lot in life and
had a sense of humour.
He was
enjoying the new experience of
flying the big Hiller 12E and was at the
base to get some training on bush
fire control utilising a big orange
fiberglass water bucket slung from
the electric operated cargo hook
underneath the machine.
The Tait radio maintenance guy was doing his
wizardry magic checking the HF radios in the machines and had
just been doing a quick tune on the
equipment in Bondy’s machine.
As the Hiller had originally been a U S Army
training helicopter, the
helicopter's cyclic stick was a military version
with all sorts of buttons and knobs
all over it.
There was a two
position pull switch on the front
for intercom and radio; a red button
on the top RH for the cargo hook
release, a toggle switch for the
landing light; a Chinese hat looking
switch in the middle on top for the
two dual action electric cyclic trim
motors and another switch or two for
anything else such as the electric
valve on the bottom of the bucket to
release the water onto a fire. Man
it looked cool.
Radio fixed, Bondy flew off to
lake Wanaka, about a mile away, to practice
dipping the bucket into water and
then spreading the water over an
imaginary fire in the willow trees
surrounding a river fed from the
lake.
Life went on at the helipad – “Yabba, yabba, yabba” went the walrus to anyone within
range.
It was the yabbering that
saved Ed the Walrus’s life.
Instead
of standing on the left side of the
machine to change the spark plugs he
decided to stand back and “yabba, yabba, yabba” to the Tait radio man who was
sitting in the pilot's seat politely
listening while trying to test the
VHF
radio.
“VHF Test 1,2,3,4. Bondy how do you
read”
“Read you 5” Bondy replied from the
lake.
“Ok, I’ll try the HF now – change to
frequency xxxx”
“Roger” replied Bondy – “I’m coming
back to the field because the bucket
valve has stuck so call me when you
are ready for the test”
We were in the Chief’s office when
we heard the Hiller returning and
involuntarily looked out the window when the
company HF radio
speaker in the room burst into life.
“HF
test 1,2,3,4. Bondy how do you read”
We couldn’t see the Hiller from
inside as it was flying overhead the
hanger at about 200 ft. What was
interesting was to see the look on
Ed the Walrus’s face and the
elongation of his eyes as he heard
the whistling noise and looked up.
The old fox had had us fooled all
along – he was really a fast mover
and must have also been an Olympic
standard high diving specialist in
disguise.
All we saw was the look – then the
swan dive under the Hiller, followed
almost immediately by an orange
bucket plummeting from the sky and
smashing to pieces right were Ed was
supposed to be working.
Although the
nickname came from his moustache, we
could see that he must have been a
descendant of those princely animals
as he was a sight to see splashing
around in the 50 gallons of cold
lake water
that poured from the bucket and
enveloped him.
“Oops, wrong button” Bondy’s quiet
voice anxiously came wafting through
the speaker.
1973 - Sir Tim's Queenstown base -
Noel in the foreground, Chief Bob in
the back RH side
True Story
TC
(Tony
