The Gift of Wings

On a clear blue Friday afternoon, the sound of the Stearman climbing from the airstrip immediately caught my ear. With a nine piston radial engine, the crisp drone gives itself away the minute it crests the horizon.

I hadn't seen it for months and expected it sold or moved on, but 3.00 Friday is lazily skirted the low hills and wind-breaks and the lined up the house and shed for a low pass and return wave. It is always a breath-taker !

(The Bi-plane is owned and piloted by our old neighbour, who just recently moved just after we got to know him and found some common interests. After years of grining like a fool at the aerobatic antics of this blue and yellow plane, pulling stalls and loops above our place, I finally met the bloke across the road, and yes, it was him.)

We had organised a few opportunities to get a picture of the FJ and the Stearman together at the airport, but we were never in the same spot, so when he came to move away I suspected I had missed my chance.

The plane banked around to the west and B-lined back to the runway. I grabbed the keys to the Holden and headed on down, not to miss this chance.

We said G'day through the fence and then trundled the ute onto the tarmac in front of the hanger and grabbed a few photos. (I forgot my camera, so the phone had to suffice).


 


The 'little' Stearman is a wonderful thing up close, and this one is restored beautifully. Fabric covered wings, steel tubular fuselage, twin leather seats (one behind the other) and a big high sitting nose bristling with piston heads. 
It sits here cooling and clinking post flight in the afternoon sun, when my neighbour says ' well, you ready for a fly ?'
Too right ! I cant squeeze my mellon into the undersized skull cap quick enough. I am sitting up front with a grin from ear to ear. We power up, taxi down onto the grass strip and are away, wind in the hair, the roar of that big motor just in front of my feet and the familiar local countryside turning into a patchwork.

The Stearman cruises at about 140 odd km/hr and can take off and land in less than 300 metres, so the plane was an old favourite for bush pilots and crop-dusters. It can be landed on a grassy paddock or on a gravel road. The plane was bigger than I expected. It has about 10 metres of wingspan, but is shorter than it's long. Gauges are sparse, the sight glass hanging below the upper wing lets you know there is still fuel in the tank and the stick control and pedals are all linked through by guy wires. Classic ! 

We followed the road out to our place and pulled some wide sweeping banks above the paddocks. HD and Tess are down on the back drive giving us a wave and reconed' they could see me smiling from the ground.
We skirted the local neighbours, kept an eye out for the taller wind breaks and then took a pass over the house once more and up into the clear blue yonder.


The voice is distant in the head-piece "How about a loop ?". 

Surprising, I had to talk myself into it. I asked C, "when was the last time you did a loop?", 'about 40 minutes ago'.... OK' I thought, there may never be a second chance "lets go"
The nose dropped groundwards, there is no brake, a 3600 ft roller coaster and I can see the roof of the house and shed and HD and Tess pointing at us. I'm conscious of not touching the stick in front of me ! 
We pull out after gaining speed, I try to glimpse the dials on the dash but the view is crazy. Above me the sky turns to ground and everything is inverted and weightless. We roll out of the loop and slowly everything falls back to normal.
I am suitably impressed through my fuzzy adrenalin fueled thinking.  We pass low over home, across the paddocks and big dams, gain and return to the strip. 

Out of the cockpit, I stood by the nose, looking at my flat battery phone. (I got 3 photos while up there) ' 'That was huge ! Mate, you dont need to be told, but that was a major thing for me, Thanks!' 
The best I can offer is help clean the Stearman in the morning. 

Another 3 hours was spent really enjoying this plane up close the following day, giving it a good spit and polish. 
HD and Tess came out to the hanger to say Hi. Tess wandered around the planes with wide eyes and asked plenty of why questions. We had a cuppa and scones sitting in the shade and just soaking up the view.
The thunderstorms brewed up by lunch and we pulled the Stearman back into shelter and closed up the doors.
I was still buzzing about the fly a week later, and I still crack a wide grin thinking about it now.
Anyways, Thanks kindly C for sharing the Stearman experience that afternoon with us, it will be a long lasting memory for me !
         

Holden Grease

The old FJ Holden ute that was dragged back to the folk's farm way back in 1989 followed me through many changes, was parked away in several sheds and waited... And waited..... all in it's bits and pieces all packed away in boxes, smothered in peppermint oil and naphalene flakes to keep the mice and rats and wasps to a minimum.
Then came Woodabyna and once a shed was established that could keep the seasons at bay, the old ute came out of the shed at Pullabooka and took one major wash down and off came 13 years of drought bourne dust and dead mice and mud wasp nests by the bucket load.
The project started like a seized cog and stopped, started and stopped again. The HQ's all muscled their way in front of the old Humpy. Even another FJ special sedan had a run before the time came last year to say 'enough is enough !' Let's get this J on the road.
2012 was the 60th anniversary of the Holden ute , so I thought what better to get it finished and take her on down to the All Holden Day at Hawksberry,
Without running you through a fairly standard restoration story, we got the FJ rego'ed two days before the AHD and its first main run was the three hour drive over the Blue Mountains and to the show and swap meet. We even took out an award !
The Idea ; the J has the Golden Fleece theme and livery. The idea came from when I painted the HQ ute in road sign yellow. I practiced a bit of spray painting and finishing on a couple of spare FJ guards, thinking that the coat of paint would help protect the metal a bit while they waited to be used. When I was piecing the FJ together to see how much of it was there, I hung the yellow panels on an otherwise pale blue body. The captive gears clicked away and the two colours began to shout 'Golden Fleece ' to me. Looking through old photos of streetscapes from the 50's and 60's, you would quite often see old utes done up in commercial livery, with twin tone paint. So, instead of a shiny resto job, I decided to do her up as a service station ute and age the paint job so it looked like an authentic survivor from the 50's.
How ? ; No secrets really. The drivers door, roof and tail gate remain as original paint and dents. The rest is off the gun. Undercoat is in thick red oxide coloured primer. On top of that went four thin coats of body blue. I masked up the rear guards and put down the yellow. The wear and tear look on the paint came with a lot of wet and dry sanding and a hard water-compound rub back. All the sign writing was put down mid-sanding and pin striped to a tradies standard. I cut out some stencils for the rams on the doors copied off 1950's grease tins and laid them down while the doors were off. The stencils were painted thinly so that they could be rubbed back and given a faded, long-polished look.
The tailgate was done to give a tongue-in-cheek finish to the project, and also so people get the fact that it the patina is not done to deceive. I get so many people wondering how I came to get an original Golden Fleece work ute. Lower Forest on the bonnet is our old locality name.
The interior really hasn't been touched apart from carpet and a new head lining.
What's it like ? Answer to that is 'like an FJ' and that is what surprised me. I always wondered what an early Holden was like to drive and it is surprisingly good. After the alignment and new tyres, the J cruises very nice. It sits on about 90 km happily, holds the roads and corners fine and is easy to drive. Having the window open and the plenum vent open makes it even better. It isn't overly noisy, you barely need to change gears out on the open road and brakes are adequate for country driving.
You get plenty of waves.

Why ? Because the old thing deserved it. It spent a long like on a farm at Manilla, then it was shipped to Grenfell and stripped to its basics and nearly forgotten. I have loved the FJ for such a long time and always promised myself that one day, I would have one on the road. And now I have, and true to myself, I have made it a little individual.