A short tale of interest to complement Eric's beaut video clip, which by the way depicts very good weather for PNG/Irian Jaya operating environs.
We had been operating RAAF Iroquois, either in the Wewak or Lake Kopiago area, perhaps for Pacific Islands Regiment support, and diverted to Menyamya in the Southern Highlands en route Port Moresby to uplift a small bulldozer to a higher mission station at Kanabea in cannibal country.
Our Delta model was lower-powered than the Hotel model Huey and we could only carry sufficient fuel for a return trip between PZ/LZ to enable transportation of the heavy bulldozer components internally in the cabin as performance was too limited for external sling loading. All loads were so heavy that the aircraft had to be flown right to ground level as there was insufficient power available to properly hover at the higher LZ altitude. So; the bulldozer blade, which protruded either side of the cabin was used as a ramp at the LZ for sliding gearboxes, engine, etcetera out of the aircraft with maybe 50 or so little cannibals pulling like mad on ropes and the aircrew in the cabin pulling opposite to prevent disaster.
Eventually, we managed to reposition all bulldozer components and there was much singing and dancing from the locals; but we then got weathered in and forced to stay overnight at the mission. Building an airstrip at Kanabea had been a long-held dream of Father Dechon (spelling?), a French Priest at Lae, so the Priest then based at the mission dragged out bottles of wine and spirits to celebrate fly-in of the bulldozer.
Sometime later, Father Dechon and others were being flown in by Pilatus Porter for the official opening of the 1,000 feet airstrip which ended at a near vertical drop of several hundred feet. The Porter hit just short of the threshhold and all on board were killed. A very sad end to a dream.
3 comments:
Really enjoyed that audiovisual!
/Energo
PIG on strip and the 44 gallon drum unloading procedure are the highlights. Thanks for posting this Eric
A short tale of interest to complement Eric's beaut video clip, which by the way depicts very good weather for PNG/Irian Jaya operating environs.
We had been operating RAAF Iroquois, either in the Wewak or Lake Kopiago area, perhaps for Pacific Islands Regiment support, and diverted to Menyamya in the Southern Highlands en route Port Moresby to uplift a small bulldozer to a higher mission station at Kanabea in cannibal country.
Our Delta model was lower-powered than the Hotel model Huey and we could only carry sufficient fuel for a return trip between PZ/LZ to enable transportation of the heavy bulldozer components internally in the cabin as performance was too limited for external sling loading. All loads were so heavy that the aircraft had to be flown right to ground level as there was insufficient power available to properly hover at the higher LZ altitude. So; the bulldozer blade, which protruded either side of the cabin was used as a ramp at the LZ for sliding gearboxes, engine, etcetera out of the aircraft with maybe 50 or so little cannibals pulling like mad on ropes and the aircrew in the cabin pulling opposite to prevent disaster.
Eventually, we managed to reposition all bulldozer components and there was much singing and dancing from the locals; but we then got weathered in and forced to stay overnight at the mission. Building an airstrip at Kanabea had been a long-held dream of Father Dechon (spelling?), a French Priest at Lae, so the Priest then based at the mission dragged out bottles of wine and spirits to celebrate fly-in of the bulldozer.
Sometime later, Father Dechon and others were being flown in by Pilatus Porter for the official opening of the 1,000 feet airstrip which ended at a near vertical drop of several hundred feet. The Porter hit just short of the threshhold and all on board were killed. A very sad end to a dream.
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