MY TIME FLYING
VH-FDV WITH THE RFDS
by Rod
Blievers
There
were only ever five “straight-tail” Queen Airs imported into Australia;
VH-CFD (LC-184), VH-CFI (LC-170), VH-DHQ (LC-175), VH-FDV (LC-203) and
VH-CTE (LC-85) and I managed to get my hands on the first four! But
I do have a connection and great affection for VH-FDV.
As a background, RFDS (Victorian Section) maintained radio bases at
Wyndham and Derby, plus an aircraft at Derby (initially a Dove). They
had an association with MacRobertson Miller Airlines (MMA) who provided
a pilot and maintenance. Initially the pilots were MMA First Officers,
but subsequently they employed a contract pilot. Initially all went
well, but when the RFDS decided to replace their Dove the contract pilot
expressed a preference for a Riley Dove but was disappointed when the
RFDS chose the Queen Air. At the same time the RFDS turned to Civil
Flying Services (who were happily operating a fleet of Queen Airs) for
maintenance support and to provide a pilot. The latter was me!
I was told this would only be “for a few weeks” while they found someone
specifically for Derby, but in fact I was there for 6 months (16th July
to 6th December 1967) and again (from 6th July to 12th August 1968)
when the permanent Derby pilot went on leave.
I had a ball! Lots of flying in an almost new Queen Air which was “mine”
and shared with nobody else. It was cleaned internally and externally
weekly (not by me). There were rarely any serviceability issues and
indeed the MMA station engineers went out of their way to help. I was
left to run the operation as I saw fit and I always flew with one of
two gorgeous flying nursing sisters! I loved the Kimberley and the people
I met there. And the social scene in Derby was surprisingly active too!
All pretty heady stuff for a 21 year-old.
VH-FDV was configured quite differently to the way it was when I last
saw it at Caloundra. While with the RFDS there was a cockpit/cabin divider,
with two facing seats on the right hand side of the cabin (“Club seating”)
and a four-place couch on the left hand side which could accommodate
a stretcher. The rear of the cabin had been modified with a large chest
of drawers arrangement across the rear bulkhead. It was fitted with
dual ADFs, a DME plus VHF and HF comms. There was no VOR or ILS but
it did have a simply horrible Brittain autopilot. There was also an
air conditioner which I never recall actually working! But given that
the only aids were a DME and NDB at both Derby and Wyndham, plus just
an NDB at Halls Creek, nearly all the navigation was by map-reading
(which I’ve always enjoyed anyway).
While the common (and my own) conception of RFDS operations was that
of sitting around waiting to be scrambled for a call-out, the reality
was very different in that nearly all of the flying was scheduled. There
was a scheme to visit every Kimberley homestead or mission once every
six weeks (all stations and the two missions then had large resident
indigenous populations). While I always flew with a sister, clinic flights
involved a doctor also. Then there were regular flights to and from
the tiny Bush Nursing Service hospitals at both Fitzroy Crossing and
Hall’s Creek. Lastly, every six weeks the aircraft and I spent two nights
at Wyndham, covering the homesteads located in the east of the Kimberley.
Supposedly you were “on call” 24 hours of the day but there were very
very few night flights – if you were required then you knew that it
was really serious and that the forecasts were benign (the Peter van
Emerick Anson crash 10 years earlier had left scars). The normal maintenance
routine was to fly to the 100 hour limit then ferry the aircraft to
Jandakot, which gave me a few nights in the bright lights every five
or six weeks weeks.
What fantastic news that QAM will be preserving VH-FDV.
Rod Blievers
November 2021
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