The Flying Kangaroo

by Jim Eames

  Jim Eames is author of The Country Undertaker, Six Feet Under or Up in Smoke and Taking to the Skies. As one of Australia’s first aviation writers, and former press secretary to the Minister for Aviation and former Director of Public Affairs for Qantas, he is a man who has lived and breathed aviation. He also tells a great yarn.

  First published in 2015

  Copyright © Jim Eames 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 76011 355 1

  eISBN 978 1 92526 847 8

  Cover design: Design by Committee

  Cover image: Qantas Heritage Collection

  CONTENTS

  Foreword

  Introduction

  IT’S A CULTURE THING

  1. We’re off to polish the engines

  THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RIGHT CHOICE

  2. The Pregnant Pup

  3. The Nadi ‘bump’

  EVER-PRESENT DANGER

  4. Taim Bilong Balus

  5. ‘Skippy Squadron’

  6. Cyclone Tracy

  SAFETY IS NO ACCIDENT

  7. Training at the Bay of Pigs

  8. ‘Qantas never crashes’

  9. Dangerous skies

  10. Two minutes of terror over the Middle East

  11. Battling the elements

  AN AIRLINE FULL OF CHARACTERS

  12. Life was never dull

  13. Postings … not all milk and honey

  14. Spies, bombs and bicycles

  15. Penny pinching and clashing personalities

  16. Flaws among the brilliance

  UNUSUAL LOADS

  17. Gum trees from wheel wells

  18. Not your normal passenger service

  19. Gough … and other ‘royals’

  20. The return of the Gallipoli veterans

  21. How to smuggle a future princess

  A CHALLENGING BUSINESS

  22. Strikes and fuel … a lethal combination

  23. When the wheels fell off the tricycle and other political problems

  24. Red tails and blue tails … the story of a reverse takeover

  25. Reflections

  Acknowledgements

  FOREWORD

  The Flying Kangaroo is a wonderful collection of stories about Australians, a century of aviation and one of the world’s oldest, most iconic and successful airlines.

  Unlike most other aviation history books, The Flying Kangaroo is written from the inside. A former Qantas communications director, Jim Eames brings together the key stories from battle hardened politicians, leaders, engineers, pilots and the support teams. I flew with many of the extraordinary pilots whose stories follow.

  These are stories of passion, pain and glory, stories of risk and resilience. They explore how a company started by a grazier and two WWI pilots in 1920 grew to become an Australian icon. They document technological changes in aircraft engineering, from cloth and wood to metal to composites. From pistons to turbines, biplanes to supersonic jets. From flying low level through New Guinea’s dangerous valleys, and up to 45,000 feet on international routes—higher than the reach of today’s modern jets. They explore how airlines flew remote routes over unfriendly and hostile areas, opening communications and changing the world back then as much as the internet has changed our lives today.

  Jim’s stories start in the early barnstorming years when the costs, risks and rewards of flight were high. Accidents were common as a result of building aircraft that went faster, bigger and higher. The airline industry advanced like no other.

  The Flying Kangaroo documents how Qantas grew to meet its obligations as a national asset. Aircraft and lives were lost as the airline flew on the front line during WWII and, again, they faced similar dangers when the airline flew as ‘Skippy Squadron’ in support of Australian troops in Vietnam. You will empathise with the tales of Australians being rescued internationally by the ‘Red Tail’ anytime and anywhere from wars, revolutions or weather disasters.

  Reading The Flying Kangaroo deepened my respect for flight, for Qantas and for the Australian spirit. It is really a view into the larrikin Australian attitude—to follow a passion, challenge the status quo, take calculated risks and excel. These hundred stories barely scrape the surface to expose the depth of Qantas culture with the creativity, dedication and teamwork that is needed to get the job done.

  Stories abound of the wide range of aircraft that have carried passengers since the first powered flight. From Paul McGinness’s and Hudson Fysh’s first Avro 504K to the Catalina’s Double Sunrise flight, the DC-3, DC-4, Constellation, Comet, Concorde, 707, 747 up to the A330—it’s all there.

  Finally, the funny anecdotes of flight put an end to the rumours about dead cats, dogs, monkeys, horses, elephants, politicians, princess smuggling, gold, vegemite, Four’n Twenty pies, water skiing to work and streaking women.

  Everyone who has ever flown will enjoy The Flying Kangaroo. These stories of Australia and Qantas need to be told. Australia’s culture evolved from our ancestors’ determination, courage, grit and inventiveness. This is a study of corporate resilience of one of the world’s most iconic airlines in a fascinating industry. It reflects my pride for the airline that crushed borders, levelled politics and connected the world. The spirits of these Australians and this company must be acknowledged and honoured, and I hope that they continue.

  Captain Richard Champion de Crespigny—Pilot in Command of Qantas Flight QF32 that suffered a catastrophic engine explosion in Singapore on 4 November 2010. Author of the multi-award winning book QF32.

  INTRODUCTION

  As the distant shape of the big Qantas Boeing 747-400 City of Canberra lined up for its final landing at Illawarra regional airport near Wollongong early in March 2015, the contrast could not have been more striking.

  Twenty-six years earlier, this then brand-new addition to the Qantas fleet had created a world record on its delivery flight from London to Sydney in 20 hours, 9 minutes and 5 seconds. This last flight from Mascot airport, Sydney, to its final resting place had taken 15 minutes.

  Many among the thousands watching at the airport perimeter as the Boeing approached were probably unaware of another significant difference. This Boeing and its sister-400s in the Qantas fleet had flown millions of kilometres to and from the world’s major airports with their sophisticated landing systems and navigation aids. Illawarra, as a regional airport, had a short runway, no instrument landing system nor even an air traffic control tower, so the landing had to be flown fully hands-on by the pilot, a quality of airmanship now slipping away in today’s fully automated airline era.

  They made it look easy as the Boeing touched down right on the button—at the very threshold of the runway, prompting one former Qantas 747-400 captain who was watching to mutter: ‘Not bad, lads. Not bad.’

  Ther
e were other aspects that would be noted by old Qantas veterans among the crowd, not least the sparkling condition of the aircraft itself. It still looked brand new, as if it had rolled off the Boeing assembly line in Seattle that morning, yet further testimony to the airline’s renowned reputation for the maintenance of its aircraft.

  To them, the City of Canberra’s 26 years of service may have passed quickly but it also said so much about the Qantas they used to know—an airline that had instilled a feeling of pride among Australians for almost a century.

  ***

  It is difficult to find another Australian enterprise so embedded in the Australian psyche as Qantas.

  Even during its formative days in the early 1920s, the air operation being developed by its founders Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness with its first chairman Fergus McMaster, captured the imagination of a nation that was already developing an aviation reputation of its own.

  Indeed Fysh and McGinness’s inspiration for the very formation of the company came out of their role in bashing across the outback between Brisbane and Darwin in a long-suffering Ford to select suitable landing fields for the 1919 England to Australia Air Race.

  Australian brothers Ross and Keith Smith won the race and collected Prime Minister Billy Hughes’s £10,000 prize money, but in the end it would be the formation of Fysh and McGinness’s Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services that would be the most enduring legacy.

  In the years that followed, Australian fliers would stamp a lasting footprint not only on Australia itself but across the world, becoming the first to cross all the world’s major oceans with the exception of the Atlantic. But for engine failure in 1919, Harry Hawker would have achieved that as well.

  The story of those early years of Qantas, its formation at Longreach and Winton in Queensland and the fulfilment of its founders’ dream of providing an air service for isolated outback communities, is a compelling tale of a small band of dedicated airmen and engineers overcoming the massive challenges of an unforgiving terrain, primitive aircraft with temperamental engines and one of the harshest environments in the world.

  When its ambitions outgrew Longreach, it was a confident new airline which moved first to Brisbane in 1930 then eventually to Sydney to establish a base that exists to this day.

  Many of the years in between have been well documented, by Hudson Fysh himself in his three major works—Qantas Rising (1965), Qantas at War (1968) and Wings to the World (1970); and in more recent times by historian John Gunn’s excellent trilogy—The Defeat of Distance (1985), Challenging Horizons (1987) and High Corridors (1988), all three providing a detailed account of the airline through to the 1970s. Another seminal work, although largely unknown even by the majority of those who worked for the airline, is E. Bennett-Bremner’s Front-Line Airline (1944), written while a wartime Qantas was still in the air. Interspersed have been a range of excellent works covering such aspects as Qantas engineering, flight operations and cabin crew.

  While all the foregoing publications have made an invaluable and lasting contribution to our knowledge of the airline, and take pride of place on the bookshelves of those with a particular interest in aviation, much of their content has been beyond the reach of many Australians who have watched with pride the progress of their national carrier.

  As one with a long involvement in the aviation industry, both on the civil administration side, in politics and more latterly many years with Qantas itself, what I feel has been missing is perhaps the story of the more human side of the airline so many Australians have admired over the years.

  I hope what follows will serve as a reminder that Qantas is more than just exciting new aeroplanes, stylish cabin crew uniforms or a plethora of exotic destinations and fare types. Behind all that are the people who have made it what it is, from those who service the aeroplanes, clean the cabins and provide the meals, to others who have seen the sharp end of the political challenges and, not least, those who face the dangers that come with operating in an environment that sceptics years ago suggested should be left strictly to the birds.

  So this is not meant to be another chronological history of the airline. Achieving this with complete thoroughness today is an impossible task. Despite aviation’s relatively short life span since the Wright brothers, all the early pioneers have gone and few of those who served the airline with such distinction during the six years of World War II are still with us today.

  It was during the years of World War II and immediately after that we saw the merging of both aeroplanes and people to create an entity that would forge an enviable reputation among the world’s airlines for safety and operational excellence.

  Getting to this point hasn’t all been an easy cruise at altitude and there have been numerous examples of severe turbulence along the way. How Qantas has handled these and other challenges is a story worth telling, along with many of the things Qantas insiders didn’t say too much about at the time. Simply, they learnt from their experiences, continued flying, and got on with it. And while superior airmanship and dedication to engineering integrity have been the airline’s signature, luck too has played a part. In some cases unimaginable disasters have been only metres away.

  Qantas’s story is one of overcoming adversity, an often innovative approach to problems, a struggle to maintain profitability in an increasingly competitive world, and of strong-minded, determined personalities dealing with the normal internal conflicts of any large organisation. Above all, it is the story of an airline constantly struggling to maintain its role as Australia’s international carrier from the post-war years through the jet era from the Boeing 707 to the jumbo and finally into the politics of a privately owned airline.

  Because this is not meant to be a history of the Australian flag carrier but rather a series of its achievements and, occasionally its failings, some of those involved particularly at the most senior level, like Cedric Turner, Bert Ritchie and Keith Hamilton, will come in and out at various parts of the story, largely because their influence was significant not only as managing directors or chief executives but across many other aspects of the airline’s progress from the days of Hudson Fysh through to the jumbo jet era. It is a story too of the airline I knew well, which took a baby boomer generation to the world and home again and therefore with only passing references to its more recent history.

  But above all it’s a story told by and about some of the people who achieved it all and brought a uniquely Australian image to the oldest airline in the English-speaking world.

  IT’S A CULTURE THING

  1

  WE’RE OFF TO POLISH THE ENGINES

  Chicago, May 1979: Immediately after take-off, an American DC-10 crashes catastrophically when the left engine separates from the wing. All 258 people, passengers and thirteen crew, on board are killed.

  Within days America’s Federal Aviation Administration grounds all DC-10s around the world, calling for an inspection of the engine-to-wing mounts. Investigators working on the crashed aircraft find that poor maintenance standards had led to damage in the left engine mounts, causing the engine to break free and take critical controls with it.

  With one of Continental Airlines’ DC-10s grounded in Sydney, Qantas engineer Peter Thomas and two colleagues were assigned to set about removing fairings and cover plates to gain access to the suspect wing area. After completing the inspection to the FAA’s requirements, rather than signing off, Thomas’s team decided to go one step further.

  Removing further panels they found heavy corrosion of the pylon’s inner surfaces, something that would not have been found if they’d merely done the job they were required to do. And since corrosion is an unforgiving ‘ailment’ in a highly stressed aircraft, after informing Continental and the FAA of their discovery, they set off for Melbourne to inspect another DC-10 operated by Malaysian Airline System. There they repeated the process but in this case gave the DC-10 a clean bill of health.

  Ron Yates, the only chief executive in the history o
f Qantas with an engineering background, always believed the airline benefited from a natural Australian tendency to take things a step further, particularly when it came to engineering and maintenance. At every opportunity, Yates cited the example of the disastrous Chicago crash, and he always delighted in describing the initiative of Thomas and his team as ‘Oh well, while we’re here …’

  ***

  ‘Culture’ can be one of those nebulous terms with a variety of meanings. Dictionaries have it covering everything from the production of bacteria to intellectual development. It’s equally as broad in the aviation industry, and can mean everything from the way an airline answers calls in its sales offices around the world to its in-flight service. In flight operations, engineering and maintenance, it can go further than just getting an aircraft to depart and arrive on time—culture can relate directly to the serious business of safety.

  Hudson Fysh, Scottie Allan, Russell Tapp—the men from its very earliest days—and others created a template for what was to become one of the safest airlines in the world, but it was a template that demanded rigid operational standards and no cutting of corners when it came to costs relating to maintenance and safety.

  This careful attitude was there from the beginning, although aviation itself was a new frontier, full of risk-takers not too bothered by petty rules and regulations. For example, in the first years of Qantas’s operations, airports did not necessarily have runways as we know them today. Pilots were expected to observe the direction of the wind from windsocks, and then take off into the wind, as trying to raise an aircraft against a cross-wind or a tail wind could be extremely dangerous. On 30 April 1937, within months of the airline launching its first international service from Darwin to Singapore, a reporter from Brisbane’s Courier Mail documented the culture of the company. ‘A week ago I flew from Brisbane to Darwin in the Royal Mail liner Canberra (a Qantas DH-86),’ wrote the scribe.