One of the ultimate variations on the Messerschmitt Bf109 was the Avia S199, built in Czechoslovakia.. This one is on display at the Czech Air Force Museum in Prague. For more of this fascinating collection, see this editions feature article; Czechmate.

Contents: Presidents Message

Czechmate

Heard at the Hangar Door

From the Editorial Desk

Our Committee

Dave Prossor President

TBA Vice President

Joe Vella Secretary

Robert Van Woerkom Treasurer

David Knight Membership Secretary

The recent demise of two aviation Peter Fitton Committee magazines has been the cause of much Member debate in recent times. It was as sad as it was inevitable. The reason given for the revenue; which is publisher speak for diminishing sales. Australian Aviation Historical Society Inc. In a world of instant communication a P.O. Box 461 monthly magazine with a publishing lead Lilydale, Victoria, 3140 6 8 A.B.N. 60 092 671 773 Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat where the lead time is minutes, the reach is global Website: www.ahsa.org.au . Email: [email protected] This is a classic failure to properly market Editorial email: [email protected] the product. Marketing is analogous to war: it comprises of battles, strategy and tactics and it has victors and vanquished. In his T A W S T . T magazines tried to compete with the Internet, playing to the strength of the world wide web: immediacy. It was a battle The views expressed in this publication are they could never hope to win. those of the authors and do not, necessarily, What they should have done, is exploit the represent the views of the Aviation Historical advantages of hard copy publishing and not Society of Australia Inc. engage the Internet where the net clearly has the upper hand. This will happen again, because the one thing history teaches us, .

Keith Gaff Dip. Mktg; Dip. Bus. Mgt; Dip. eComm; Cert 4 TAE 40110 EDITOR

Dave Prossor

With this issue of Outlook newsletter we have moved into the next decade. It seems just like yesterday that we were going from 1999 to 2000 and there was great concern that all the computers would crash as they could not cope with the change of dates. It did not happen. Time passes quickly. All that is good reason for us as members of the AHSA to be involved in recording our aviation history, both civil and military. The last issue of Aviation Heritage, our journal, had a lot a DC-3/C-47 coverage. I always think of the DC-3 as both old and not so old so it was a good spread.

In early December I went north to Sydney to catch up with the presidents of the NSW and Queensland organisations. Our meeting was not long enough but to meet and talk shop with Paul Ewoldt from NSW and Warwick Henry from Queensland was, I feel, good value for our respective organisations. Face to face communication has to be better than all by email. A number of subjects were discussed including the journal, membership, newsletters, promotion, finances, meetings and trips. It was a productive meeting. As an aside to the meeting I was able to visit Bankstown airport. It was very interesting to B 1960. T change. I 1960 R A trade-ins that they were literally running out of tarmac and grass parking space. Now the same tarmac is like ghost city. I was disappointed to see the long grass, deserted buildings or buildings being used for non-aviation purposes. Then there were the hulks of aircraft taken out of service. I made a flight in an RA aircraft. We were the only one in the circuit pattern. Sure there was smoke around but while not good student solo cross country weather it was locally flyable. The next day the visibility went down to some 2 km in the city. Not good to run any kind of aviation business. The bushfires took their toll in December and into January. The year 2019 must be the worst in history for bushfires in Australia. Having flown over vast section of Australia in past years I really feel for the people of the country who have not only had to fight the fires but have lost homes and in some cases lives as a result of those horrendous fires. I would guess it inevitable that there will be some loses of aircraft caught on the ground in hangars or on airstrips and burnt out. There is also the chance that some AHSA members might have lost their homes and their life time collections of photos, documents and books pertaining to our aviation history. My heart goes out to them. Their loss is our loss.

It is unfortunate to record the passing of members. Over the past year we have lost a few including notable names of members and even other aviation historians. In early 2019 we heard of the passing of member Brian Hill. We heard of the passing of C L . G B G B A Essendon airport passed away due to cancer in May. AHSA founding member Trevor Boughton passed away in October. Our membership secretary, David Knight, tells me that in his time in the position he gets returns of emails and the occasional note to say that so and so will not be renewing his membership. Without doubt there are some there that have passed on but we did not get a formal advice of the passing. All this brings me to say that as an organisation we need to be ever trying to gain or recruit new members to not only hold membership levels but to actually increase membership numbers. The Antique Aeroplane Association of Australia is currently running a program entitled Mission 1000 with the view to doubling AAAA membership numbers. A noble idea and one that we could well copy.

Over the Christmas break I will be endeavouring to put together a history of the AHSA from its predecessor in 1959 through to the present time. A challenge but one that I feel needs to be done before it is lost in the mists of time. I have already had input from several members and that has been a great help. Let us see what we can come up with. As always if you feel that you have information to offer then please make contact with me.

The year 2019 will go down in history as the year that saw the demise of not one but two Australian aviation magazines. Flypast magazine from the Yaffa Publishing house closed down and this was followed by the announcement that the January issue of the Stewart Wilson Aero magazine would be the last. Both magazines had been suffering a slow death with rising printing costs, the decline of advertising revenue, no doubt due to the rise in use of the internet, and the rise of postage costs coupled with the decline of bought copies. Airline pilots are well known to read but not buy aviation magazines at the airport news stand! The long running American trade publication Trade-A-Plane has advised that it is going entirely online for all the above reasons. We live in changing and indeed challenging times. No free copies of TAP at Avalon in the future. T H J. H very best aviation bookshop in Australia. No doubt the above factors are affecting other commercial aviation magazines and yet Aviator Media has bravely launched a new publication for world wide distribution entitled World of Aviation. Av Media publishes Australian Aviation magazine. Now it may be that the younger generation are happy to use the internet for some reading it is the older readers, those over 50, that still enjoy having a printed publication in their hands to read without having to boot up a PC or iPad to read whatever they want to read. It was just the other day that I was reading an article in a newspaper that commented that there appears to be an increasing level of readership of both books and magazines. Maybe print readership is making a comeback just like there is a slow but increasing demand for vinyl records. True! And flares are on the way back in. If you do not know what flares are then you are younger than 50 years old. And I am not talking of the boating emergency variety.

Member and former committee member Roland Jahne is getting stuck into pulling together a file for publication on the first aircraft to come onto the Australian Civil Aircraft Register. Roland has commented that for the first 40 something that got onto the register in 1921 there were some 60 waiting in the wings. Some eventually made it onto the register while a few retreated from the scene. If you as a member have both an interest of and records of those first aircraft onto the register then do make contact with Roland. He would be pleased to hear from you. Roland did make comment at a recent AHSA meeting that he was surprised at the amount of material that he kept seeing on the AHSA facebook website. Photos that he had not previously seen were turning up. These were helping his task but are not the and all and be all of getting details of those early aircraft histories together. Do make contact with Roland if you can assist.

December BBQ gathering. Instead of a members meeting in December we held a BBQ at the Australian National Aviation Museum at Moorabbin airport. Some thirty plus members turned up for the event and to devour a sausage while having an informal chat with other members. The weather held out and it was good to see the spread of members that attended. Member Keith Gaff had a chat with Judith Baker regarding the books and papers that her late husband and AHSA member, Bill Baker, had in his collection. As a result the books will be sold off, along with other books, at the AHSA stand at the mid year Sandown E . T AHSA 2019 19 . G ? W let you know more closer to Expo.

Meeting speakers. The year 2019 saw a number of great quality speakers at monthly AHSA meetings. We had Noel Jackling as the speaker at our Duigan Memorial Lecture talk about the early Dutch flights to Australia. More than I had ever known about. We were also lucky to have had James Kightly talk about writing, books and his connections with the Point Cook museum. We had Mike Falls Snr. talk about his lifetime working and flying in aviation. We had Roger McKay talk about life in the RAAF and later as a corporate pilot ever ready for the short notice call to fly half way around the world. Then we had Adrianne Fleming of TriStar Aviation tell us all about the life of running a flying school and all the connections that come with it. Now I know where the title TriStar came from. Ask me. Altogether we had a great range of speakers talking about various segments of Australian aviation which in turn means our aviation history. May it continue into 2020.

CONTRIBUTIONS If all members became just readers of Aviation Heritage and our newsletter, Outlook, and no one wrote for the publications where would we be? There would be no AHSA publications. That is the question that I have to ask all members. Both our journal, Aviation Heritage, and the newsletter, Outlook, need contributions to keep them alive and to record the passing parade of aviation history that involves Australian aviation, both civil and military. Indeed one can think of the AHSA publications as a co-op whereby members contribute for the benefit of members and others. Given that members are encouraged to contribute to our two publications think of it as just a little goes a long way. Member contributions for both publications are always welcome.

NOTEBOOK T F RAAF M G M M lecture is to be held over until April/May 2020.

PUBLICATIONS The AHSA presently receives four related aviation journals each year in exchange for our Aviation heritage. These are Canadian Aviation Historical Society Journal New Zealand Aviation Historical Society Journal Rag & Tube. Antique Aeroplane Association of Australia Aerogram. RAAF Point Cook T , . If members have any examples can they please return them to the committee at the next monthly meeting or next opportunity?

Nigel Pittaway

Editors Note; I first met Nigel Pittaway, about a lifetime ago, when we both worked on the Moorabbin Air Museums Faire Firefl project. Nigel joined the airlines and became a LAME. Today he is a freelance aviation writer and travels the world in search of material for his stories. Its a dirt job; but someone has to do it. He er kindl sent me this photo essa of the Kbel Aviation Museum in Prague in the Czech Republic: very exotic, very different..

H ; MIG 21. M C , I the sign on the side of this MIG says something like Historic Aircraft Museum. The Avia S199 was a brute of an aircraft with terrible handling characteristics. The Avia CS199 two seat trainer, essentially a Messerschmitt Bf109 G-12 was an attempt to prepare pilots to fly this beast. Only two air forces used them; Czechoslovakia and Israel and they were loathed and detested by the pilots of both nations.

An Aero Ae01 (Hansa Brandenburg B.1) was an unarmed trainer and reconnaissance aircraft of World War 1 and is the earliest known design of Ernst Heinkel. This aircraft was built under licence, post World War 1 in Czechoslovakia. Post world War 1 many air forces used SPAD fighters purchased as surplus from the French. Czechoslovakia operated between 70 and 80 SPAD S-VIIC.1 aircraft.

In 1923 Avia produced 15 examples of the Bk.11 two seat sports touring aircraft. They were used by the Czech Air Force for training and liaison duties. This replica was built in 1978 incorporating a number of original components. The Grumman Hellcat drones of the U.S. Navy were painted in a variety of garish colour schemes. My personal favourite is this pink example. As this Hellcat was being flown by a pilot it was, obviously not being shot at during this flight. The number on the tail, I believe, was an indicator of the radio frequency used to control the drone in unmanned flight.

This rather chunky looking beast is a Letov S.2, a re-engine version of the Letov S.1 which was designed by Alois Smolik in 1920 as an observation aircraft. It was the first aircraft built in Czechoslovakia.

L A The Polikarpov CSS-13 was a Polish licence built Polikarpov Po-2. These aircraft were used for everything from training to COIN warfare. The served with most air forces within the Soviet sphere of influence, including Czechoslovakia. One of the strangest looking jet fighters you will ever see; a Russian YAK 17. This was, essentially a piston engined fighter that had the piston engine removed and replaced by an early jet engine. Crude and only partly effective.

This appeals; a Lavochkin La-7, one of the best to come out of Russia in World War 2. Post war they equipped the air forces of a number of countries within the Soviet bloc. This one is finished in the colours of the Russian Air Force. . The Avia S.92 was a Czech, licence built version of the German Messerschmitt Me 262 jet . I C manufacturers. One of the reasons Germany annexed Czechoslovakia in 1938 was to gain access to their military/industrial complex. The Avia s.92 flew with the Czech Air Force for several years after World War 2.

The S.102 was the designation for a Czech built MIG 15SB, of which, this is a very tidy example. These served with the Czech Air Force for a number of years as fighters and then fighter bombers. The LET C.11 was the Czech licence built version of the Russian Yak 11. The Russian built 3,500 examples and they served with many Communist air forces. The Czechs built a further 707.

The only remnants of a Saro Cloud known to exist. Designed and built by Saunders-Roe the Cloud was used as a twin engine maritime reconnaissance flying boat. This aircraft went on a European sales tour in 1933 and was sold to the Czechoslovak State Airline. The Ilyushin Il 28 was code named BEAGLE by NATO was one of the most prolific Russian aircraft of the Cold War, serving with many Communist and non aligned nations. This Il 28RTR started service with the Czech Air Force in 1955 as a bomber and was later converted to an electronic warfare aircraft. It was retired in 1969. The western counterpart of the Il 28 is the English Electric Canberra.

Another foreign aircraft at Kbely is this McDonnell F4M Phantom II, ex Royal Navy. The British Phantoms were powered by the Rolls Royce Spey engine. This matching of a great airframe to an excellent engine had a surprising result. The Spey powered Phantom had a poorer performance than other versions of the aircraft. A couple of strangers in a strange land. Above is a Swedish SAAB Draken and below is a SAAB Viggen. How the Czech got hold of these, I have no idea. Obviously there was some fast dealing done between governments post the fall of the Iron Curtain. This kind of acquisition would never have occurred while Czechoslovakia was in the Eastern Block. There are mean machines and then there are really mean machines and this is one of them; the Ilyushin Il-2M3 S S A F 3 C A Regiment

This rather purposeful looking aircraft is a MIG 19. Note the darker oval patch on the fuselage forward of the wing leading edge. This is a stainless steel panel fitted to protect the aluminium skin from the fierce muzzle flash of the 37mm cannons fitted to the aircraft. This Northrop F-5E Tiger II finished in South Vietnamese Air Force colours poses a very large question; how did this aircraft end up in the Czech Republic ?. The most plausible answer is that this was one of several South Vietnamese Air Force examples sent to Russia after the fall of .

The Avia Bk534 is a somewhat unknown Czech biplane fighter that has a somewhat unique claim to fame. One of these was the last biplane fighter in history to score a victory in aerial combat. This took place during the Slovak Insurgent Uprising of 1944 when an Avia Bk534 of the Slovak Insurgent Air Force shot down a Hungarian Junkers Ju 52. Morane Saulnier Et2 is the Czech designation for a French Ms230. This machine was one of a W W 2. I F A F : in the Czech Republic is unclear.

A very nice example of a North American Harvard. This machine was built in Canada by Noorduyn and served with Royal Canadian Air Force. Now this is very nice; an Avia CS92, the Czech built equivalent of a Messerschmitt Me262B dual . T W W 2 G . N . I there to take the weight off the tyres and undercarriage.

Is there a more menacing image in modern warfare than the Mil Mi 24D ?. Code named Hind by NATO ; T W. I many nations of the Communist Bloc, Czechoslovakia made extensive use of the Hind Another interloper; in this case a DeHavilland Vampire of the Swiss Air Force. You can always tell Swiss Vampires and Venoms by the pointed and elongated nose unique to these aircraft.

This little guy in a VOSLM BAK 01 built in 1948 as a light weight sporting aircraft by students of L M T S. I A B XP-77 light weight fighter design of World War 2. Looking a little incongruous and uncomfortable amongst all this Soviet hardware is this American Lockheed T. 33. All that is known about this machine is that it came from the French Air Force.

Something of a change of pace is this Russian built Tupolev Tu-104A in Czechoslovak Airlines livery. Extensively used by Eastern European countries, these and other Russian airliners were immediately discarded when the Iron Curtain came down. This look like a Fieseler Storch but the Czechs call it a Mraz K-65 CAP. About 160 were produced during the war. Posy war another 138 were built to help re-equip the Czech Air Force.

The Storch replacement was the locally designed and built Aero XL-160 Brigadyr. By the time production ended in 1960, 273 had been made. They served only the Czech and East German Air Forces, but they were extensively used for various civilian purposes in many countries from Cuba to New Zealand. The Aero L-29 Delfin was the largest aircraft production program undertaken by any nation, other than Russia, in the Soviet Bloc. Aero Vodochody produced 3,000; of which 2,000 went to Russia where they were the standard jet trainer of the Russian Air Force. It was a largely successful attempt to standardize the training aircraft of the Warsaw Pact and other Soviet allies.

The Aero L-39 Albatross was produced to replace the L-29 and was an export success for Aero Vodochody. Curiously, while it served all through the Soviet Bloc, it never received a NATO code name. When the type was retired a number were purchased in the West and several are flying in private hands on the airshow circuit including, at least, one in Australia. Czechoslovakia received 18 MIG 29 jet fighters, 9 of which went to the Czech Republic and 9 to Slovakia when Czechoslovakia voluntarily partitioned. The Czech Republic no longer flies the MIG 29. Most were swapped to Poland for a batch of helicopters.

The Avia Av-14T is a Czech built Ilyushin Il14, roughly the equivalent of a Convair Metropolitan. The type was built in Czechoslovakia in considerable numbers and they were put to all manner of uses. In 1934 the Czech Air Force asked the firm of Avia to design and build a specialist aerobatic aircraft to compete in the International Aerobatic Competition to be held in France during that year. The result was the Avia Ba.122. This is a replica of replica of one of those machines.

The Orlican L-40 Meta Sokol was designed as a touring aircraft and while its design was a little unorthodox it met with considerable success and was exported to a number of countries, including Australia. The Zlin C-106 us a German Bucker Bu-181 Bestmann built by the Zliner Flugzeugwerke AG during World War 2 and continued in production after the withdrawal of German forces in 1945. They would serve in both, military and civilian roles.

This one is for Alan Patching. This is a Let L-13 Blanik, The Kbely Museum has a large selection of gliders. The Sukhoi Su-7BKL was a strike fighter, roughly similar to a North American F 100 Super Sabre with regard to mission parameters. The Sukhoi series of aircraft were overshadowed by the MIG series, but they were made in large numbers and exported all over the world.

This MIG 21PFM is just one of the countless versions of the Russian MIG 21 that saw service all over the world. After the Czech uprising (the Prague Spring) in 1968 the Russians became very suspicious of the Czechs and kept them on a short chain , for many years, regarding the supply of military equipment. Quite a few people got this one. It is a Douglas F3D Skynight, one of the first, all weather, jet interceptors. This is how the aircraft appeared in 1977 at the Pima County Air Museum in Tucson, Arizona.

A ; take a shot at this one. If you think you know please email me at [email protected]. I A N A M . T AESL CT-4 A19-036 was donated to the museum by the RMIT School of Aerospace Engineering, Bundoora Campus, where it was sent, after its RAAF service, for various research purposes. It finished its time at RMIT as an instructional airframe. Your humble Editor lives next door to RMIT Bundoora and I had no idea it was there.

H different arriving at ANAM: a modern interpretation of Henri Magnets Flying Flea, with . I : like ?. Last of the acquisitions (more than enough for now) is CAC Macchi Trainer A7-047, once the Admirals Barge of former Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal . This is a particularly nice ANAM .

With all the aircraft moving into Moorabbin something had to move out. With the acquisition of CAC Sabre A94- 910, Sabre A94-989 became redundant. This aircraft had been acquired from Pearce Dunns Warbirds Museum at Mildura in 1982. The aircraft was made up of parts from many Sabres and was something of a patchwork quilt. The Sabre was sold to a small museum in Mildura so, in a sense, the Sabre is going . I aircraft has gone over the museum fence under a crane. One aircraft left out of Nigel Pittaways article was CAC Sabre A94-923. Truly a stranger in a strange land this Sabre ended up in the Czech Republic via a convoluted exchange deal. It is the only CAC Sabre in Europe. I love the kill markings. Photo; Roland Jahne In this editions oDD sPOT we look at two interesting aircraft; both military and both ending up in airline service. The North American Harvard (above) originally served with the Royal New Zealand Air Force and on retirement, was sent to Air New . I and flying again in New Zealand. Below is an Aermacchi MB326 used by Alitalia to introduce trainee pilots to jet flight. This is one of four that the Italian airline operated.