VH-RNJ
(1) DHC-1 Chipmunk
T.10
(c/n
C1-0496)
On 22 April 1957 this Royal
Newcastle Aero Club Chipmunk made a forced landing in a paddock
just south of Shellharbour township, NSW
Paul Hockey, who provides the shots above
and
below was 11 years old and living in the area at the
time, saw -RNJ trailing smoke from its engine,
grabbed his
trusty Brownie Box camera, jumped on his bike and captured these
images. That's young
Paul in the photo below. It's a little lo-res, but it look
like he's wearing a sailor hat! Paul advises that
the area adjacent to where the a/c landed is now being developed as
the Shell Cove Marina The photo
at the foot of the page shows
-RNJ in a line up of RNAC Chipmunks, circa the same time.
Formerly
WG412
this
Chipmunk was civilianized for broker W.S. Shackleton in the
U.K. in 1956 ostensibly as
G-AOUC.
It was never converted in the
U.K and was shipped out to
Australia for the RNAC. It was
withdrawn
from use by the club in 1961. In 1966, this Chippie (or at
least the
fuselage of it) was used
as the
basis for
the non-agricultural version of the Sasin Spraymaster, known as
the Aerostructures SA29
Sundowner and registered VH-CXZ although officially this
rego
was not taken up, and was used for test
flight purposes only. The converted
aircraft was sold in the US becoming N8DW with the c/n of F354
which was the fuselage number
of the original C1/0496.