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                                       withdrawn from use by the club in 1961.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.