Nostalgia...

[Frederick Lacey]

As most of you will know the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain has been going on for a short while, for
a while there has been the odd Spitfire and Hurricane in the distance or quite high, even a Dakota has been flying
around, but this morning I was out in the garden and heard this noise, looked up and there was a Dakota flying low
towards me followed by a Spitfire and a Hurricane, and the roar of those Merlin engines, pure magic, felt like I was
having my own flypast, never had them that low over the house before,but it was great. Fred.

[Richard Quartermaine]

In the 50s and early 60s Dakotas were a very reliable form of transport. One used to be on the Kota Kinabalu (Jesselton) Labuan run in Borneo. Also Polynesian Airlines had one. The first time on the Malaysian Airlines one at Kota Kinabalu A very old expat pilot got in and climbed the steep incline up the aisle to the cockpit. In the cockpit he did all the necessary and cranked up the starboard engine that coughed and sputtered into life with clouds of blue smoke bellowing out. The same thing went on with the port engine and as we moved onto the airstrip as he revved it up the old girl shuddered like a dog coming in out of the rain. the varnished panels lining the interior housed many cockroaches that were obviously used to this peril and crawled out of the cracks only to disappear back again when the panels and the skin stopped arguing. Richard

[Richard Quartermaine]

My first time on an aircraft was to join the Burns Philp ship MV Bulolo at Brisbane sailing on 21st August 1948. I caught a flight from Sydney on Australian National Airways and we sailed right away. I can't be sure whether it was a 20th or 21st flight but as it was in those days, once on board the daily news was not often heard.
Your post Fred got me looking on the Net and I was surprised to see the detail of the 'Lutana'. I wonder if it was the same 'plane that crashed en route from Brisbane to Sydney on 2nd September, 1948 killing all aboard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_A...ays_DC-3_crash
Richard

[Braid Anderson]

All very well I suppose, but what on earth did the Dakota have to do with the Battle of Britain?

[j.sabourn]

Must have been in there somewhere Brad. Were they not used to transfer air crew from the likes of Canada after training, as well as cargo. Similar to Richard think my first commercial flight was on one Newcastle airport (just a field then with a couple of tin huts on ) to Hamburg or Bremen for a crew change. Were they also not used to get over the Berlin wall with much needed supplies for the civilian population during the cold war period. JS

[Doc Vernon]

Battle of Britain Memorial Flight

Glorious photographs in Haynes book capture RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight | Daily Mail Online

[Doc Vernon]

First time I saw a Dakota was when my late Brother was in the South African Air Force,
They used to fly down to Cape Town when on leave on Weekends! Used to go and meet him at the Airbase (Wingfield) when they arrived from Pretoria.s Langabaan Air base!
Real nice old Planes and very reliable,although a bit uncomfortable ! LOL

Had a lovely drone to them I must say! But I loved the sound of any Aircraft!
When I later joined the RAF we were told of the old Dakota.
But never saw one in the UK to be honest>
Lots of other planes of course,i especially liked the old Lancaster Bomber with its rear Gun Turret!
My old Man used to be a rear Gunner in WW2.
What a job too I reckon it was hair raising to say the least!

Cheers

[happy daze john in oz]

On my recent trip to London I called to see my 93 year old great uncle, lhe was a fitter with the RAF and told me he spent most of his time working n the Merlin engines. Visited some 15 countries doing this work.

[John Albert Evans]

The first time I flew was i a Dakota, it was 1950s flew from Southend to either, cannt remember which off hand, Rotterdam or Amsterdam to join a ship. I remember it was very noisey.

JAE.

[Ivan Cloherty]

All very well I suppose, but what on earth did the Dakota have to do with the Battle of Britain?

Braid, the title for these particular posts is 'Nostalgia' so that covers a multitude of sins though the initial posting was about the Battle of Britain and so far the messroom hasn't diverted too much from the original. I remember being able to tell the sound difference twixt Spitfire and Hurricanes and also twixt different bombers, but one which had a very distinct sound was the Mosquitoe. I also flew in Dakotas when working in Ethiopia very comfortable (and very sparse) and very different walking 'up' the aisle instead of along it as in modern aircraft. Oldest Dakota was from Djibouti to Aden and had a couple of windows missing we flew so low that you could virtually read the names of the ships as we flew over them, not only that I had been drinking with a couple of French guys in the Nissan hut bar at Djibouti dressed in floral shirts (the guys not the hut), both got on board and went into the pilots seats! but one of the smoothest landings I'd experienced