The Age (Melbourne newspaper), 25 July 2014, by Tony Wright, geplaatst met toestemming van de journalist:
As our television screens fill with vision of Australian and Dutch planes ferrying bodies brought down in a distant field, the hearts of the world wishing for a restoration of decency from ghastliness, there hovers in aviation history a moment that has the power to lift evaporating spirits.
It involves a Dutch plane and good people in an Australian country town. It happened 80 years ago and remains among the most remarkable events to join the earth and the sky.
In October, 1934, 20 flying machines from seven countries set out from London to race to Melbourne. To put the challenge into context, it was just 15 years since the first London to Australia flight was completed by brothers Ross and Keith Smith. It took the best part of a month, cost the lives of four other airmen and was such an achievement the brothers were knighted.
The world was thus in a high state of excitement when the great London to Melbourne air race of 1934 was announced as part of Melbourne's centenary celebrations. Among the contestants was the Uiver, a new DC2 purchased by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. Millions of people across the world listened to wireless reports and newspapers published special updates as the flock of planes lumbered towards Australia.
They made remarkable time, and only three days after leaving London, the Uiver – just an hour behind the leader – ran into dreadful problems over southern NSW. It flew into a wild thunderstorm storm that blew up its communications equipment, stole visibility and left its pilot, Captain Koene Parmentier, and navigator, Johannes Moll, utterly lost. Disaster seemed certain. The Uiver was the only plane in the race to carry fare-paying passengers – three of them, along with the crew of four.
Night fell and the Uiver – Dutch for stork – flew off course and blind above the Murray Valley, perilously close to the mountains of the Australian alps. RAAF signallers at Laverton couldn't work out where the plane might be. Radio stations across Victoria and NSW broadcast messages calling on citizens to keep their ears open and their eyes peeled, railway stations from Albury to Melbourne switched on their lights and naval ships beamed searchlights into the sky.
Albury's municipal electrical engineer, Lyle Ferris, a man of initiative, tore open the town's light-switching headquarters and enlisted telegraphist R.J. Turner to turn the city's entire street-lighting system into a giant morse code signal. The lights blinked out the code for ALBURY, ALBURY, over and over. And glory be, it worked. Amid the beating of rain just after midnight, sharp ears in the city of Albury picked up the beat of big motors. Captain Parmentier, his motors running desperately low on fuel, had picked out the lights blinking their message through the clouds.
All very well. There was a town down there, but how could he land a plane weighing eight tonnes without knowing whether there was an airstrip and where it might be? Albury had no airport, but the district had a radio station – 2CO Corowa. And it had a radio nnouncer, a fellow named Arthur Newnham, with just as much nouse as the municipal engineer. Everyone had a wireless, and everyone was listening. Everywhere. The story of peril was being telegraphed from continent to continent, binding a massive audience within a single hope: save the souls aboard the Uiver.
It was Arthur Newnham's moment to shine. He spoke into his microphone, imploring listeners with a motor car to drive to Albury's racecourse, to turn their headlights on full and to line up in two rows, forming between them a floodlit landing strip. And so the road to a country racecourse became a stream of 80 jalopies in the hour after midnight, the rain pouring, a big plane's fuel tanks emptying. At 1.20am, the crew of the Uiver tossed out two parachute flares to grant more illumination and the plane made the single approach left to it between catastrophe and deliverance. Its wheels touched, bumped, leapt, bumped again and suddenly the air machine was streaking across the racecourse in-field between the lines of headlights, finally pulling to a stop 100 metres from the running rail.
The cheering folk of Albury weren't finished. The race was still on and even if this was a Dutch plane, it was the plane they'd plucked from the storm. The Uiver was bogged deep in rain-softened mud. Urged on by the mayor, Alf Waugh, three hundred townspeople turned out in the dawn with shovels and ropes, dug out the wheels and hand-hauled the plane to firmer ground. The luggage, passengers, half the crew, 30,000 letters and the seats were tossed out to lighten the machine.
And so, early on morning of October 25, 1934, the Uiver lifted off and flew to Melbourne, second overall in the race and the winner on handicap. Captain Parmentier and First Officer Moll were knighted by Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands and mayor Alf Waugh was presented with one of the Netherlands' greatest honours, the Order of the Orange-Nassau.
Tragically, the Uiver crashed less than two months later in the desert of Syria, killing all on board. The people of Albury put the hat around to pay for a memorial in The Netherlands to the plane and its crew.
And here we are, 80 years on, Dutch and Australian air crews working together, their efforts and a shared history reminding us that even in the face of disaster, impending or actual, good people can rescue what often seems that most elusive of qualities.
Dignity.
Al bouwend kwam ik erachter dat het bouwsel te groot werd, of de kamer te klein, afhankelijk van hoe je er tegenaan kijkt. Dus moest er eerst weer het een en ander afgebroken worden om vervolgens met aanpassingen weer te worden opgebouwd. Het resultaat staat er nu, klaar om verder te worden ingericht met het computerspul. Er moet nog een dak op natuurlijk en de wanden moeten nog opgebouwd worden, een kniesoor die daar op let.
De twee meest gecompliceerde onderdelen, de EFIS en de Autopiloot, waren al eerder binnengekomen. Materiaal van Open Cockpits, een stelletje mafkezen zoals ik die ooit op het idee kwam een 737 Cockpit te gaan bouwen en nu een florerend bedrijf hebben omdat hun materiaal vanuit de gehele wereld door velen besteld wordt. Ik ben absoluut niet de enige in de wereld die hiermee bezig is.
