Air Racing from mid-60's to mid-70's - an annual sporting event for aviators originating at Archerfield Airport in QLD.

Looking at the 1974 Hinkler 1000 Air Race held over the weekend of June 15 and 16 that was of particular interest to me wherein a person (pilot) who never thought he would ever be good enough to be "on the podium" in an air race had his mind-set change in an instant of time.

Allan Fordyce was a keen, as in very keen, Aero Club member having learnt to fly in Tiger Moths with the club at Archerfield after the war years but was still a low-time private pilot as his self-employment as an auto-electrician apparently did not allow for sufficient time or funds to 'go-flying' when ever he felt like it.

What he did enjoy was mixing with club members on a Friday night in the Club Bar and listening to the other pilots 'brag' about their aeronautical skills and wanting to associate himself with the various 'wartime' pilots drinking at the bar who were heroes to us all 'lesser' pilots.

The bar was a friendly, noisy and crowded place on a Friday night with a lot of 'tall' stories flying to and fro that were occasionally interrupted with raucous laughter if someone happened to mention they got lost on a cross-country flight or similar uncertainty.

As mentioned, the time is mid-1974 with the normally good flying weather ahead after the storms and rain associated with summer just past.

Allan wants to be in the air-race but no one will go with him as he had to land at Warwick after he was 'unsure of his position' (got lost in other words) in an earlier race and was the laugh of the bar when he asked if any one would like to join him in the upcoming event that was about to take place in a few weeks time.

This 1974 race was from Archerfield to Narrabri in western NSW to refuel then it headed back east to Coffs Harbour on the coast where there was a stopover for the night. Next morning Sunday the race continued from Coffs Harbour to Dalby in QLD then back to Archerfield via Flinders Peak to avoid the Amberley military airspace to the west of Archerfield.

I had shared an aircraft with Allan in an earlier race so we both knew each others idiosyncrasies. At the time I was short on funds and Allan was looking for a co-pilot so I agreed to navigate for him if he paid for the aircraft (I only wanted to fly the last leg back to Archerfield as the navigation was 'easy') and we were to go halves in any money we won with Allan to keep the trophy.

Normally a small amount of money along with a trophy was given for those coming first, second or third with only a memento type trophy for other various sectional first place winners. Example if you had not won a major prize and you were the fastest aircraft for a particular leg you were then awarded a prize.

Allan was happy to agree to this as winning anything in an air-race was beyond his comprehension.

It was a handicap style race with the nominated air-speed based on the aircraft's advertised performance at 75% power less 10%. If the manufacture of the aircraft was honest with the performance of their machine then any aircraft theoretically could win but only if the navigation was 'spot-on' and head-tail winds correctly applied for height flown.

Little did Allan know that his position in the world of private flying was about to change - instead of the being the joke of the bar before the race those that scoffed at Allan were about to be the 'joke' post race.

At this stage of my flying I had just over 300hrs which was logged incidentally when flying the last sector of this race. The race was mainly for the private pilot side of aviation although some commercial pilots entered to brush up on their flying and navigational skills.

There were 93 Entrants - Aircraft type selected for this race was a Piper PA28-150 Registered VH-PRO

VH-PRO was not considered by members of the Royal Queensland Aero Club (RQAC who owned and operated the aircraft) to be fast enough for air-racing purposes.

It was the Club's main instrument flight training aircraft and was 'loaded' with all the necessary instruments to carry out IFR training and as such was heavier than the other similar powdered machines. It was a race requirement to have the aircraft depart the first leg of each day at the 'all-up-weight' for their machine so that all entrants were theoretically equal.

Less weight meant a shorter or less time to climb to cruise height and a small gain in airspeed.

No one had booked PRO for the race and it was the only aircraft left that was available - at least up to about a week before the start. Some members had booked their race aircraft a year earlier in anticipation of the big-day.

So here we were taxying out on the Saturday morning for the start of this first air-race leg full of anticipation and mild excitement that is associated with any race. Just the 2-of-us as the tanks were full and we were unable to carry an extra person in this 'heavy' or as some aero club members called PRO 'a slow PA28' we were not allowed to exceed our all-up flying weight.

The weather forecast was good with a light westerly wind blowing making for a headwind as we were heading south-west to Narrabri. From previous flights Allen knew I would be 'fastidious' about holding an accurate compass heading and height in the sometimes rough air conditions.

Having to cross over the Great Divide just before Stanthorpe I asked Allan to keep the aircraft low to burn off as much fuel as we could before attempting the climb over the range.

Stanthorpe apple orchards came up on track and went under the wing about 500 feet below as we slowly made our way up to a low cruise height of about 1500 feet above ground level.

During the climb I was looking out the window watching the farms and trees go by when I noticed that as we approached our nominated cruise height the rate of trees passing under the leading edge of the wing slowed down (due to the increasing head-wind) so I asked Allan to descend a little to see what would happen and yes the trees sped up and going further down they slowed down again.

I felt that between 800 to 900 feet above ground was the best height to fly this leg and that's what we did.

After a little while I noticed a smoke stack to the north from a power station I recall where the smoke rose up for a short distance vertically then headed west and then turned back east in the opposite direction after about 1000 feet in height.

We were in a layer of air around 200 feet 'thick' that had a tail-wind component for us and - as I found out later the only one with a tail wind for that leg of the race.

Note for navigators a 10-knot tailwind in a supposed 10-knot head-wind conditions is a whopping 20% gain in performance for our type of aircraft.

It was not all luck for us on the leg from Narrabri to Coffs Harbour I kept Allan too low only by 1000 feet mind you and did not discover this error until ready for descent into Coffs by which time it was just too late.

We had dropped back from what would have been a guaranteed first place but I felt we were still ahead of the vast majority of flyers.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and on arriving back at Archerfield went home to freshen up and return as soon as I could for the awards ceremony.

The "Presentation of Awards" was held in the RQAC hangar and there would have been over 1000 attendees all chatting and kicking up a hell of a din waiting for the start.

I was sitting with Allan at a table (only the two of us as we had no race friends as such - we were losers remember) it was close to the raised stage section where the presentation was to be held. One of the air-race officials Derek Bloxham - came past and said you got it right this time Don" without mentioning any place but suggesting that we had done well so at least I was feeling satisfied.

Derek had me in first place in the 1970 'Warana' race which I had said was nonsense as it was my first race and I was as 'green' as hell and after some paper work shuffle I was placed 20th.

So as the race organisers fussed over the wide range of beautiful trophies up on the stage Allan was reminiscing to me on how wonderful it would be to receive one of those trophies - something he constantly dreamt about at this time of the year.

It was all but a wild dream for Allan after all we had the so called slowest aircraft in the race.

Attention was announced by the master of ceremonies and air race chief Tom Drury that proceeding were about to get under-way with the third-place getter to be announced first as was the custom, then second and then first place.

Allen was nonchalant and looking about not expecting anything to happen as the third place getter's name was announced at the very start of proceedings.

Silence descended on the crowd and perhaps there was a little shock registering with some and all went quiet, no one moved. The announcement had not registered with Allan that it was his name that had just been called.

With a quick 'that's you Allan get moving' from me he got to his feet in a daze and stumbled up the stairs and went on receive something that just a moment earlier was beyond his wildest dream.

It was a very different aero club for Allen a week later with smiles and handshakes all around and no doubt some 'loud-mouths' at the bar were humbled and had to 'pull their heads in' or 'bite their tongues'.

I received my agreed share of the prize money and Allan got to keep the trophy.

Allan died a few years later no doubt happy in his mind that he had achieved at least one his life long dreams.

It was to be one of the last annual Hinkler based air-races - the last was held 2-years later coupled with the Tom McDonald race to Horn Island in the Torres Strait.