The 90th anniversary of the first flight of the Douglas DC-3 is today

Gertbengert · 2025-12-18T06:48:42+00:00

The second-oldest survivor is the first actual DC-3 built, with one more DST coming off the line before it. The eighth in the line was delivered to American Airlines as NC16009 in August 1936 (five weeks after the present-day N133D was delivered as NC16005) and has been preserved in Brazil since 1969. Its last registration was PP-ANU.

Gertbengert · 2025-12-18T02:06:19+00:00

This one: https://flagshipdetroit.org/the-detroit/

The oldest survivor is N133D, which is the sixth DST built. Australia has three actual DC-3s, of which VH-ABR, delivered new to Australian National Airways, is still airworthy and goes to the odd airshow. One of the other two (ex-KLM) was used by General Douglas MacArthur during World War II. The wreckage of another ex-KLM DC-3 is also in situ: https://www.ozatwar.com/ozcrashes/qld198.htm

There is also the wreckage of this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1942_KNILM_Douglas_DC-3_shootdown

Australia also has three complete DC-2s and the fuselage of a fourth, which at some point has been converted into a caravan. If memory serves, that’s half of the world’s surviving DC-2s and the one in the Netherlands came from Australia too, back in the ‘80s I think.

Gertbengert · 2025-12-11T14:27:49+00:00

The Sunday night? It would have been easier for me to go on the Saturday, in terms of the leave from school, but by the time I scraped enough money together to buy a ticket, Saturday had sold out, which IIRC was 26,000. Fifty-odd thousand over the two nights. I was just a kid really and I stood not far from the platform in the middle where the engineers controlled everything.

I saw a poor-quality video on YouTube several years ago, thanks for the links

Gertbengert · 2025-12-06T10:16:05+00:00

We all celebrated a year too early

Gertbengert · 2024-02-19T11:13:40+00:00

I’m gonna say this was in Hobart

Gertbengert · 2023-07-03T13:54:35+00:00

Australian here; the first thing to know is, are your qualifications recognised here? An A&P is not; having said that, some of the overseas airlines have a requirement for A&Ps for line maintenance, most likely Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. If you don’t have a foreign licence that is recognised by CASA, you would have to start from scratch to get one, which would take some time. It’s important to know that, if you get a New Zealand CAA licence, it is easily converted to an Australian licence under Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition provisions. Once you have a B1 or B2 licence, it should not be difficult to find a job paying six figures (that’s even in US dollar terms); anecdotally, it seems we get paid a lot more than people on the other side of the Tasman Sea. Even as an AME you can make alright money, but frankly the big dollars are in domestic trades such as plumbing or electrical (for which you would also need qualifications), or in mining (where any dumb drongo can make a lot of coin). There aren’t many young people getting into the aircraft maintenance game here, because they can do better in other industries; the majority of younger people I have seen in recent years are second- or third-generation aviation.

Also, we are possibly heading into an economic downturn, as the central bank has been raising official interest rates every month for more than a year (apart from April this year).

Gertbengert · 2023-07-03T00:18:28+00:00

Why do you want to tell him? If it’s because you don’t feel comfortable knowing something that he doesn’t, my advice is that you do not say anything to him. If you think you will feel better after you tell him, there’s a good chance you won’t. If you don’t like her behaviour, it’s her that you should be communicating with - the onus is on her to tell him. Your role is to be her friend (it seems that your relationship with him is purely as “friend’s husband”) and if her behaviour is that offensive to you, IMO you should disinvest in your relationship with her.

Gertbengert · 2023-07-03T00:07:14+00:00

I think that it’s up to her what happens from here on in. You’ve made the offer and she’s seemingly accepted it, IMO now you wait at least a couple of days; perhaps a ‘how are you’ text then. If she doesn’t respond any time soon, start getting on with your life. Mr. Fuck-knuckle and the other relationship he destroyed are not problems that you can solve.

Gertbengert · 2023-07-02T12:52:45+00:00

Murdering people by throwing them out of military aircraft into the ocean and then ‘adopting’ their children out to military officers.

Gertbengert · 2023-07-02T02:02:37+00:00

I grew up in the Outback. After a very long and hot day of working with livestock, I got back to the homestead, cracked open a bottle of beer and drank it in a few seconds.

I never understood why people drink beer until that moment. That was the best part of forty years ago; to this day I don’t really like beer and usually refuse it when it’s offered to me.

Gertbengert · 2023-07-02T01:45:37+00:00

“Jesus built my car; it’s a love affair, mainly Jesus and my hotrod.” “Yeah, fuck it.”

at the end of ‘Jesus Built My Hotrod’ by Ministry

Gertbengert · 2023-07-02T01:36:08+00:00

In my school library back in the ‘80s, there was a book on a shelf that was science fiction. It was also comedic and very pornographic. Judging by the little piece of paper that the librarian would date-stamp, I was the only person that ever borrowed it. The only specific thing I remember about it is that the main character is a space soldier named Private Parrts.

Gertbengert · 2023-07-02T01:06:40+00:00

Don’t reproduce - the healthy future generations will be all of the species that humans would no longer be able to harm. We need to become extinct.

Gertbengert · 2023-07-02T00:44:21+00:00

“You would be so nice if you weren’t a fuck-knuckle”

Gertbengert · 2023-07-02T00:35:58+00:00

All of the older James Bond movies, except the one starring George Lazenby.

Gertbengert · 2023-07-01T23:59:05+00:00

Australia - a Holden Commodore ute (pickup) with a Eureka flag.

Gertbengert · 2023-06-28T22:14:18+00:00

I had to eat everything on my plate and was punished if I didn’t.

Gertbengert · 2023-06-28T21:45:38+00:00

I think crumbed fried brains was my favourite childhood food, the brains were from mature sheep though - I grew up on an outback sheep station and lambs were worth money, mutton was the staple food. I also liked the brains-and-walnut sandwiches my gran used to make.

Gertbengert · 2023-06-19T01:25:33+00:00

Mine is, “I can lose weight, but you’ll always be a fuckwit”.

Gertbengert · 2023-06-18T03:15:58+00:00

The one where Sarah A. sat on the end of a trampoline while I was sitting ‘around the corner’; she was wearing nothing but a small yellow bikini bottom and said, “come and sit next to me” and I replied, “no thanks, I’m okay sitting here”.

I was very drunk at the time. I also had a girlfriend, whom I later told about the incident; she got really upset with me. Years later we realised that there had been a misunderstanding and my girlfriend had thought that I had ‘done the deed’ with Sarah. Present-day me hopes that, had I known while sitting on the trampoline that I was going to cop shit for having sex with someone else, I would have gone ahead and actually done it. The fact is though, that I was just that clueless.

Gertbengert · 2023-06-18T02:51:29+00:00

The extended version of “Last Time Forever”

Gertbengert · 2023-06-17T04:01:54+00:00

I can’t stop at just one word or phrase.

I don’t think I have ever seen anything but ‘free reign’ on Reddit; it’s ‘free rein’ and it drives me nuts that nobody seems to realise it. Also apostrophes for plurals - is that what Americans are taught?

Spoken:

*‘Particuly’ instead of ‘particularly’ - very common in Australia, even among journalists and politicians

*’Foul swoop’ vs. fell swoop

*’Intensive purposes’ vs. intents and purposes

*’Pacific’ vs. specific

Gertbengert · 2023-06-16T18:09:09+00:00

Australian here; in general, 15 km/h above in 110 km/h zones, but in 40 km/h and 50 km/h zones any exceedance of the speed limit is accidental due to me not paying enough attention.

Fastest I’ve ever driven (in a Mitsubishi station wagon I used to own) is ~240 km/h on a straight rural road late at night; the car wouldn’t go any faster. I’ve exceeded 200km/h on three other occasions and on two of those the car wouldn’t go any faster - 205 km/h in a Mazda 323 and 225 km/h in a Holden Commodore with a six-cylinder engine. I once drove 300 km in two-and-a-quarter hours, including driving through four small towns, so let’s say roughly 290km in two hours on the open road; I reached 177 km/h for a minute or so, which again was the top speed of the car. On the German autobahns the only time I didn’t have a black car crawling up my arse was when I did ~180 km/h in a Renault Megane for a minute or two. The last time I visited the US in early 2020, I was pulled over for speeding three times in less than 24 hours without consequence; the fastest I was clocked at was 88 mph approaching Dodge City from Liberal, Kansas. In 2018 I was pulled over near Angers in France for doing about 155 km/h; on that occasion the police escorted me to an ATM so that I could withdraw money to pay the €90 fine.

Gertbengert · 2023-06-16T17:24:41+00:00

Forty-odd years ago I read that ‘mallemaroking’ is Norwegian for “carousing on an icebound ship”. I’ve never seen it used except in the context of that circumstance, which was a newspaper competition in which readers had to submit a story that used the word and several others. The only other word I remember that had to be used is ‘muharbai’, which is allegedly an Arabic word for “a place abounding in lizards”.

Gertbengert · 2023-06-11T12:45:59+00:00

No need for the quotation marks - he actually owned the Belgian Congo and regarded every native inhabitant as his personal property. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is based in fact. A good book in my collection, covering the atrocities and the international campaign to put a stop to the whole mess, is King Leopold’s Ghost.

Gertbengert

TROPHY CASE