Ralf Roggeveen
Charter Member
While I'm sitting at home playing with flightsims my little sister is travelling all over the world in real aeroplanes visiting exotic places. Recently she sent a postcard from O'Reilly's Rainforest Guesthouse, Queensland, Australia. This commemorates the crash of a Stinson Model A (VH-UHH) belonging to Airlines of Australia which happened on February 19 1937. It was on a 40 minute flight between Archerfield and Lismore (to the west of Brisbane), unfortunately they flew into a cyclone that had formed over the McPherson Range on the Queensland/New South Wales border.
Captain Rex Boyden and First Officer Shepherd were killed on impact, as were the starboard side passengers Graham and Fountain. Yet three passengers who had been sitting on the port side of the aircraft survived: Jim Westray, John Proud and Joe Binstead. Westray, an Englishman and the youngest and fittest, went to get help, but the others, especially Proud with a broken leg, were too badly injured to move. They were actually kept warm for a while by the burning wreckage of the Stinson.
Of course there was a major search and rescue attempt as soon as it was realised that the airliner was long overdue at Lismore. This went on for several days, but after more than a week it was assumed that they must have ditched into the sea. The only man who didn't give up was local farmer Bernard O'Reilly who, by realising that the newspapers were wrong, and by talking to the last people who had actually seen the Stinson overhead, worked out where it was most likely to have come down in the mountains. He then went alone, by horse and foot, cutting through extremely difficult rainforest terrain, successfully locating the crash site and survivors after 11 days.
Tragically Westray, who was also badly burned, had died in a fall. O'Reilly discovered his body, but was able to alert 14 other rescuers including a Doctor Lawler. They then actually hacked through nearly 15 miles of forest to save Proud and Binstead. This was a brilliant achievement of Bernard O'Reilly's which, in war, would undoubtedly have won him the Victoria Cross. He has left a beautifully-written and admirably modest account in his book Green Mountains (first published in 1941).
You can recreate the flight in fs9. There is a very nice Stinson Model A available from http://www.goldenagesimulations.com/
This is only $15 (US) and includes a version in Airlines of Australia livery, VH-UKK City of Townsville. If you set up the flight IFR Low Altitude airways the computer will send you the safe way, via the coast. If you fly more realistically for 1937 by direct visual navigation, you will go straight over the mountains. this also requires 7000ft (the McPhersons reach about half that height). You can also set the weather to storms brewing and have extra difficulty with the aircraft on full realism! It will stall if you don't throttle down at the right moment after takeoff & climb.
Last picture shows Bernard O'Reilly shortly after the rescue. He looks a bit strange because he's wearing his wife's cardigan! Obviously his own clothes were soaked through after so long in the rainforest.
Jim Westray was buried near where he fell. An epic story from a Heroic Age.
Captain Rex Boyden and First Officer Shepherd were killed on impact, as were the starboard side passengers Graham and Fountain. Yet three passengers who had been sitting on the port side of the aircraft survived: Jim Westray, John Proud and Joe Binstead. Westray, an Englishman and the youngest and fittest, went to get help, but the others, especially Proud with a broken leg, were too badly injured to move. They were actually kept warm for a while by the burning wreckage of the Stinson.
Of course there was a major search and rescue attempt as soon as it was realised that the airliner was long overdue at Lismore. This went on for several days, but after more than a week it was assumed that they must have ditched into the sea. The only man who didn't give up was local farmer Bernard O'Reilly who, by realising that the newspapers were wrong, and by talking to the last people who had actually seen the Stinson overhead, worked out where it was most likely to have come down in the mountains. He then went alone, by horse and foot, cutting through extremely difficult rainforest terrain, successfully locating the crash site and survivors after 11 days.
Tragically Westray, who was also badly burned, had died in a fall. O'Reilly discovered his body, but was able to alert 14 other rescuers including a Doctor Lawler. They then actually hacked through nearly 15 miles of forest to save Proud and Binstead. This was a brilliant achievement of Bernard O'Reilly's which, in war, would undoubtedly have won him the Victoria Cross. He has left a beautifully-written and admirably modest account in his book Green Mountains (first published in 1941).
You can recreate the flight in fs9. There is a very nice Stinson Model A available from http://www.goldenagesimulations.com/
This is only $15 (US) and includes a version in Airlines of Australia livery, VH-UKK City of Townsville. If you set up the flight IFR Low Altitude airways the computer will send you the safe way, via the coast. If you fly more realistically for 1937 by direct visual navigation, you will go straight over the mountains. this also requires 7000ft (the McPhersons reach about half that height). You can also set the weather to storms brewing and have extra difficulty with the aircraft on full realism! It will stall if you don't throttle down at the right moment after takeoff & climb.
Last picture shows Bernard O'Reilly shortly after the rescue. He looks a bit strange because he's wearing his wife's cardigan! Obviously his own clothes were soaked through after so long in the rainforest.
Jim Westray was buried near where he fell. An epic story from a Heroic Age.
