Fly Away With Phil – HARS 2022

Hars 2022
HARS with Phil HARS with Phil2 HARS with Phil3

14 November 2022 / Words: Bill Short. Photos: Phil Belcher; Rob Wilko & Greg Unger

Photos : Rob Wilko here.  Greg Unger here

Attention!!!

We will now do a story of our beloved Red Baron and his 2022 breakout at Shellharbour Regional Airport. We meet in the museum and 747 café car park in the grounds of the Shellharbour City Airport at 9.30 am for a 10.00am morning tea and look around the memorabilia in the gift shop.

The Red Baron (aka Phil Belcher) has parked his very red NA MX5 near the entrance to the HARS museum whilst he directs his “flying circus” of MX5’s to park in the grounds of HARS and under the wing of the resident 747.

Coffee!!!

At 11.00 am we will re-group, break into small groups and meet our guides for a tour of the museum which takes us through operational hangers and enables us to get up close and personal with the aeroplanes and even explore some of them, including Connie the Super Constellation and of course the Qantas 747 Jumbo. 

Off we go. Hey, things are a bit different. The planes are spread out in preparation for the Wings Over Illawarra event next weekend and we have full access to all parts of the hangers and some planes parked on the tarmac. Very unusual and we are able to climb into an F-111 cockpit and climb up to view an F-86 Sabre cockpit! Which had the most cockpit room – these or an MX5?

  • After walk throughs, it was good to be able to do a comparison of both Connie and the 747 plus:

  • a partially restored C-47 (military version of a DC-3) and a Caribou

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The fixed wing component of the Navy Fleet Air Arm had been transferred to HARS and in turn, most of their helicopters are now with the Fleet Air Museum at Nowra. Morecomparisons of our maritime defence aircraft with the Navy Grumman Tracker and theLockheed Neptune and it’s replacement, the Orion which is based on the civilian airlineElektra and has the same engines as the original C-130 Hercules.

So much to see – Victa aeroplanes, Russian MIGS, the PBY Catalina, the Fokker trimotor Spirit of St Louis that Sir Charles Kingston Smith once flew together with a parade of military fighter and trainer aircraft from years past.

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Where did the time go? It is time to move on so the Red Baron regroups and takes his flight to the Albion Park Hotel for lunch and refreshments.

Our group had an excellent guide, the Red Baron lead a really great run and I can’t wait to do another tour next year.