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RAAF

Read more about the article Ice cream treat saved them from fighter crash
Aerial view of the crash site. A truck is parked outside Mona Bradley's house at 60 Glebe Road, where the doomed pilot's body landed.

Ice cream treat saved them from fighter crash

Mona Bradley hardly ever splashed out on treats for her grandsons. Having lived through The Great Depression and World War 2, she was one of a frugal generation. So it was unusual when, on August 16, 1966, she took the two boys, Peter and Richard, across the road from her house to a nearby ice cream parlour. Richard Bradley remembers the night of the Sabre crash, August 16, 1966. Mona's house was at the back of a converted former cycle shop at 60 Glebe Road, The Junction, an inner suburb of the industrial city of Newcastle,…

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Read more about the article The runaway plane and a midair collision: a bad month at Bankstown Airport, August 1955
Melbourne Argus clipping of the pilotless plane incident

The runaway plane and a midair collision: a bad month at Bankstown Airport, August 1955

August 1955 was an eventful and tragic month at Sydney's Bankstown Airport. On August 12 an Auster monoplane (VH-AAL) and a Tiger Moth biplane (VH- APF) collided about 100m from the ground as they came in to land at the airport, killing three men and injuring another. As they struck, the two light planes locked together and fell into thick scrub about 100m from Milperra Road. The Auster belonged to the Kingsford Smith Aviation Flying School and was piloted by 26-year-old instructor Jaroslav Kosner. He and his passenger, student pilot Edward Cowley, 45, were killed, as…

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Read more about the article Fatal Meteor jet crash at Williamtown, NSW, 1957
Gloster Meteor jet fighters on service with the RAAF in Korea.

Fatal Meteor jet crash at Williamtown, NSW, 1957

Recently, while I was visiting old acquaintances Doug and Peggy Paton, Doug mentioned a terrible plane crash he said he witnessed while he was a member of the Royal Australian Air Force, working at Williamtown fighter base north of Newcastle. Doug said the plane crashed while landing at the base, and he feared at one point that it might have smashed into the building where he was working. It was around meal time, he said, and there were few people around. Doug Paton in his RAAF uniform in the 1950s. He showed me some photos he…

Continue ReadingFatal Meteor jet crash at Williamtown, NSW, 1957
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