Caboolture Aerodrome on McNaught Rd, at Map 428 F2, is honoured to hold the presitigious TAVAS flying display. TAVAS stands for “The Australian Vintage Aviation Society”

The 2017 event, part sponsored by Pocket Books, was on Saturday 22nd April and Sunday 23rd April. The airshow was accompanied by a display of vintage vehicles.

This Pocket Book’s front cover shows:

Gustave Whitehead’s first plane. Flyover. Tri-wings and Bi-wings. Crowd & clouds.

The rare and Vintage, both flying or on display, included some 30 aircraft:

PRE WORLD WAR 1

1901 Whitehead No.21 (static), 1909 Johnson Monoplane*, 1909 Demoiselle

WORLD WAR 1

Fokker E.III Eindecker, Sopwith Triplane, Nieuport 17, SE5a, Fokker Dr.I Triplane, Bristol F2b Fighter, Fokker DVII* and Fokker D.VIII. This is the ONLY collection of flying WW1 type aircraft in Australia!

BETWEEN THE WARS

Hawker Demon*

OTHER VINTAGE AIRCRAFT

1929 Fleet, C-140, C-195, 1928-designed Pietenpol Aircamper, DH Drover*

WORLD WAR 2

Bristol Beaufort*, Wirraway, SNJ

KOREAN WAR

Australian-built P-51D Mustang (CA-18)

VIETNAM WAR

Mig 17 jet fighter (static), DHC-4 Caribou (static)

OTHER TYPES

(Used by various military forces)

DH Devon, DH Tiger Moth, Auster, Yak 52, T-34 Mentor, T-28 Trojan, DHC-1 Chipmunk

*Denotes aircraft not yet flying, still under restoration/construction.

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Tri-wings and bi-wings from the first world war. The Caboolture TAVAS has restored these flyings to flying condition.

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Here they are: flying!

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Fokker D.V11
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The 1909 Johnson Monoplane.

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A modern glider at Caboolture , and an old war workhorse.

The First Powered Flight.

Gustave Albin Weisskopf (1874-1927) migrated from Germany to the USA where he changed his surname to Whitehead. In Connecticut he designed and built gliders, engines and aircraft between 1897 and 1915, with his Condor 21, in 1901, being the first successfully flying heavier-than-air aeroplane, a good two years before the Wright Brothers.

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A replica Weisskopf Condor.
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With a sailwing, and a small motor on the rear wheel, Gustave ‘s 91 kg Condor plane could be road driven to the airfield, making it the first flying-car, as well as the first heavier-than-air aircraft. (Zeppelins and balloons are ‘lighter-than-air’ aircraft.)

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Flyover

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Some of the vintage vehicle display. 1925 Chevy Ute, then called a Utility. With timber cabin.

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The Royal Navy

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Gerry Clarke of Pocket Books with the vintage bikes.

Gerry used to ride motor bikes, and fly hang-gliders:

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A visitor to the airshow arrived in style on his motorised hang-glider.

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As part of our sponsorship, Pocket books included front cover photos from recent Caboolture Pocket Books as published online.

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Not quite Icarus flying too close to the sun!

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The Pocket Books stand preparation.

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Crowds at the show with a magnificent cloud array which did ‘not quite rain on our parade’ of planes.

A flock of birds looking at this intruder on their space.

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A 1964 Australian Holden, with comfort for driver and five passengers. When I was about 13, my parents drove two of these from Melbourne to Miami (later the Gold Coast) for a Christmas holiday for our family of ten boys. The desire for an eventual move to Qld had been born.

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The Holden’s American cousin of the same period, the Cadilac, ostentatiously carried four people “in style�. Both are superbly renovated by their owners.

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A 1959 Chevrolet “pick-up�. We don’t need a hyphenated two words to describe our Australian utility; although we even abbreviate this to “ute�.

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This was a fun day at the airfield. While we often remember the names of the pilots, rarely do we see the names of the engineers who designed these flying machines, nor the engineers for the next flying generation - the space rockets.

Gerry Clarke, B.PED.

Pocket Books

(07) 5438 1881.