Aviation monument to make Illawarra home

By Greg Ellis
Updated November 6 2012 - 3:00am, first published January 2 2012 - 9:53am
Restoration project manager Geoff Timms with pieces of the Southern Cross replica at Illawarra Regional Airport. Picture: GREG ELLIS
Restoration project manager Geoff Timms with pieces of the Southern Cross replica at Illawarra Regional Airport. Picture: GREG ELLIS

The Illawarra-based Historical Aircraft Restoration Society has made a New Year's resolution to restore one of Australia's most important pieces of aviation history and fly it around the nation for children to see and touch.Work started at Illawarra Regional Airport this week on returning to the sky the only flying replica of the Southern Cross, arguably Australia's most famous aircraft.The Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) Museum now owns the Southern Cross II and wants to have it flying within 12 months to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Charles Kingsford Smith's flight from Seven Mile Beach, Gerroa, to New Plymouth in New Zealand in 1933.It was the first commercial trans-Tasman flight and took 14 hours. Relatives of the co-pilot and navigator on that flight, PG Taylor, will inspect work on the Southern Cross II this week.The replica was originally built to help Australia celebrate its bicentenary in 1988 but a crash in 2002 in South Australia damaged the wing, undercarriage and two of its three propellers and it has not flown since.The original aircraft, which Smithy affectionately called the Old Bus, was the largest aircraft in the world with a single-piece wing. HARS has trucked the fuselage and wing of the replica to Albion Park where 10 volunteers have resolved to restore it in time for the 80th anniversary celebrations planned for Seven Mile Beach at Gerroa on January 11, 2013.Next weekend air cadets will help test the damaged wing.Volunteer HARS members already know one section of the wing, the largest wooden wing ever built in Australia, needs to be rebuilt but also need to know what condition the rest of the structure is in.Project manager Geoff Timms expects the restored Southern Cross II will be just as important to the HARS Museum as the 1955 Super Constellation (Connie) and the Catalina flying boat.Mr Timms once flew in the Southern Cross replica with Nancy Bird-Walton who told him how she was taught to fly by Charles Kingsford Smith and had flown in the original.HARS will be open to the public for Saturday's wing test which will involve many of the air cadets standing on the 21.3m one tonne structure.The original Southern Cross aircraft is considered such an important piece of Australian history it is permanently housed in Brisbane and does not fly.The Southern Cross II is the largest non-military aircraft ever built in Australia.When it returns to the skies it will be the only Fokker F.V11B-3M type aircraft flying in the world.The restoration of the Southern Cross II is expected to be one of the most popular exhibits at the next Wings Over Illawarra in May, along with two DHC-4 Caribou ex-military aircraft that arrived in November.When complete Mr Timms also intends to take it on a "barnstorming" tour of country towns.

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