Essendon Fantasy

This is something that was never going to work.

DCA (now CASA) has been away with the birds since the 1920's

""Built in the early 1950's at Essendon Airport by the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) workshops (obviously) as an airport fire appliance.
Apparently based on a 'White' truck chassis.
Keith you are quite correct the 'circular' saw at the front was intended to cut a hole in the aircraft fuselage allowing the occupants to escape and the aspestos curtains intended to protect occupants from any radiant heat.
Apparently the seat for the monitor operator was an old steel tractor seat.
The shielding is quite likely aluminium.
The kicker was that during trials the tyres caught fire and didn't progress beyond this single vehicle.
I've often wondered if it was a 'white' chassis, what type of truck was it in a former life. Any ideas?""

_ On further inspection I see they thought of everything and there is a second curtain rail sticking out from the right side as well. If it is so hot that the boys need to drop the window screens, I think you might presume the passengers crawling out of the newly bored hole might be in a bit of strife.

The story of the Monegeeta Monster, as it was known, can be found at the Airways Museum website (includes a link to some video of it being trialled):

www.airwaysmuseum.com/ARFF%20Monegeeta%20Monster.htm

Allan,

Great info. Surely this must come under the "what were they thinking" classification?

The lack of vertical adjustment on the saw for starters assumed the perfectly angled fuselage, at the perfect height would be available with no internal bulkheads, seats etc behind the selected boring position. How would you be sitting in seat 12D, more than slightly interested in the fire raging outside on the wing, when this bloody great saw came through the wall beside you?

By the time this was built airlines were using DC4 and DC6 which had tricycle undercarriage. The most likely scenario would be for the nose wheel to collapse and mains stay intact putting the boring spot on the fuselage 4 metres higher than the saw. In a normal position the fuselage would still be about 2 metres higher than the saw.

Lang

Thats bloody awesome...
I reckon if there is ONE thing that stands out, consistently, through all that I have read, no matter whether it is to do with aviation, road transport, horse racing, cane toads, ANYTHING- essentially, it is that bloody authorities and beureaucrats should be lined up against a wall, and well, maybe not shoty, but, well, you know what I mean..!
(Did I spell bereaucrats / beereaucrats/ boofrocrats/ correctly???)
Cheers!
Richard

Might build me a replica o' that one.

Not.

-b