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Nanchang CJ-6A over Barwon Heads Summer 2010
N°1 in Melbourne Warbird Adventure Flights
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Warbird Air Adventures – Back in Barwon Heads
1,300 nautical miles (2,400km) six fuel stops, 600 litres of Avgas and a lot of muesli bars later Warbird Air Adventures is finally back in Barwon Heads!
After finishing our flights in Townsville for 2010 we headed south once again – in search of some sunshine! A truly wet dry season has us hoping for some better weather down south, though something tells me it’s going to be a wet summer.
Our thanks go to everyone in Cairns, Townsville and elsewhere in the Far North that came and shared the sky with us in 2010, we had a great time taking you up. It’s always a pleasure flying such good looking people!
We look forward to our return next dry season in 2011. We’re going to miss the palm trees, the rainforest, the warm weather, and most of all the people.
So home sweet home, Barwon Heads airport is where the Warbird roosts for the summer. We will be heading back up north for a few months in the winter but for now the main base is Barwon Heads airport. Come down and see us or give us a call on 1300 341 006.
Warbird Air Adventures – Proud Sponsors of the Make A Difference Ball 2010
Certificate of Sponsorship
The Making a Difference Gala was a great success once again. Last summer Hamish McLean went on a Warbird Adventure Flight and absolutely loved it! Hamish and his wife Alicia a the principal organisers of the Making a Difference Gala Ball, held every year in Ballarat, Victoria.
After flinging him around the sky, Warbird Air Adventures donated a 30 minute aerobatic flight, plus Warbirds t-shirt and other goodies to this great cause. We look forward to giving the winner of the auction the ride of their life!
New Nanchang – the best Adventure Flight Warbird
Glass cockpit warbird? Only in America
Some pics of a NEW Nanchang CJ-6A, modified in the US with all sorts of goodies: 360hp M-14 engine, 3 blade MT propeller, winglets (!), rudder trim, luggage locker, glass cockpit and much much more. Those Yanks love pouring money into their planes!
Super Nanchang - Oshkosh
Nanchang winglets
Thirty Thousand Feet – Aviation Directory
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Click on the linked picture to take you to the wider world of aviation.
Testimonial – Rod Heffernan’s 50th Birthday
Warbird Air Adventures
Flying Warbirds – Aircraft Used on Warbird Adventure Flights
The Nanchang CJ-6A and its U.S. equivalent, the Beech T-34 Mentor. Very similar aircraft used for similar roles: advanced pilot training prior to the transition to jet aircraft. Also included is the Siai Marchetti SF-260, an Italian advanced trainer, used by many foreign air forces as a ground attack aircraft. The Nanchang also was used in this role in the 1960s.
Beech T-34 Mentor
Nanchang at Oshkosh, U.S.A 2010
Siai Marchetti SF260 - Oshkosh U.S.A
Photos were taken at Oshkosh 2010. The T-34 is quite sort after downunder, with only a few examples that rarely swap hands. The best performer of the all, the SF-260, is also quite rare and sort after.
Seeing as all these types were used in the military, they qualify as ‘warbirds’ and can be used on warbird adventure flights. In Australia, it is only the Nanchang CJ-6 that are used in adventure flights. They are robust, easy to maintain and extremely dependable, making them the warbird adventure flight aircraft of choice. The other two warbird types are more expensive to operate and offer similar performance, currently only in private use.
Better than a jet fighter flight – Melbourne’s Warbird Air Adventures
Ok – jets are cool. ish. Well not even, most of us have flown in them enough to realise that they are a pretty sanitised version of flight. You can fly in an ex-military jet which is cool, until you see how expensive they are – a flight in one of these gas guzzlers is around $2,000 for 20 minutes! Not cool.
At Warbird Air Adventures we do more for less.
Our aircraft use big supercharged radial engines for that thumping 9 x Harley Davidson all-at-once sound. They are seriously cool – ask any petrol head.
Our aircraft are genuine ex military trainers. You sit in your very own fully working cockpit, not a jump seat or co-pilot seat – your very own cockpit to yourself – communicating with the pilot via intercom.
Because our velocities are lower than a jet fighter flight’s, we can actually do much more aerobatics. This is because at higher speeds it requires higher G just to do very basic manoeuvres. The average person off the street can tolerate up to around 4 to 5 times the force of gravity (4 to 5 G).
In piston engined WWII style aircraft this means we can do stall turns, spins, snap rolls and more all within this tolerance range. This keeps passengers comfortable and able to complete all the manoeuvres planned. In fact – over 95% of passengers surprise themselves and complete every single manoeuvre!
Very cool.
The best bit – the price. Rather than $2,000 we can achieve all this for as little as $350.
Seriously Cool.
Ready to roll
Nanchang CJ-6A: not a Yak-52!
Often confused with the Soviet Yak-52, the Nanchang CJ-6 actually predates its Russian counterpart by over ten years. The genesis of the Nanchang CJ-6 traces back to the continuation of a long tradition of the USSR supplying arms and equipment to the Chinese Communists.
Yak-18
After successfully installing a Communist regime in China, the Soviets began supplying aircraft for the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). The aircraft supplied was the Yak-18, built under licence in China as the Nanchang CJ-5.
Introduced in 1954 the CJ-5 did not offer sufficient performance to allow pilots to smoothly transition to the much higher performance jet fighters that were increasingly being deployed in front line air forces, relegating piston engined fighters to history.
In 1956 a design team was launched headed by Mr Shunshou Xu. Their job was to design a Chinese primary trainer aircraft. By 1958 they had completed the first aircraft, built in an amazing 72 days from detail design to first flight.
On August 27, 1958, pilots Lu Maofan and He Yinxi made the first test flight in the new trainer; however, its performance fell short of the PLAAF requirements. It was felt that the problem may have been in the choice of the M-11FR engine instead of a Czech built, horizontally-opposed engine originally planned. A change of engine was sought and when this didn’t cure the performance woes, the prototype was sent back to be redesigned. Just over two years later on October 15, 1961, the remodelled prototype made its first flight and this time it was successful. After gaining official approval, production of the aircraft commenced in early 1962 as the Nanchang CJ-6. A change of engine from the 260 hp Zhuzhou Huosai HS-6 (a Chinese version of the Ivchenko AI-14R) to the 285 hp HS-6A in 1965 led to the CJ-6 becoming the CJ-6A. Between 1964 and 1966 small numbers of an armed version, the CJ-6B, powered by a 300 hp HS-6D engine were also built and used for border patrol.
The Yak-52 came about as a tricycle gear upgrade of the Yak-50, and entered production in the early 1970s. It features a bigger engine than the Nanchang CJ-6A (360hp vs 285hp), an inverted fuel and oil system for inverted flight, higher roll rate and high drag airframe due mainly to semi-retracting gear. This results in superior aerobatic performance but inferior cruise performance and higher fuel burn. Generally parts are more costly and not as easy to obtain as Chinese spares.
Yak-52
Those who have looked closely at both aircraft will notice they share many similarities, especially in the cockpit. This is mainly due to the fact that instrument manufacturing was in its infancy in China during the Nanchang CJ-6A’s development, and also many pilots transitioning to the CJ-6A had flown the CJ-5 which was essentially a Yak-18. This meant the Chinese basically copied many of the instruments from the Russians.
Warbirds Mareeba Airshow
The annual Mareeba Warbirds Airshow is on again this weekend 22nd August. The weather forecast is looking great and this year promises to be one of the best with another appearance from the RAAF Roulettes precision formation team. Also a contingent of T-28 Trojans are set to arrive from down south, joining the local Mareeba Warbirds T-28.
For those that want to actually fly IN warbird aircraft and experience them first hand in all their ear-splitting bone-shaking glory call Warbird Air Adventures, Cairns Airport on 1300 341 006. Flights depart Cairns Airport daily.