'This was the start of a great adventure for all of us '

'This was the start of a great adventure for all of us '

Mike Mahon remembers the preparations for the London to Sydney Air Race of 1969.

Mike Mahon

Trinity College Dublin

1969

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Mike Mahon

Work and Employment

Life Story

Belfast

1960s

I will always remember that night as one of the loneliest I had ever experienced. There was a full silver moon shinning on the Indian Ocean and off to the left I could just make out the rugged coastline of Iran. We had taken off from Bahrain at 1630Z and flying direct to Karachi. There were three of us in that tiny cockpit of our Cherokee Arrow, registered G - AWBC, callsign Air Race 0ne Zero Zero, Squadron Leader Terry Nash, John Murray and myself. We were participants in the London to Sydney Air Race. We had lost the trailing aerial to our HF radio in a storm over France, and were now totally relying on VHF communications with a maximum range of 150 NM. depending on aircraft altitude. It was my leg, the other two were sleeping and we were heading towards Jumani beacon on the Pakistani coast. I was desperately trying to contact Karachi. I felt horribly alone. Suddenly the silence was broken and a clipped English voice came over the RT. 'Aircraft calling Karachi, this is Speedbird 146, do you require a relay?' Thank God! I replied, 'Speed bird 146, this is air race 100 Piper Cherokee, VFR Bahrain to Karachi, Fl 90, estimating Jumani at 2022 and Karachi at 2350, please relay our position. 'Roger, air - race 100 will do and we have the latest Karachi weather if you are ready to copy, Speedbird 146' What a relief. Karachi now had our details and the weather was CAVOK. 'Air race100 from Speedbird, Karachi copy your position. Call when in range and good luck'. It had all begun many months before and now on 8/11/1969 John Murray, Sqd. Leader Terry Nash and myself flew Cherokee Arrow G - AWBC from Fairoaks in Surry via the Isle of Man to Aldergrove Airport, Belfast. This was the start of a great adventure for all of us. The idea originally was John's to enter an aircraft from N. Ireland in the London to Sydney Air Race. This was being organized by the Australian Government and BP in association with the Royal Aero Club and the Federation of Aero Clubs of Australia to commerate two events - the bi centenary of the discovery of Australia in 1770 and the first flight from England to Australia 50 years ago. I knew John as we were both members of the Newtownards Flying Club and he had suggested the idea to me. We felt we needed an experienced 3rd crew member with lots of flying time and our prayers were answered when we saw in a flight magazine an add from Terry Nash, A Squadron Leader in the RAF expressing a desire to enter the race. We contacted him and he enthusiastically agreed . John , who had also been in the RAF as an ATCO, now working as an advertising executive with the Belfast Telegraph, had persuaded the paper to finance our project. We next hired an aircraft, a Piper Cherokee Arrow from Rimmer Aviation in Fairoaks. We had a lot of preparations to make, firstly we decided that the normal range of the Arrow was too short and arranged with Shorts Bros. to put in an extra fuel tank to increase our range. This I believe was a hydraulic tank from a Belfast transporter aircraft and we arranged a contraption with a hand pump in the back seat to transfer fuel out to the two existing wing tanks. We received great support from the people of Belfast in particular Mike Woodgate and Bill Carson who gave us invaluable instruction in instrument and night flying. The Belfast Telegraph ran a competition to name the aircraft and this was won by Derek Cardy, of Carrickfergus, for his suggestion of 'ULSTER PRIDE'. After all the preparations we were due to depart, after a naming ceremony by the PM's wife Mrs. Chicester - Clarke, on 13th Dec from Aldergrove to Biggin Hill. Terry was due to travel the previous evening on a flight from London to Belfast but due bad weather his flight diverted to Shannon. John and myself made some frantic phone calls to British Airways but they refused to release the passenger list, so we were not sure where Terry was. He eventually made it to Belfast and the three of us took 'ULSTER PRIDE' aka AIR RACE 100 on our first flight to Biggin Hill John and I stay in a hotel in London and met some of the other competitors . We got particularly friendly with two Aussies John Colwell and John Daly who were also flying a Cherokee Arrow, Air Race no 46, with whom we were to encounter many times en - route. Having talked to some other competitors about their plans, we decided to try to increase our range even further. To this end we bought some plastic containers and having filled them with extra petrol stowed them in the hotel room. Reception rang down a few times saying other guests were complaining of a smell of petrol in the corridor. Of course we denied all knowledge of this. Afterwards we realized we could have burnt the hotel to the ground, but such is the follies of youth.

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Irish Research Council for Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)