north east regional extra | March 23 - 29, 2022
nemedia.com.au
1.
March 23 - 29, 2022
The cloud found at World’s End By BELINDA HARRISON
◆ FOUND: The site of the wreckage of the Southern Cloud, Snowy Mountains, c.1958. PHOTO: PIC/12260 LOC Cold Store PIC NEG/nla.obj-137371756
DEEP within the densely timbered, mountainous terrain of the Snowy Mountains, the rugged rock faces, tumbling streams and towering alpine ash eucalypts held tight a secret for 27 years. On March 21, 1931, pilot Captain Travis ‘Shorty’ William Shortridge and co-pilot/ engineer Charlie C. Dunnell checked the weather report in the Sydney Morning Herald they could expect some wind and rain on their flight that day. Shorty was an experienced World War I flyer with more than 4000 flying hours under his belt and was due to take six passengers from Sydney’s Mascot aerodrome to Essendon, Melbourne in the VH-UMF Avro 618 Ten tri-engine aircraft known as the Southern Cloud. Owned by Australian National Airways (ANA), which was founded in 1929 by Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm, the Southern Cloud was one of five airplanes which made daily flights between Brisbane, Melbourne and Launceston in the 1930s. The six passengers included
businessman Hubert Farrall; accountant Bill O’Reilly; American theatre producer Clyde Hood; electrical engineer Julian Margules; artist Clara (Claire) Stokes and maid Elsie May Glasgow. With its passengers, luggage and cargo on board, the Southern Cloud took off at 8.10am and was expected to arrive in Melbourne at 1.30pm. An hour after it left, an updated meteorological report arrived at ANA headquarters in Sydney, indicating that the Southern Cloud was headed into driving rain, strong winds, low clouds and cyclonic conditions. The Southern Cloud was not equipped with a radio so there was nothing the team on the ground could do to warn Shorty and Charlie of the impending dangerous weather. They also couldn’t tell them that they had organised extra fuel to be sent out should they need to make an emergency landing or refill at the Bowser airstrip just outside Wangaratta; they simply had to wait to hear the aircraft had landed safely in Bowser or Melbourne.
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YOUR GARDEN EN
ANIMAL CARE
WINE TALK
YOUR HEALTH H
GONE FISHING
with BELINDA
with RAVEN
with ANITA
with CHRISTOS
with ith ROB OB
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