THE SHEEP PLANE
by Terry Cornelius
| In April 1959, I was
fifteen years old and my brother was nine. We had a very 'mechanical'
background and were naturally drawn to some fairly off-beat activity
going on at the local airport over some six-or-so weeks. The Corowa airport was nothing if not significant for the vastness of its facility. It was said at the time that it sported the longest runway in the Southern Hemisphere, and it certainly proved able to handle some sizable aircraft over the years. Norman Bott, a local grazier, must have had this in mind when he made a major purchase of Border Leicester Rams from a seller in Tasmania. He purchased over 1000 animals and arranged for them to be flown to his "Quat Quatta" station at Corowa on Aerial Agriculture's Bristol Freighter VH-AAH piloted by Lionel Van Praag. At that time, shipping was not a viable proposition and road transport as we know it today was unavailable, so it certainly made sense when it is considered that air freight saved so much time. Altogether, several flights were made and my brother and I, along with half the kids in the town, had made the pushbike-ride trip to the airport on every occasion, entranced by the odd front-opening aeroplane and the mystique of the pilot with the exotic name. Our dad made sure we knew what he was famous for in the world of speedway (we were already veterans of Tracey's Speedway in Melbourne) but either he neglected to say, or I just forgot via the passage of time, that not only was he an Aussie, but an Aussie's Aussie, a wartime pilot hero in fact. Double hero in our eyes! On that day of the last shipment, on the second Saturday of April 1959, Mrs Bott met Lionel at the airport. She was dressed ready for an appointment she had at the Chiltern Racecourse later that day, and she and Lionel were chatting while the last of the flock were being disgorged from the belly of the Bristol. Lionel and Mrs Bott obviously got along well and Lionel came up with the idea that she may appreciate a short flight over Quat Quatta station in honour of the occasion. Of course Mrs Bott thought that would be rather terrific, but, she said, "All these children have been so good, riding all that way out to the airport all those times and offering their unrequited support over all these weeks, wouldn't it be nice if they could come too?" (...Excuse me?) Lionel was obviously unfazed by this suggestion. He probably was pleased. He radio'd for permission (maybe) and announced the plan to all and sundry. I'm sure all those kids and several adults would have been a lot less trouble to load than the sheep that had preceded them and all those who wanted to (which was everyone) were herded up the ramp and told to find a spot near the windows, crouch down and hold onto the rail. We scrambled in amongst the straw and the pens and the sheep dung and the smell and took up our positions and when he was satisfied that everyone was happy, Lionel swung the big doors shut. Before long we were off on a short scenic flight which took us over the township of Corowa, and along the river to Quat Quatta station, nestled on the banks of the Murray, ten miles from the town. When we were back on the ground, Mrs Bott bade her farewells and headed for her appointment at Chiltern, the crowd dispersed and with a roar from the engines and a wave from the pilot, the Bristol was a diminishing dot in the sky, leaving us with a lifetime memory of the "Sheep Plane" and its pilot, our (now triple) hero. Norman Bott held several large-scale sheep sales after that. He died in a car accident in 1961, aged 51. Mrs Bott is alive and well at the time of writing in June 2005. |