By Ian Badham of HARS Aviation Museum
It was as if the clock suddenly turned back 45 years when veteran pilot Jock Cassels climbed from his wheelchair into the cramped cockpit of a former RAAF transport Caribou aircraft.
Jock is 100 years old and now the world’s oldest Caribou pilot. His son Charles recently brought him to the Illawarra’s HARS Aviation Museum to inspect Caribou 234, which he last flew in Vietnam in 1976 before retiring from the RAAF a year later.
“This is so wonderful,” Jock told former Caribou pilot and now head of HARS flying operations Richard Elliott, “I never expected to get back into this aircraft.”
In a remarkable 38-year flying career, Jock served in both the RAF and the RAAF, flying aircraft including Tiger Moth and Harvard trainers, Spitfire and Meteor fighters then Sunderland flying boats and Lancaster bombers for the RAF before flying 1499 war sorties in Vietnam for the RAAF.
Joining the RAF in 1941, he initially trained in Rhodesia then was sent to Europe as World War Two raged. After his Spitfire was shot down over northern Italy, fellow comrades pooled their meagre rations and made a cake to celebrate his 21st birthday in a German POW camp.
“Well, it was a cake of sorts but memorable,” he said.
His service with the RAF continued after the Second World War in Iraq and Hong Kong before he returned to England.
Days after retiring from the RAF, Jock answered an advertisement in a London paper that sought pilots up to the age of 43 to join the RAAF – which he successfully did just days before the age deadline.
He retired as a Squadron Leader and still keeps an eye on flying from his home near the RAAF Base at Richmond in Sydney’s north-west.
Caribou 234 is one of almost 500 built by de Havilland in Canada. Alongside Caribou 210 at HARS Aviation Museum, it is one of only three in original condition still flying; the other is located in Texas.
Volunteers at the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society regularly fly both aircraft, including over special events for Vietnam veterans who fondly remember its remarkable short field take-off and landing capability which provided support for the troops. Caribou 234 was the last RAAF aircraft to leave Vietnam in 1972.
The two Caribou and almost 60 other aircraft of special significance to Australia’s aviation legacy – many still airworthy – are on display at HARS Aviation Museum, located at Shellharbour Airport, just off the old Princes Highway at Albion Park Rail.
It is open daily from 9.30am to 3.30pm for tours conducted by volunteers (last tour at 2pm) and Cafe Connie provides hot and cold food plus excellent coffee.
Entry details at www.hars.org.au
