by Steve Mackenzie

Taken I believe at Bathurst, this appears to be Pawnees VH-KLZ and VH-ORL.

In Parts 1 (issue 36/4) and 2 (issue 37/1) of this series we looked at the current and former fixed wing training airframes used by the Australian Air Cadets. They also utilize gliders for flying training (to be looked at in a later issue) and Pawnee PA-25 airframes which are used as tugs to tow the gliders off the ground for training sorties.

3 Wing Air Force Cadets

No.3 Wing (NSW) has their Glider Training School (GTS) at Bathurst and control Pawnee airframes VH-KLZ and VH-ORL which are painted in Air Force Cadet markings. The colour scheme consists of a White painted airframe, with Red Striping down the fuselage sides, a tri-angular flash on the tail and bands around the wings. There are Dark Grey (look Black in many images) Cadet titlings on the fuselage and the Air Cadets badge just behind the cockpit. Only real difference I can see is that 'KLZ' has it's rego in Black and 'ORL' in Red.

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At times 3 Wing at Bathurst has also used at least a couple of Pawnees owned by others. VH-TNE is owned by the Bathurst Soaring Club (stiil on their webpage) and appears in a couple of images. Also VH-LGT is registered to P.Hofman from Bathurst (I suspect it is actually used by the club). An image on Facebook confirms that it is a glider tug.

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2 Wing has their GTS at Warwick Airport QLD. According to ADF Serials VH-TOJ was registered to the Air Cadets School of Aviation Inc in 2007. These days it is owned by Beverly Soaring Inc in W.A (they have 2 Pawnees, the other being VH-ALA). This photo which is included on the ADF Serials website was taken at Caboolture Qld in 2013. Likely 2 Wing were using it at the time due to what looks like vinyl stick on rego panels on the fuselage. I assume 2 Wing has used other airframes but info is very obscure.

Very interesting scheme with the sharkmouth. Photo: Ian McDonell via ADF Serials

the next part in this series will look at the current Diamond DG40 gliders used for flight training. And just a final image, looking down the nose cowling of a Pawnee.

Use the index button to return to the main issue 37/4 index.