Sunday 20 April 2014
The VH-MDX blog is back !
Per my profile, I've only been aware of VH-MDX since 2010. Each year since then I have taken part in the annual Barrington Tops SAREX organised by the BWRS and have become very familiar with past, present and future efforts to locate the aircraft. With Nev currently being pre-occupied, he has asked me to continue administering the blog. Slightly different address, same intent..
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I am very interested in the mystery of this missing aircraft. How do i post photo's on here ?
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel, I am still to add that facility to the blog. If you send them direct to me I'll get them up there for you.
DeleteHi Daniel
ReplyDeletejust been looking at google maps there is something blue in the link provided might be a google error also seems to be a structure just north next to the water
cheers jeff https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Kholwha+Track/@-32.0129913,151.5104172,241m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!1m10!4m9!1m3!2m2!1d151.5218281!2d-32.0144353!1m3!2m2!1d151.510337!2d-32.012779!3e2!3m1!1s0x6b74cffa29a7bded:0xfcfb21d128b46972
Hi Jeff,
ReplyDeleteInteresting location not in any of the current primary search areas. Last year it was the upper reaches of the Williams River valley which is about 5k SSE of the 'blue'. Could be a campers tarp ?.
Hi fellows,Ive been looking at this for five years now and all the credible evidence suggests the plain is in the upper williams river valley.If you are going to have a look see for it ,as I intend to in the near future I feel the plane is in the valley east of Careys Peak.There is strong evidence the plane flew in a NE direction over Careys Track near Gouvenors Lookout then fell out of the sky because of ice.Happy Hunting.
ReplyDeleteHi Big Al,
DeleteYes, there is strong evidence that the aircraft is in the Williams River valley. Having said that, the Williams River valley is full of some of the most inhospitable terrain and vegetation in the Barringtons. Possibly why VH-MDX is not found yet.
Good day all. Ive just been back to the start of this blog and read all the posts so as to get a feel for where you guys are at on the subject .I notice there are some here that think MDX is in Lake Sinclair and it could well be.This is why I "THINK" that Lake Sinclair is an unlikly resting place for MDX.................VH-MDX crashed in1981 ,Lake Sinclair wasnt filled untill 1983 or there abouts.The initial searches were quite thorough in that area and along the sandon track. If you google earth that area you will see that it is clear of dense forest,in fact that area is quite clear say some sparse areas of forest. All this land was cleared pre 1981 and it is likely there was less vegetation then than there is now.If the area flooded by water was the only thicket of jungle left (Which I know it wasnt Jungle)It would have been heavily searched as was all that area before the flooding.The plane seen on radar 46 NM north of Singleton on the Sandon Track was never positively proved to be MDX. If I am wrong about this please get stuck into me and let me know where I am mistaken... Cheers fellows,,,,,More later.
ReplyDeleteCorrection..I have now been satisfied that VH-MDX was radar identified north of singleton.
ReplyDeleteHi Martin,wow ,It's quiet here,any thoughts?anything new to report?
ReplyDeleteHi Big Al, Funny you should mention that !... In a few weeks the annual search effort will launch over an extended weekend with contributions from the BWRS, RFS, SES, Police Rescue and WICEN. I'll knock up a seperate post re that.
ReplyDeleteAs to it being quiet, I think part of that is due to the constraints of Blogpsot ie... you can only reply to a post of mine rather than originating your own. I am currently looking at building my own website using of course 'the cloud', and will seperately post on that as well.
Hi again Martin.I recently searched the national archives on this event and came up with this. Last radar 330* 46nm nth Williamtown raaf base only seconds befor the pilot reports ,im at 5000 and he is gone from radar and radio period!!! A pilot and myself went to a lot of trouble to plot this on a map, and to my amazement nobody is looking in this location which is interesting given that this info is in the public gallery.Try plotting it for yourself and let me know what you come up with..I will share our result with you later..Cheers ...Happy hunting..
ReplyDeleteHi Attila,
ReplyDeleteThe 320˚M/45NM precision wise has been confirmed within certain limits by my interviews with the Controller on duty amongst other sources.
Remember, 320˚M/45NM is simply not a pure bearing and range; please read our papers on Max and Most Likely Extent and the soon to be released Williamtown ATC and Radar research papers.
The 330 call is contentious but was most likely representative of VH-MDX's position within a certain tolerance (research papers refer). 330 was transcribed as being stated at around 0938:30UTC not 0938:00UTC.
re. Attila. Good question. After 30 years the report of the original inquest into the demise of VH-MDX was released to the public domain, some 2 years or more ago..This was the info that changed the minds of a lot of opinion on the matter,and it moved the search area into a higher probable area.That area is now defined within the Williams River valley based only on the most likely probability.In saying that,I mean based on only known FACTS,not what we may theorise. Your info. 320'N/45nm Williamtown RAAF base is good.Mine,330'N 46nm Willlliamtown.If you follow your heading through to mine, then we have a NE heading,the exact heading MDX was last reported to be on.OK, 320'N/45nm willi.Looks like this is in the Myal River valley south west of governors lookout,if we add one nm plus 10' NE we are over the Williams River Valley.A pilot and myself covered a floor with flight charts and area maps to calculate these locations and the above detail is representative of those calculations.In short,I got the info from the national archive.Ask Martin,Im sure he can direct to it.Cheers.
ReplyDeleteAn explanation as to why MDX did not continue to fly after the last contact.There are many people out there who think MDX continued to fly after radar and radio contact ceased and a prime reason is the radar shadow in the area of the barringtons.Don Redford has it flying onwards and crashing on Scattered top mt .There is another gent who has it going over scattered top and into the devils hole,others think onwards and into Chichester dam and others think even further flight and into the Glen reserve.If the plane did continue past 330' 46nm then that rules out Chichester and the Glen as radar and radio would still have been possible and that did not happen beyond the 5000ft report,lets remember the pilot reported seeing the lights of Foster Tuncurry and was advised of a safe altitude in the tops area.At this point he is going in the correct direction for these theories to hold weight except radar and radio would have been possible at some stage along this flight path and that did not happen. Now lets consider Scattered top and the Devils hole theories.This would be a NNE flight path into the Radar shadow,but is this area a radio shadow.Perhaps not.It is true there is a radio shadow as far as air traffic control is concerned but what of the other pilots in the air that were listening in to the unfolding events.They too herd no more of MDX after the 5000ft report and at least one of them was looking for him.Sydney,Singleton and Williamtown ATC had tower clock differences of ONLY 7 seconds .So 7 seconds is all we can confidently to the time of the last report,being ,IM AT 5000.Now if MDX was falling from the sky at 1000 per minute when the pilot makes his last contact and the last fix was near 340' 46 nm NTH Willi, then it is logical to presume the plane is on the ground some where not to far NE of that fix .It is a known fact the pilot reported significant icing up of the wings and this is what caused the rapid decent.Couple that with a fully loaded plane,(5 men and luggage)the cessation of radio and loss of radar contact it is more than reasonable to assume the plane went down without recovering to normal flight.Even the radio transcripts with the pilot appear to support this idea.Cheers.
ReplyDeleteHi Martin,
ReplyDelete20yrs ago a couple of mates and i where gold prospecting around the whispering gully area off the mountaineer trail, We walked down the mountain to the watercourse at bottom this is well above the Karuah river.We found one aluminium tooheys draught can
The terrain was steep and undergrowth thick,cold and damp not really a nice spot to have a beer.I read somewhere that whispering gully was mentioned in your search areas? The beer can might be nothing but an odd place to find one beer can. Regards Jason
Hi Jason do you think you could drop a pin on a map where u found can?
Delete