By Rob Dorning

If you have been to Benalla over the last two weeks you will have seen that the damaged Pawnee MCF has been repaired and is back on-line. The rebuild was done by Goulding Airmotive in Bendigo and the workmanship is fantastic. The fuselage and the wings have been rebagged and repainted and it looks like a young aeroplane again. It now has red stripes along the sides. It won't need any work on the fabric for a long time to come (it's planned to rebag BXP next March so we will then have 2 spiffy tugs).

Three modifications were done to the aircraft during the rebuild. A vertical metal plate has been installed between the 2 sets of rudder pedals to act as a barrier to prevent a pilot accidentally placing a foot on the inside pedal of the adjacent rudder set (found to be a possible cause of the accident). New harnesses have been installed for both seats replacing the inadequate old harnesses. Two new "gull wing" doors have been installed with hinges along the top with the doors held up with gas struts. The old doors were hinged along the bottom and would bang against the side of the fuselage when lowered causing damage to the perspex. In addition, the opportunity was taken during the mandatory bulk strip and inspection of the engine to regrind the camshaft and replace the cam followers so that the life of the engine will be considerably increased.

Photos by Ken Boland

MCF was back 13 Feb 2010... I walked passed without recognising her new outfit!

Our tugmaster sitting in the new lower-deck seat, added to supervise dual operations.