Benall'a Aviation Museum has a Tiger Moth on display.
Photo by
Simon Ruppert
Benalla’s John Hanlon recently shared his memories of Tiger Moths in Benalla, after seeing an article in The Ensign, on September 4, Like a moth to a plane.
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The Ensign report brought back vivid memories of these aircraft used at Benalla No. 11 Elementary Flying Training School.
Some 80 Tiger Moth aircraft took off each morning — weather permitting — on training flights.
There were three outfields at Winton, Goomalibee and Devenish. Twenty aircraft were assigned to each field and 20 remained at Benalla.
Those aircraft were constantly doing circuits and practising aerobatics. With early-morning starts and late-night training, the novelty soon diminished with the local population.
I note the featured Tiger Moth had a modified exhaust system as the original aircraft had four short stubby exhausts which were very noisy, so much so that low-flying aircraft rattled windows and vibrated loose sheets of roof iron.
As a lad, our home was located in nearby Grey St, and as these aircraft took off into the wind, a westerly resulted in a constant drone of noise.
Nearly 3000 pilots jumped into the cockpit of a Tiger Moth to train in and around Benalla between 1942 and 1945.
Photo by
Simon Ruppert
Benalla was an airfield and as such there were often several aircraft taking off at the same time. When 10 to 20 Tiger Moths flew over town in formation, the noise reverberated through every building.
This was an exciting time for young boys and together with mates we would cycle to the boundary fence on windy days to watch the efforts of student pilots as they practised landing, often bouncing so high that they had to open the throttle and ‘go around’.
Tiger Moths might look flimsy, but they were very flexible when absorbing the punishment of air training.
Between 1942 and 1945, 2953 trainee pilots had passed through Benalla Elementary Flying Training School.
A static Tiger Moth can be viewed at the Benalla Aviation Museum.
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