Blast from the past - Universal

[Derek Heeps]

Browsing eBay tonight for another set of legs , I came across a Manfrotto 075 stills tripod , fitted with a Universal Fluid Head .

Now , I’d forgotten all about Universal ( a manufacturer based in Sydney , Australia ) but I had used a few of their heads circa 40 years ago . My memory is they were solidly engineered and quite decent . Haven’t seen any of their products since .

This one actually is in Australia .

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/267095029...mis&media=COPY

Does anyone else remember them ? I wonder if the company still exists , or if they were swallowed up by another …

[Allan Black]

‘Universal’ can be a model name for camera tripods and there’s a few manufacturers using it.

In the northern Sydney suburb of Lindfield today, there’s a ‘Universal’ shop with a range of tripods together with other instruments. I go past them. They say they have a reputation going back over 33 years, so they could be a development of the original Universal outfit that had a store across the harbour, and made solid film camera tripods back in the day. They were based at 2A Clement St, Rushcutters Bay, Sydney.

There’s one of their tripods now for sale on Instagram. ‘This professional tripod was designed for heavy movie cameras back in the day. Lovely teak timber legs with a smooth fluid head.’ From my experience unless you could service it, no sale. Cheers.

[Derek Heeps]

Yep , that address in Clement St is shown on the makers plate in the advert .

They must have been popular because one of the companies here in Scotland that I worked for back in the late 80’s had a tripod with one of 5heir heads , and I rented tripods with their heads from at least two of the hire companies in Glasgow back around the same time .

My impressions were they were good products .

[Allan Black]

I’m a Miller man, they’re made about 20 minutes from me here in Sydney. In 1946 Rod Miller patented the world’s first fluid tripod head.

I’m retired now and I still have my Miller Compass 25, a great set of sticks. The last job I did was shooting video programs for HARS, the ‘Historical Aircraft Restoration Society’ here in Sydney. It was a great job but exhausting, the Compass was fast to set up and smooth to pan.

There was another guy shooting and it became a crazy ritual for us both to to get the horizon level, not easy when you’re shooting fast. We flew in most of their aircraft to airshows around Australia.

I shot, edited and produced DVDs for HARS. Through biz contacts I could get 300 complete DVDs made with a 4 colour label and sleeve for AUD$4 ea. but I had to let the 24hr company produce them in their downtime, late Sunday night.

HARS sold them for $25 ea., paid me then pocketed the $21. HARS is a registered charity, that was my contribution.

Click to enlarge. Cheers.

[Derek Heeps]

Nice , we have a Miller Tripod at work .

I didn’t know they were an Australian company. I learn something every day .

[Allan Black]

I haven’t dealt with Miller for years, so I looked them up. This year they’ve been in business for 70 years and have moved not far from me out to Wetherall Park, to a much bigger factory.

In 2018 when I bought my Compass 25 tripod, it was around 3 grand when Miller was importing their carbon fibre legs made in France. I bought mine from a nearby agent and it included a full Miller service after 12 months. They wanted to see how I was using it and whether I was treating it ok.

One thing I found was, when quoting for a job and they asked what gear I was using, mentioning Miller got smiles of approval.

My 25 has now been replaced with newer models, that’s the name of the game. There’s a heap on eBAY.
Cheers.

[Derek Heeps]

Originally Posted by Allan Black

I’m a Miller man, they’re made about 20 minutes from me here in Sydney. In 1946 Rod Miller patented the world’s first fluid tripod head.

I’m retired now and I still have my Miller Compass 25, a great set of sticks. The last job I did was shooting video programs for HARS, the ‘Historical Aircraft Restoration Society’ here in Sydney. It was a great job but exhausting, the Compass was fast to set up and smooth to pan.

There was another guy shooting and it became a crazy ritual for us both to to get the horizon level, not easy when you’re shooting fast. We flew in most of their aircraft to airshows around Australia.

I shot, edited and produced DVDs for HARS. Through biz contacts I could get 300 complete DVDs made with a 4 colour label and sleeve for AUD$4 ea. but I had to let the 24hr company produce them in their downtime, late Sunday night.

HARS sold them for $25 ea., paid me then pocketed the $21. HARS is a registered charity, that was my contribution.

Click to enlarge. Cheers.

Meant to ask , that is a Connie printed on the DVD ?

I’m aware of , and have seen , the Breitling one , and I believe there’s one flying in USA/Canada , not sure which , but I don’t believe there are that many flying now ?

Is that one flying ?

[Allan Black]

Yes it is. ‘Southern Preservation’ is the pride of the HARS fleet of about 30 aircraft now, and they’re all maintained in flying condition. Here’s the story ... https://hars.org.au/display/lockheed...constellation/

I don’t now, but Connie was/is the star when we flew to airshows. President Bob DeLa Hunty is the chief pilot and what we did when I flew to airshows, a few days in advance we’d phone radio stations on our flight path to alert them we’d be flying over the town.

They’d regularly broadcast our arrival time and when we did, we’d all be watching out for people looking out for us. And when we saw some, Bob would circle around and we’d make another lower pass over them especially kids, to let them see a 1950s airliner.

Good publicity for HARS as well. Cheers.

[John Nantz]

Interesting Blast from the past thread....

several years ago I was at the Siskiyou county airport, a former Air Force runway in Northern California, and there was a couple huge [Super-?] Conies parked there temporarily. Was told they flew down from the Alaska North Slope (oil fields) and were headed further south.

One of the local Siskiyou pilots there went and parked his Ercoupe underneath one for a "family group picture shot".
Wish I had my camera then (pre smart phone era). The Ercoupe, being a small two-seater and the Connie being so huge, was really impressive.

One has to wonder how something like that ever got off the ground!
Pictures for those who don't know what an Ercoupe looks like:

[Allan Black]

Interesting John, your photo is of a Qantas Super Constellation. So your photo must be very old, because the last scheduled passenger service by a Qantas Super Constellation was on April 19, 1963, when the aircraft VH-EAG arrived in Sydney from Johannesburg on the Wallaby Route.

At the bottom, I enhanced and sharpened your photo to see if we could read the tail registration, but it’s too indistnct. Click to enlarge.

A few things I remember at HARS. When starting Connie with cold engines, we sat idle for about 30 minutes while they warmed up and all the magnetos were checked for operation. Aircraft engines are powered by magnetos, which are engine-driven generators that are independent of the aircraft's electrical system.

Each of the four 18 cylinder Connie engines has 2 magnetos. The first one fires one of the 2 spark plugs in all 18 cylinders, then the 2nd spark plug is fired. If one spark plug fails the other can still power the cylinder.

This redundant system also ensures that the ignition will continue even if one magneto fails.

One time when just one of the 144 magnetos wasn’t operating properly, pilot Bob decided we’d clear it as the engine ran up to full power on take off. So we taxied out, lined up, ran up to full power and started our run.

But the one magneto didn’t perform, and just before we reached V1 (Take off) Bob shouted “Abort take off” He reversed the thrust on all the props, applied the brakes and we basically skidded to a stop. We sat on the runway while the engines cooled then our engineers replaced the faulty magneto and we took off for the airshow.

Here’s a list of Connie’s .. Constellation Photos

Cheers.

[Derek Heeps]

Thanks Allan ,

I enjoyed reading through that page , while I knew there were still quite a few Connies around , and I think they were among the most beautiful airliners ever built , quite possibly THE most beautiful propliner , although I also list amongst my favourites three jetliners : the DeHaviland Comet , the Vickers VC-10 and , of course , Concorde .

My first ever flight was in a VC-10 , and I think the amazing G-force on take off spoiled me for everything that came after , as I've been in nothing else that accelerated as fast !

It seemed such a crime that the one preserved at Bruntingthorpe for the Cold War Jets fast taxi runs was scrapped because they were denied permission to fly it out after the airfield was sold ; numerous other aircraft were similarly scrapped - very sad .

I would have liked to have seen it come to the Museum of Flight , here in Scotland , given there is already a Comet and a Concorde here . I've walked through the ex Dan-Air Comet and the Concorde a number of times .

[John Nantz]

[re-write post, but shorter this time]
(Don't really have time to write now)

Derek,
re 'beautiful plane', probably a lot due to the curved profile.
That must have cost a lot to manufacture.
It boggles my mind that it could even be done economically.
Every section would have to be different, how could they do it?
This would have been done pre-computer and pre auto cad.

Allan,
Found the Connie picture with a DuckDuckGo search, looking for an elevation and something that would show the rudders. Guess the Ausi company name wouldn't hurt, either!

The two planes I saw from the North Slope oil fields appeared to be very heavily used; don't know why they were headed south. Major maintenance?
The one thing that stands out in my memory was the really huge size.

Noticed your use of the word 'we' in your post.
Were you part of the cockpit crew?
Would that have been pre GPS navigation?

One other thing:
Reading the list of pictures and comments in your post, noticed this one:
Mike Holdstock recently posted this November 7, 2019 photo of former "MATS Connie" C-121A N494TW at Jeju Island, Korea

The plane in the news was from the Jeju airline.

Pilot sayings:
There are old pilots,
There are bold pilots,
But there are no old, bold pilots.

and:
"Trouble comes in bunches"
(also good for non-flying 'incidents')

[Derek Heeps]

John , yes I agree re the curved profile , the way the fuselage almost imitated a swan's neck ... other iconic features , for me , were the triple rudders ( I know because the aircraft already had to stand well clear of the ground to give clearance to the propellors , and a taller rudder assembly would have restricted access to hangars ) ; I still see the Connie as a beautiful and elegant aeroplane .

Other features that draw me to certain designs are clean , uncluttered wings ( hence the Comet , VC-10 and Concorde ) and the fact that every aircraft mentioned here was a pioneer in some way or another .

Perhaps strange for me to say , but while the Avro Vulcan shares so much with Concorde , I can also admire the Handley-Page Victor , clutttered and ungainly as it might appear from some angles , it was a very capable aircraft and strangely attractive in some ways - hard to put into words .

Apologies , I know we are straying off topic with much discussion of aviation , but it does seem to be a common interest , and as long as no one objects , this is hopefully OK ?

[Allan Black]

Derek afaik it’s ok, I recently lost a close friend to bowel cancer. He was a retired Qantas Capt. so today every time a Qantas airliner flies overhead, I look up and say Hi Al.

Originally Posted by John Nantz

Allan, I noticed your use of the word 'we' in your post.
Were you part of the cockpit crew?
Would that have been pre GPS navigation?

John, yes I think it was just before GPS. For a couple of years I crewed on HARS aircraft, as their ‘Film Crew.’ Funny we first had red safety jackets with ‘Video Crew’ on the back, but the public didn’t understand that, many thought we were selling video tapes, so even though I was shooting video, we changed it. I also helped as assistant ‘Load Master’ everything on Connie has to be weighed before flight to stay within the load limit.

If airshow organisers paid for all the fuel beforehand, HARS sent their aircraft to participate. Flying to a 1 or 2 day event is totally different to a week long airshow. One I went to was the Avalon Airshow, the biggest airshow in the Southern Hemisphere. It was huge with the USAF participating, HARS sent Connie, their Lockheed Neptune (and Felix) the Catalina.

In Connie we flew about 30 ground crew for the show each week day. HARS paid for our week’s motel accomodation, and we paid for all our food and drink.

HARS is a registered charity, so we rented sets of stairs to set up at Connies front and rear doors so the public could inspect a 1950s airliner. I think it was $10 for a family of 4, very popular. I shot heaps of video, and when we flew back to Sydney the following Sunday, we were all exhausted and we all slept, except pilot Bob and his co-pilot of course. Cheers.