Back to Jackaroo Aircraft Thruxton
The Jackaroo brings back many happy memories. I was working at Baynes Aircraft Interiors as a trainee technician at Langley airfield and the now late Ron Prizeman was in charge of stressing and weight control.
On to the Jackaroo, the intent was to sell it at £1995 fly away Thruxton, plus a hundred or two for a starter, as a cheap cabin aircraft when American imports were nearly impossible to bring in.. Ron Prizeman was the man who did all of the paperwork for S/L Doran-Webb to get the conversion certified and some of the details fell my way.
For the Coventry air races in 1957 I travelled with Ron in his Triumph Roadster that had been fixed after a tree walked out in front of him on a very wet sharp bend. The Roadster had a dickey seat behind the three seat bench in the car and with the front seat full got rather wet in heavy rain despite the glass windshield
I became dogsbody the next year for the two ‘factory’ Jackaroos, removing weighty items to put into my little Austin 8, and polishing wing surfaces to get the best performance and beat the handicappers. In a crosswind with no brakes, the Jackaroo tended to weather cock whilst taxying and ran a lot with a wing tip in hand.
The two pilots were Lt Cdr Shea Simmonds from Boscombe Down and John Heaton, the wild man CFI at Thruxton. OEX was the cabin version and OEY was with room for a hopper replacing the three seats. I also had the job of transporting the one very merry pilot to and from a hotel in Leamington each day.
On the start line the motors were stopped for a while, and then had to be swung into life. Shea Simmonds somehow had not made ‘contact’ when requested and I thought that it would never start before the race after 10 or 12 swings. Eventually contact was made and all was well immediately, with some good monochrome pics of both of them blasting off when the flag dropped.
Funny enough I never got a ride in a Jackaroo, I don’t know why. I have a pal in the UK who has owned and flown a Tiger Moth for many years and a ride in it when I get back to the UK occasionally is a personal delight.
Old Aviation enthusiast South Africa 2018
John Parker
All Aero 