MAURICE (MAURIE)
MILLER
by Maurie Miller
This is a brief
biography of my time with Adastra Hunting Geophysics. Excuse memory lapses.
1954/55. I was a field technician (electronics) with the S.A. Mines Department.
We did airborne scintillometry surveys with an Avro Anson Mk 19 at 200
feet radio altitude. The navigation was crude to say the least, three
Landrovers spread over 40 miles in a straight line with Aldis lamps morseing
the numbers on survey pegs. Aircraft courtesy of R.A.A.F. The SA Mines
decided to go in for magnetometer surveys and obtained a submarine detector
ASQ 91, but problems arose with patents and conversions. At this time
Huntings of England joined up with Adastra Airways to form Adastra Hunting
Geophysics. Thc SA Mines hired Adastra Hunting with the English crew,
Capt. Bob Keeling, Alan Palmer technician, Derrick ? ,and Jack Tierney,
an Australian from Adastra for the surveys. The aircraft was a Percival
Prince. I flew with them and as Alan Palmer was due to return to UK to
get married he asked me to join AHG, but I was hesitant to do so. They
took on two technicians from AWA, one left due to airsickness. Eventually
after a couple of surveys in SA, I approached Jack Tierney who was in
charge of the operation to join Adastra. The UK crew went back and our
crew consisted of Capt. Ted McKenzie, Navigator Jack Tierney, Engineer
Ken Stredwick, Camera Operator Gordon Morell and myself. The Prince equipment
consisted of a PSC magnetometer with detection head at the tail, radio
altimeter (APNI ex wartime) Vinten 35mm tracking camera with multi intervalometer
(6400 frames per 400 feet) and ground magnetometer to check diurnal drift
and sunspot interference. Aircraft metal compensation for detector head
was done by bar magnets in the tail of the aircraft (very crude and not
satisfactory).
1955/56. We did a small mineral survey from Leigh Creek
1956 Went to Smithton in Tasmania. The weather was very poor so after
struggling for some weeks we went to do a job for Rio Tinto in Cloncurry
Queensland.
1956. Back to Smithton. Then to Lion Range with one traverse from Horn
Island to New Guinea and return. Thence to Ceduna. Dates get a hit hazy
here. Sometime on the way back from Ceduna I was sent to Queenstown, Tasmania
where they were having trouble tuning the E.M.Bird towed by the Sycamore
helicopter. The E.M.Bird was a 20foot long, fibre glass tube with a coil
at either end and a scintillometer at the centre. The survey was not a
great success as Tasmania has rather tall trees.
1957. A Catalina aircraft arrived from Canada equipped with magnetometer
PSC, (same type as the Prince aircraft), radio altimeter, (same type as
the Prince), Vinten camera (same type as the Prince), electro magnetic
system (EM), scintillation counter, (locally made type AS3) for clarity
magnetometer measures of magnetic strengths of in earth fields. EM sends
AC fields vertically down (in this case 400 cycles per sec at 500 watts
+230 cycles per sec at 250 watts) The signals are picked up by a bird
towed under the aircraft + response from the ground. The bird is towed
on a 500 foot cable. Mineral surveys 500 feet above ground radio altitude.
Oil surveys 1500 feet above ground radio altitude. NOTE: Even though the
bird trails on its cable, over the time we had the Catalina we managed
to lose five birds by contact to ground.
Dec.1957. We did a proving run from Sydney to Burketown with all the equipment
running. During this trip it was found that the scintillometer was picking
up the radioactivity from the tips of various switches. These were crushed
with pliers and tipped overboard.
1958/59. Adastra had both Prince and Catalina working in Tasmania. The
areas were the west coast and some of the eastern side due to the turbulent
nature e.g. going over mountains etc. An extra flight panel had been fitted
to monitor conditions (attitude etc). This was fitted behind the starboard
bulkhead of the pilots seats. The panel was illuminated and a tracking
camera was used to photograph it. I do not know if it gave any useful
information but it increased our workload. On our return to Sydney, contracts
were in short supply. There were five technicians by then so the company
wanted to offload. Ted Roberts and myself resigned voluntarily. Ted was
older and married and wanted to get into TV, he went to Channel 7. I was
ex TV from UK, so I went to Channel 2. Adastra was not too happy that
we were the ones that left. Approximately nine months later, I had a phone
call at work from Adastra asking me to return as senior technician. There
was trouble with a magnetometer on the ground at Cobar. I I left Channel
2, and Peter Woyzbun, geophysicist, drove me to Cobar. On my return from
Cobar, Adastra decided to update the magnetometer and obtained a Gulf
magnetometer which was designed for a bird configuration. The use of a
bird did not have the problems of a/c compensation but did not handle
turbulence as well and had problems with tow cables. The magnetometer
cable had about twenty conductors. I had got rid of bar magnet compensation
for stinger operation by using coil inductors from regulated power supply
on the Catalina. Later on, Kentings of Canada sent us a circuit using
zener diodes which were new then for a power supply. So we made that up.
Magnetometer bird configuration was used on Ansons, Hudsons, Catalina
(when EM not used) and DC-3. Stinger was used on DC-3 and Aero commander.
The Catalina was eventually put to bed. I made many trips in various aircraft
which I can't put dates on. The DC-3 did surveys over the water from Broome
and at Weipa using Radist navigation.
1965. We did a magnetometer survey over the Coral Sea using Doppler navigation
(using bird). An extra fuel tank was installed in the cabin. The survey
was eight hours daily from the northern end of New Caledonia. Les Sheffield
our electrical instruments engineer looked after the Doppler. I looked
after the magnetometer and cameras. We photographed atolls as we flew
over them. Mike Wood was our navigator. We had a cinecamera operated single
frame by a solenoid, photographing the Doppler readout. Les and I had
rigged up a left/right meter for the pilots. Mike had worked out sea current
drifts, and the Doppler kept us to about half mile spacing. It was a great
success and finished in about a week. I went to Giles on the Aero Commander
with Bruce Gregory as pilot and did a weeks work. We lived in a tent at
the end of the runway (that was the smallest crew). My final trip was
with the DC-3 with the old Catalina EM fitted and magnetometer in the
stinger. We had trouble compensating the magnetometer because, against
my advice, steel supporting bars for the EM loop had been fitted instead
of alloy ones. This trip was from Roper Bar and we lived in tents, fuel
was in drums brought in by trucks. The survey took three months which
included a week at Robertson River camp where Alec Garriock our relief
skipper and I changed a generator as our engineer was back at Roper Bar.
I had done many more surveys but I cannot recall the order of them. They
include St George (many times), Walgett, Oakey, Dirranbandi, Tamworth,
Roma, Bundaberg and Forrest. I retired from AHG in September 1966.
Maurie Miller
12th February 2003