France
 

Much appreciated for that Lang, the place looks impressive and looking forward to attending.
The vintage craft looks good too, I will show that to my sister as she flys jets out of Luton airport.

Bruce McCann

Airline Flights
 

Today 15/11/08 and this weekend Qantas is offering a buy one get one free for your tickets.
My too and from flights have been in the last hour booked $1815 not bad i rekon.
Well it has been a busy day, but a good one regarding the holiday.

So if you haven't booked your tickets now is as good a time as ever.

Bruce McCann

Here is jim Sewell's C15A Radio Van sitting on its rims ready to go in a container from Perth to Istanbul. If you look back up this thread a couple of months back you should agree he has made wonderful progress.

Here is our completely revised route. If any Europeans are near our track, please come and have a beer.

Lang

... great, you can count me in :cheers:

I guess the new route is much more spectacular than the old one. Do you have some time to make a lake cruise with a 100 year old big paddle steamer on Lake Lucerne?

http://www.lakelucerne.ch/typo3temp/pics/5e566c0098.jpg

http://www.lakelucerne.ch/uploads/pi...alden_g_03.jpg

Chris,

We well may have time to do that. I will see how the troops are going when we near Northern Italy. Looking forward to meeting you.

Lang

Just to keep everyone up to date. We now have our shipping dates.

The Kiwis have to get off the mark in about 3 weeks so their box can go to Melbourne to be transferred to the same ship everyone else is using. The Brisbane mob have their two boxes going down the coast mid February to do the same.

Jim Sewell with his Chevrolet radio van is heading off from the west coast on his own personal ship, hopefully to join our bunch of containers in Malta to be put on yet another ship for Istanbul.

I think we should have painted all the vehicles in Navy colours.

Lang

Just got the ute back from the canvas man. Managed to find a WW2 tent to cut up for material.

Looks pretty small to live in for 6 weeks!

Lang

official website
 

... here's the official Normandie Memoire website for all the commemorations around D-Day. Although, not a lot is published yet :bang:

... and here's the offical Conduct Charter, translated by MVT.

Milweb published also an events preview

Here is the Brisbane group before loading on the ship on Tuesday. They will join the Sydney, New Zealand, Perth and Melbourne teams as the ship does its milk run around the Australian coast before heading to Europe.

Lang

... wonderful trucks! Even 2 Blitzes, looking forward to see them sneaking over the high Swiss passes :sheep:

http://www.motorvision.nl/routes/sim...implonpass.jpg

Rolling Highway..
 

Chris..You would be wise to rail car the vehicles where you could..breaking is always an issue with the CMP's and fuel is a little more expensive now ,rather than when I was going that way back in '70....that is 1970..not 1870 Jif..

http://video.google.ca/videosearch?h...um=5&ct=title#

... great video, thanks for that, Alex. I guess the Aussies better pay attention to their breakes :teach:

Unleaded fuel is nowadays CHF 1.30 per litre, was nearly up to CHF 2.00 before the finance crisis.

I guess, you only drive once in your own Blitz from Turkey to Normandy. So loading her onto a train trailer is probably not an option...

greetings
Chris

Alex,

Bev and I did the San Bernadino pass in a 1907 Itala a few years back wih no trouble. Was a bit marginal going down into Aosta with very poor brakes on the rear wheels only but we made it fine.

We are going over the Semplon Pass that is shown in Chris' photo above. Much steeper than the San Bernadino but not as long. The blitzes are quite OK for this crossing and if the boys follow the principle that you use the same gear to go down as you would to go up they will have no problems.

Lang

Here is Jim Sewell's Blitz going in the container in Perth. looks like a comfortable fit!

Lang

Chris what is the other side of the mountain and do they go up or down this mountain, I would have my eyes shut firmly.

Max

Max,

Bev and I went up that Semplon road in 2004 with our 1940 Dodge staff car with no difficulty.

On the other side we go down into a really nice valley then along to get the Furka car train through the mountain. The train is interesting but if it is a nice sunny day I will probably drive over the Furka Pass with whoever else is keen. As you can see from the photo, the Furka Pass road is a seriously winding road but very spectacular - open only when the snow melts. The mountaineers will meet the train riders on the far side (car train station down the bottom of photo).

Sometimes it helps to be small. Jim Sewell exiting his Blitz Radio Van while the Sydney boys stroll around their jeeps in the container.

All 15 vehicles are now on the high seas heading for Istanbul It was no easy job getting them from 4 Australian ports plus New Zealand to all eventually set sail on the same ship.

Lang

Lang,

What I would like to know, is how did Jim get to secure the back end of the Blitz to the container? With minimum ground clearance, running on rims, not much chance of crawling underneath :confused

:)

Richard,

Jim will probably reply.

I think it was such a tight fit no restraints were required!!!

Lang

Rear tie down
 

Hi Richard and Lang
Because I could not crawl underneath or go down the sides or go over the top , the only way I could think of restraining the rear was to make up 2 x C section steel purloin for the rear rims to sit on ( rims may have damaged wood floor during shipping ) I drilled 6 holes in each purloin and welded 6 x 1/4 studs with sharped ends that went into six holes punched in the wood floor , this stopped the plate and rim from sliding side ways ( I hope ! ).

To also help restrain the rear I used 2 x 2.5 tonne tie down straps which were anchored to the rear of the container through a type of pulley mechanism and one end was attached to each side of the chassis, the other end was relayed out along each side of the vehicle to the front of the container where the tensioner was anchored .
The straps were attached to the chassis while the rear of the vehicle was in the doorway and straps were pulled by assistants while the vehicle was backed in , ropes were joined to the straps because the straps were not long enough for this part of the operation .

For the front wheels I used 2 x channel irons for the rims to sit in and welded blocks in them to prevent the rim from rolling to or fro , to fit these I jacked the axle up and slipped them in place .
The front axle was secured by 3/8 chain and turn buckles .

The proof will be when I open the container door in Istanbul , the heart will be in the mouth.

Regards
Jim S.

Jim,

You seriously did not want it to move.

I would have thought with such a tight fit you could have just chucked in a couple of bags of those foam "worms" they use in post parcels and slammed the door!

Lang

Thanks Jim,

I can see a lot of thought went in to that operation.

Some years ago, we shipped a Land Rover station wagon out to Aus for a motor rally we were entered in. It had a full roof rack as well. The container was an insulated or refrigerated type, used to bring perishables over to the UK, they return to Aus empty, so we had a "free" ride through the sponsor. Only problem was a lower ceiling height, we found some 13 inch car wheels with low profile tyres, just for transporting, still it was too high, so ended up with ratchet straps around the chassis and axles to pull springs up. I worked, and no damage caused.

Will see you in Normandy :thup:

containers
 

Richard
Look forward to meeting you at Normandy

I briefly thought of using some truck inner tubes and inflating them on the sides and on the top but the length of the valve stem required was the problem! :D

Regards
Jim S.

Jim,

I thought your other idea of using a couple of puffed up politicians, one on either side, was a better idea. You could have ditched them in Istanbul - no need to bring them home.


Jack

Here are some photos of the Brisbane crowd loading.

Lang

And some more photos

Andfinally a couple more

... good to see, that those little Blitzes already were designed to fit in an ISO-container, before the designers ever known they should :cool:

Although a tight fit, they fit in smoothly. By the way, how do you get out of the cab when you drove the Blitz inside the container? Through the window?

Looking forward to see those Aussie contemporary witnesses on European Battlefields.

Greetings
Chris