VH-AAM
(1) D.H.94 Moth Minor
(c/n
94002)
It's c/n would indicate that this was the second Moth
Minor built. It was certainly the first VH-AAM,
being registered
in
1939. "Aspaxadrene" was the forerunner of the modern day
Ventolin, a must for
asthma sufferers, so I assume that this aircraft was
owned
by a drug company (or distributor) at the
time. However, it's hardly what one would call an
"executive"
transport. Some 74 of these "monoplane
Tiger Moths" had been built at Hatfield when WW II
broke
out, and all the jigs, dies and tooling
were bundled off to Sydney where production was
resumed,
some 41 more of them being built by
DHA for the
RAAF. For some reason VH-AAM appears never to have been
impressed into RAAF
service. My
shot above was taken at Moorabbin in 1955. When Jeff Atkinson
took the photo below
in 1957 it had
shed
its advertising titling and appears to be in a plain silver with
(red?)
cheat line. John
Hopton saw its
fuselage (photo # 3) in December 1959 in a hangar at
Moorabbin. However,-AAM
was not officially
cancelled from the
register until July of 1961. Finally at the foot of the page
is a grainy
shot from the album of
Mary Thurston showing the Moth Minor probably soon after it had been
imported
at
Archerfield, circa 1939.