VH-ABP Porterfield 35/70
(c/n 335)
This
Porterfield, seen above in this rare shot from the Frank Walters
collection (via Geoff Goodall)
had a
very short life. It was registered on 26 April 1938 to Felix B.
Mueller at Essendon .
Felix
was one of Reg Ansett's pilots who also ran a flying school at
Hamilton, Vic.. The photo below
comes from Kevin OReilly and was given to him by
Margaret Young, daughter of Harold
Shelton
who was also flying for Ansett at the time.
More a
family portrait than one of the aircraft, per se,
it depicts, from
left, Felix Mueller, Jean Burns (a parachutist) and Vi and Harold
Shelton. VH-ABP
was probably
assembled at the dealer's at Mascot in March 1938, and possibly where
Frank's photo
was taken.
Some five days after delivery (on 28 March 1938) Felix overturned it on
landing at
Parafield having
flown in
from Broken Hill. It had another accident at Hamilton
on 22 July 1938
when
it crashed on takeoff on a training flight. The two on board were
injured. It was decided to
have the
aircraft rebuilt by Victorian & Interstate Airways at Essendon and
initially it was plan-
ned to use the fuselage of VH-UVH which
had been salvaged from the disastrous hangar fire
which occurred at
Essendon on 27 February 1939. Later it
appears
that Ansett Airways
purchased the wreckage
of -ABP from Mueller to be used in their rebuild of -UVH.
Based
on that
decision, VH-ABP's registration was cancelled on 5 February 1942.
The image of the
wreckage below
is from the Charles
Ohlson collection, via Civil Aviation Historical Society
archives.
