VH-ANE (1)    Douglas DC-4-1009       'Arkana'                          (c/n  42916)
 
                                          

                                                The above rare shot of -ANE at Sydney is from the John Hopton collection and shows it pre-
                                                white top.  Note Liberator and Anson (looks like VH-BMA on the original print) in the back-
                                                ground.   My two shots below show it (upper) awaiting its next assignment adjacent to a busy
                                                Essendon ramp in 1954 and, (bottom of the page) clad in pseudo National Airlines livery at the
                                                same venue some three years later.. In 1953 ANA purchased two 'state of the art'  DC-6s from
                                                National Airlines of Miami, Florida, and so enamoured were they of the paint job when they took
                                                delivery of them that they kept it as their own and, in fact, repainted a number of DC-4s to emulate
                                                the color scheme.  To see what I mean, go to my National Airlines DC-4 shot for comparison.
                                                (Ansett also did the same thing when they purchased some Convairs from Braniff, but that's another
                                                story).    Anyway, as with VH-ANB this DC-4 also had a varied life after it left Ansett-ANA in
                                                1958,  going first to Twentieth Century Airlines as N5518V.  They sold it to Trans Arabia Airlines
                                                whence it was registered G-APTT.     In 1961 it was acquired by Air Cameroun who registered
                                                it as TJ-ABD.     Air Madagascar bought it in 1968 to augment two similar DC-4-1009s they had
                                                purchased from Air France.  Its Malagasy Republic registration was 5R-MCO.   An aside thought:-
                                                I can never understand why ICAO, in their infinitive wisdom, started assigning  number plus letter
                                                civil country codes after WW II.  The first was Israel (4X)  followed sharply by Sri Lanka (4R).
                                                Then most (but not all) of the emerging African independent nations were given similar combinations,
                                                and eventually virtually every other "liberated" country.     I mean, it's not as if they had run out of
                                                two letter combinations.   I can understand their reticence at assigning "M"  (could be the foreunner
                                                of a 'Mayday' call) but Malagasy could have been, say,  'AG'.  Whatever.
                                                To continue the saga of poor old -ANE.  By 1979 it was languishing at Moroni Airport in the
                                                Comoros Islands  (nice place to languish) as D6-CAB (couldn't Comoros have been 'CO'?)
                                                having spent the last two years of its active life doing heaven-knows-what with Air Comores.

                                     

                                     
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