VH-ANF (2)  Douglas DC-4     "Loongana"                                    (c/n  10302)

                                 

                                            Soon after the first VH-ANF was sold to BCPA, ANA decided to replace it with a (less
                                            expensive) ex-USAAF C-54A-5-DC .  The second VH-ANF was delivered in December
                                            of 1948, and given the same name, ('Loongana') as the first one.  It saw wartime service
                                            as 42-72197 and was civilianized as N49776 with Willis Air Service, from whom ANA
                                            purchased it.  VH-ANF was the aircraft in which (the very senior and experienced) Capt.
                                            Keith Virtue inadvertently landed wheels up at Brisbane on 15 November 1954.  So smooth
                                            was the belly landing that very little actual structural damage was done, although the aircraft
                                            was relegated to freight duties after that.   However, Keith retired from commercial flying
                                            following this mistake (with over 23,000 hours in his logbook).      My shot above shows
                                            VH-ANF in 'Air Cargo' livery at Essendon in 1956   Immediately below is an image from the
                                            John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland collection showing 'Loogana' immediately
                                            after the above stated landing accident.     The aircraft passed to the merged Ansett-ANA 
                                            operation in 1957 and at the foot of the page are two nice shots of it by Geoff Goodall, in
                                            full Ansett-ANA Cargomaster livery taken at Adelaide.  The upper one in April 1963 and the
                                            lower evocative night shot outside the hangar in June of 1962.     VH-ANF was sold to CAT
                                            (Taiwan's airline before China Airlines - with ties to the CIA) in 1967 and it was finally damaged
                                            beyond repair at Battambang in the Khmer Republic during the Viet Nam war, in 1974.