VH-BJZ  Miles M65 Gemini 1A                (c/n  6453)

                              

                                 This is the Gemini which appears in the shot of VH-BFT.  Taken on the same day with a box camera.
                                 This line up of aircraft were all part of the fleet of the Royal Aero Club of NSW in 1948.  It is seen in
                                 the photo immediately below, gleaned by Wally Civitico from the archives of Exxon Mobil. at an un-
                                 known location being refueled from the Vacuum Oil truck.  VH-BJZ was the former G-AILK and was
                                 withdrawn from use in 1963 following the DCA directive regarding wood bonded (glued) aircraft. The
                                 two images following Wally's are both from the Geoff Goodall collection.   The upper shot shows -BJZ
                                 in its final days, parked out in the weather at Longreach, Qld in January 1968, slowly falling to pieces.
                                 Happily some parts of it were salvaged and ended up with the Gemini collection of Lyn Forster at York,
                                 WA.   The Ben Dannecker photograph at the foot of the page illustrates G-AILK in the UK before it
                                 left for Oz in December 1946. . It had been flown out from England as the first postwar solo flight to
                                 Australia by Group Captain A. F. "Bush" Bandidt, an Australian serving in the RAF.   He departed
                                 the Miles factory at Woodley, Reading on 1 December 1946 and made Australian landfall on
                                 7 January 1947 at the abandoned Truscott military strip on the Kimberley coastline before proceed-
                                 ing to Darwin to clear customs.