VH-ELU
Cessna 402A
(c/n
402A-0121)
I'll say this, Greg Banfield was a lot better
at photographing these big-wing-tip-tank Cessnas
than I
was. I could never seem to get a good angle to get those
tanks out of the way. This
one was at Mascot in November 1974, and was owned by Nationwide Air
Services of Can-
berra at the time. Oddly, in John Wheatley's earlier shot below,
those tanks seem to be missing.
Did
Nationwide remove them at one point? Built as N7821Q, this 402A
was first registered
in
Australia on 2 April 1970. On 17
December 1975 it was sold to Astral Airways (Pty) Ltd
of Devonport,
Tasmania, and sold again on 2
February 1977 to Trans-West Air Charter (WA)
Pty
Ltd. In September 1979 it went to
Talair in New Guinea and was re-registered P2-GKP.
David Carter provides
two rare shots of this 402A below. Top at Port Moresby in 1983 as
P2-GKP and lower at Bankstown in 1970 just after its arrival at N7821Q.