VH-EOO DHA-3 Drover 3
(c/n 5011)
This Drover was the former
VP-PAP of Air Melanesiae, an airline which
operated in the New
Hebrides (before it became
Vanuatu) in the
late 1960s. Prior to that it had been the Royal
Flying
Doctor Service's VH-FDT*.
It was
originally built as VH-DRE and operated by
TAA
for the RFDS
Upon its repatriation from the
islands it became VH-EOO. The shot above
is by R.A.
Scholefield and was taken at Bankstown in
October 1970. -EOO finally
withdrawn
from
use in 1975.
* There is, at the Second World War Aircraft Preservation Society
(SWWAPS) museum near
Lasham Airfield in
Hampshire, UK a Drover (now sadly run down) painted up as VH-FDT.
This aircraft is actually
G-APXX, formerly Qantas' VH-EAS (and VH-EAZ before that).
I can only assume that they
wanted to depict the aircraft as an ex RDFS machine, and decided
that it should be ex
-FDT!.