VH-EPI    Beagle B.121 Pup 160                                      (c/n  B.126)

                                   

                                         Here's a new Beagle Pup 160 emerging out of its crate from England at Mascot in October 1970.
                                         Its only U.K. identity was the B Class rego G-35-126.           Above photo by Roger McDonald.
                                         Beagle went bankrupt in 1969. At the time there were at Mascot several aircraft in various stages
                                         of assembly that belonged to Beagle.   VH-EPI was one of them.   It had been assembled but not
                                         flown. Others were fully registered, others wingless, some were still in crates. The aircraft lingered
                                         around the Flight Facilities building while efforts were made to revive Beagle.      The military Bull-
                                         dog program was sold to Scottish Aviation but the Pup was history and the liquidators sold off the
                                         stock of aircraft parked around the world.     However before it could be sold, poor old VH-EPI
                                         was flipped in a storm resulting in the damage seen in the photograph below by David Carter,
                                         taken on 8 May 1971. .  Clearly, a buyer was subsequently found who managed to restore it. 
                                         Keith Brooks, a UK Beagle connoisseur indicates that, in all probability, Scottish Aviation probably
                                         sent out a new fuselage from their stocks of surplus inventory.            In the event it was finally
                                         registered on 25 August 1975 to R. B. Davis, and later went on to other owners and is still
                                         currently registered.   The lower shot from the Keith Brooks collection shows it at Bankstown
                                         in latter years.