VH-FLE  Britten Norman BN-2A Islander                   (c/n  89)

                               

                                      VH-FLE led an interesting and varied career.   First registered in August 1969 to R & L Holdings
                                      of Sydney , it oddly had no prior UK rego (most Islanders on the VH- register did).   It was being
                                      operated by GRD Ltd for aerial mineral survey work when Roger McDonald took the color shot
                                      above at Bankstown in April 1971.    Note fore and aft magnetometer booms.     Obviously it did
                                      not remain in that role long as Greg Banfield's shot at the foot of the page shows it at Bankstown
                                      on 3 September 1972 with Mt. Isa Air Charter by which time it had divested itself of the survey
                                      apparatus.   In Greg's B&W shot immediately below it is seen again at Bankstown when new in
                                      January 1970.       It later went to a tourist resort in Fiji and was, at one time or another, to have
                                      become DQ-FBV.         This was never taken up and, in the event, it went to work for Aerial
                                      Agriculture before going to PNG as P2-ISJ in 1977.