VH-PGU   DHC-6 Twin Otter 320                         (c/n 279)

                                  

                                      The registration VH-PGU can barely be discerned on the mid/rear fuselage on this MMA Twin
                                      Otter.      First-flown in May 1970 as N5227 for Floair, Inc, it was immediately resold to Ansett
                                      Airlines of Australia.  After service in Queensland for a couple of years it was transferred to MMA
                                      in Perth in 1972 and operated on their Kimberly services.   By then MacRobertson Miller were a
                                      subsidiary of Ansett and so the desire to re-register this Twin Otter into the VH-MM series was
                                      probably not a consideration.. The photo above, from the Geoff Goodall collection, was taken at
                                      Paraburdoo, WA in June 1972.   When MMA's Kimberly services were taken over by Trans West
                                      Air Charter (WA) in 1978 the Twin Otter was withdrawn from service, ferried to Melbourne and
                                      parked.  It was sold in the US in May 1979 and delivered to Miami to become N934MA for Metro-
                                      flight Airlines.   After duty with several other operators in the US it was leased Maldivian Air Taxi
                                      Ltd in 1995 as 8Q-KBM.     It returned to Kenn Borek Air in May 1995 as C-GKBM, but then
                                      returned to the Maldives in 1997 where it was fitted with floats as 8Q-MAI..  Steffen Schlabbach
                                      caught it taxying out at Summer Island Village, North Male Atoll in April of 2007 (below)     Note
                                      the outrigger fins on tailplane to counteract the frontal side area of the rather massive floats.