VH-TVN   Vickers 756 Viscount   'William Dampier'                           (c/n  374)

                                 

                                      This shot was taken by Peter Gates at Mascot (Sydney) in September of 1958 .  The aircraft
                                      had been ferried out just two months previously.     The photo below is by Greg Banfield and
                                      shows -TVN at Mascot in 1964 in later "TAA - The Nation's Jetline" livery.  As the late (and
                                      Great) Gil White indicates in his history of this aircraft(at
                                                             http://www.ruudleeuw.com/viscount-vhtvn-history.htm)
                                      this is the only series 700 machine which was sold, all the others being scrapped at various
                                      points around Australia.  VH-TVN went to Botswana National Airways in March of 1969,
                                      becoming A2-ZEL.  It later went to Rhodesia as VP-YNI and wound up with Air Zimbabwe
                                      as Z-YNI.*     In 1984 it was donated to the Harare Airport Fire Service and presumably
                                      ended its days as an instructional airframe. 
                                  *  Pet Peeve:  Why did ICAO allow Zimbabwe to use just 'Z' as their national country markings
                                      if they had no intention of conforming to the 5 digit combination standard?   If, in fact, Zim-
                                      babwe considered that it needed the full range of 4 digit regos since its register was so large
                                      (more delusions of grandeur), then it should have been compelled to use four sequences foll-
                                      owing the 'Z'.    i.e.  Z-YNI should have been Z-AYNI., or Z-ZNYI or whatever.  Actually,
                                      Zimbabwe is not the only nation to bastardize former colonial regos.  China now does it with
                                      former Hong Kong aircraft.   A CPAL Airbus which would have been VR-HLW is now simply
                                      B-HLW.