VH-UGD de Havilland D.H.50A
(c/n QANTAS 3)
G-AUGD was
the third D.H.50 to
be
assembled by Qantas, Ltd in their hangar at
Longreach,
Queensland. It was named 'Pegasus'.
The above shot shows it in Salamaua, New Guinea in
1932. The
photo immediately below, via the John Oxley Library, State Library of
Queensland
collection portrays the
aircraft as G-AUGD. The caption on this states that, on
the original of
the
photograph the aircraft is described as the first to be used as an air
ambulance, and flew out
of Aldingham, in the
Winton District of Queensland to Mascot in 1927. In actual fact,
the first air
ambulance
to be chartered by the Australian Inland Mission (AIM) was G-AUER, Anyway,
after several owners in 1931-32 it was acquired by Les Holden for his
New
Guinea based Holden
Air Transport
and flown to Salamaua, New Guinea in September 1932.. (Les was
to
perish that
same
month while travelling as a passenger in a New England Airways Puss
Moth from Sydney
to
Brisbane when the
aircraft crashed near Byron Bay). In October 1932
-UGD had a Jupiter
engine
installed, replacing the original Armstrong Siddeley Puma. (It is
powered by that engine in
the shot
above).
Holden's continued to use the machine until
1936 when it was withdrawn from
use.