VH-UAL  de Havilland D.H.60 Moth                  (c/n  246)

                                          

                                                This early Moth is displaying Royal Victorian Aero Club stripes in the above shot from the John
                                                Hopton collection.   Originally registered (as G-AUAL) to the Civil Aviation Branch, Dept of
                                                Defence in August 1926 it was one of many machines loaned to various branches of the Australian
                                                Aero Club, this one going to the Victorian Section at Essendon.   It had a Cirrus II engine installed
                                                in 1927.  Photo #2 from the Kevin ORilly collection shows the Moth as G-AUAL at Essendon,
                                                circa .  The original was captioned "Aero Club aircraft".  -UAL  had several prangs, some of them
                                                serious enough to result in fatal injuries to the pilot.      One such occured near Bendigo on 3 July
                                                1929, as seen in the photo at the foot of the page from the Richard Penna collection.  Incredibly
                                                it was rebuilt by the following January and re-issued with a new C of A.   By 1936 it was on the
                                                strength of the embryo RVAC, but on 23 December of that year it crashed again, this time on the
                                                Northern Golf Links, some 3 miles east of Essendon Airport.  It was not officially struck off the
                                                register until 15 March 1937.  No doubt the RVAC were debating having it repaired, but, in the
                                                event, decided againt this course and its C of A was finally allowed to lapse        In Photo #3 it
                                                appears in a newspaper clipping from the Melbourne Argus of 19 December 1936 with the
                                                caption  'Officials flagging away the first machines to leave Essendon yesterday for the final stage
                                                of the Brisbane to Adelaide air race'.