VH-UQU de Havilland D.H.83 Fox
Moth
(c/n 4051)
A nice shot above from the Ken Watson
collection (via the CAHS) of a Fox Moth imported for
Adastra Airways
in September 1933. The (unknown) bloke's hat looks like he might have
been
military, but probably was an oil company man. Oddly, in the Neil
Follett
collection photo below
(via
Geoff Goodall) the Fox Moth appears to have Royal Victorian Aero Club
rudder stripes,
although the
DCA register indicates that it was sold by Adastra in 1938 to
Guinea Airways. The
image at the
foot of the page is from the Robert
Wills collection, (via Ron
Cuskelly). VH-UQU
inaugurated
Adastra's run from Sydney to
Bega on the south coast of
NSW. It was later aug-
mented with the Waco YKS6
VH-UOX and
finally replaced by D.H.90 Dragonfly VH-AAD
in March
1938. Statistics for Adastra indicate 423 round
trip flights between Sydney and Bega:
100 by the Fox
Moth and 323
by the Waco
YKS6. Incidentally, VH-UQU sustained a takeoff
collision at
Mascot on 14 April 1936 when it struck
the Moth VH-UOZ which was taking off
across its
path, back in the days
when Mascot
had no runways. As stated above, with the intro-
duction of the
Dragonfly, VH-UQU
was sold to Guinea Airways in
March 1938. It sustained
substantial damage
in a crash
landing at Sonia, New Guinea in August
1941 (see photo a the foot
of the
page) and then a squadron of
marauding
Japanese fighters (probably A6M5s) finished the
poor thing off
in January
1942. I am sure their
C.O. was
dutifully impressed when "three enemy
aircraft" were reported as being
destroyed on
the ground. Yeah....a Fox
Moth, a Gipsy Moth
and a
derelict
Junkers. The Nip probably
got a medal for it.
.......
