A beautiful
shot above of Fokker F.27 Mk 100 Friendship VH-CAV (c/n 10131) outside
the DCA hangar at Melbourne/Essendon in May 1962. The aircraft is painted
in the DCA house colours of white with light blue trim, and carries
the DCA logo on forward
fuselage and fin, but does not yet have a weather radar in the nose.
DCA ordered two brand new Friendships during 1959 so that the regulator had experience on the same airliner type that was being purchased in numbers at that time by Australian airlines such as TAA, East West Airlines, MacRobertson Miller Airlines, Ansett-ANA and its subsidiaries Airlines of NSW, Airlines of SA and Queensland Airlines.
VH-CAT & VH-CAV were delivered from the Fokker factory in Netherlands to Australia in September 1959 and VH-CAV was registered on 24 September 1959. Both Friendships were based at Essendon and used for a variety of roles, including radio navigation aid calibration work throughout Australia and Papua New Guinea.
The photos above and below show VH-CAV at Coolangatta in 1966 - the Control Tower is just visible in the lower photo.
The photo above shows VH-CAV taxying at Essendon outside the DCA
Flying Unit's hangar, framed by the wing of one of the other DCA F.27s. Similary, the shot below shows VH-CAV outside the hangar at Essendon on 30 November 1968 with one of her sister-ships
in the background. In the years since the top photo was taken the aircraft
has been modified by fitting weather radar in the nose, evidenced by the
black radome. One of the outcomes of the investigation into the crash
of Viscount
VH-TVC into Botany Bay in 1961 was a requirement for all turbine-powered
aircraft to be equipped with weather radar, and DCA's Fokkers were no
exception.
The photo below shows VH-CAV outside the DCA hangars at Essendon in April 1973.
After replacement by Fokker 28s in the airways survey role, VH-CAV was sold to the UK, becoming G-STAN. Its Australian registration was cancelled on 30 January 1979.
(Photos: 1-Geoff Goodall; 2&3-CAHS/Ben Dannecker / 4-CAHS/Terry Martin collection / 5-Roger McDonald / 6-CAHS/Ben Dannecker collection)
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