Civil Register Update

The second new registrant, Islander XFI, was built during 1969 and has spent all its life operating in the Pacific area. It is a product of the heyday of the British aircraft industry when BAG One Elevens, Beagle Pups and Islanders were finding easy markets and Concorde had just flown. During 1968 BAG were negotiating to sell One Elevens to Tarom, the Romanian state airline, and part of the offset deal was for IMRA-Romania to build 215 basic Islanders which would then be flown to Bembridge, England for final fitting, painting and thence delivery. The deal had two benefits: BAG were of course able to sell eleven One Elevens to Tarom and BrittenNorman, who were already contracting work out to companies such as Marshalls of Cambridge and the British Hovercraft Corporation, were able to fulfil their commitment to an order book which stood at over two hundred. The fifth Islander off the Romanian production line was G-AXSU which first flew on 11 January 1970 and was delivered to the Britten-Norman factory in England in March. It was delivered to IAS, the Australasian distributors, at Bankstown on 9 July and quickly became VH-EQZ. One month later it was on its way to New Hebrides Airways as VP-PAU to be operated by Air Melanesiefrom Port Vila. Over the next eleven years it was used on short island hopping routes around the New Hebrides changing its markings firstly to F-OCXD and then to YJ-RV6 during this time. Air Melanesie was a subsidiary of Talair of PNG and during 1981 the Islander was diverted to the main fleet in PNG and joined twenty others of the same type at the airline’s base, Goroka. Due to political pressure within PNG, Talair are gradually bringing some of their fleet to Australia to join their Queensland operation Flight West Airlines and the Islander has now become XFI.

Another Talair aircraft to come to Australia under the same circumstances is Twin Otter XFE which can be found in the aircraft returning to the register section. This aircraft was built at Downsview, Canada during 1974 and is a 300 series utilising Pratt and Whitney PT6A-27 turboprops. It was originally delivered to Air Mauritius in January 1975 as 3B-NAB and spent fifteen years based at Port Louis before being sold to Air Melanesie. After a brief spell in Vanuatu it joined the Flight West Airlines fleet as VH-XFE in January 1990. The aircraft went to Talair as P2-RDZ on 13 December to fill a short term gap in the fleet but now returns to the Flight West network in its original Australian markings.

T heother restorationis Auster BYX. ThisEnglish built J/5F Aiglet Trainer was sold new to Australia in September 1955 and flew continuously until April 1971 when it was withdrawn from use. After twenty years the aircraft rejoins the 111 other Austers still flying in Australia today.

The largest section this month is the deletions section, but most of those which have been withdrawn from use can be expected to return to the register after varying periods of maintenance. The Gippsland Aeronautics PA-25 Fatman, BCE, has been sold overseas and it will be interesting to find out to which country and whether more sales can be expected. Falcon MEI, Citation NEW, Rockwell Commander BSO and Mitsubishi MIU join the increasing exodus of bizjets and bizprops from Australia, although the Citation is unusual as it has gone to the United Arab Emirates rather than the more usual destination, the USA. Another aircraft bound for the UAE is Bo105S MBL. This sophisticated helicopter was built in Germany in 1987 and after a sale in the USA that fell through it was delivered to the NSCA at Sale, Vic in January 1988 as NSQ. After the collapse of the Safety Council it moved on to New Zealand where it was used by the Westpac Rescue Service based at Wellington between September 1988 . and October 1989 when it was replaced by an Aerospatiale Squirrel. The Bolkow returned to Australia as MBL but has now been shipped to the Middle East.

Three airliners have recently departed these shores, two Boeing 747s and a Saab 340. The two 747s, EBI and EBJ, have gone to Virgin and United respectively as advised in the last issue and Saab 340A OLG is the second Hazelton aircraft that had been leased until the delivery of their new 340Bs. Twin Comanche MCO and Bell Jet Ranger XDM have both been damaged, although no details of the date and location are at hand, with the latter going to New Zealand for a rebuild.

The AustralianAviation current aircraft register, which has become the standard reference over the years and has until now been printed in the magazine, will be available in booklet form during October. Also the historic registers which detail every aircraft ever registered in Australia are available now. Blocks covered so far are VH-AAA to VH-AZZ, VH-BAA to VH-BZZ and VH-CAA to VH-CZZ and are available from Austairdata, PO Box 1142, Toombul Qld 4012. Prices are $15 for the latter and $8 each for the previous two and include airmail postage within Australia. Of course all these publications can be kept up to date through this column.