Oh, Daphne: The story of Victoria Police’s very first helicopter

In Victoria, the police Air Wing was established in 1975 and initially utilised a small fleet of fixed-wing aircraft. By the following year, Victoria Police went on to launch a six-week trial to evaluate the introduction of regular helicopter patrols. In 1978, the Air Wing leased its first helicopter, a Hughes 500D, and soon decided it was time to purchase its own rotor aircraft.

The Victoria Police Air Wing purchased a brand-new twin-engine Aerospatiale AS-365C1 Dauphin 2, registration VH-PVF, in 1978 – the first aircraft of its kind in Australia. PVF entered into service in 1979 and became the first helicopter to be owned and operated by Victoria Police.

Mark Whorlow is a former Victoria Police officer, who had the pleasure of manning VH-PVF, along with the other initial helicopters that made up the Victoria Police Air Wing in the late 1980s. “I joined the Air Wing in 1987, as what was then known as an air observer, though now they are called technical flight officers,” Whorlow explains. “When I joined, Victoria Police had three Dauphin helicopters in its fleet, one of which was of course, PVF, or ‘Daphne’ as we called her.”

Whorlow called the acquisition of Daphne a “turning point” for Victoria’s policing aviation capabilities, with the Dauphin fleet giving police increased ability for observation and tracking, pursuits, and the ability to deploy officers to scenes quicker than ever. However, the Victoria Police Air Wing was quickly put to other uses too. Whorlow reveals that at this time, Victoria Police were one of the only helicopter operators in the Southern Hemisphere performing multi-role operations, with Daphne leading the charge. “PVF was bought as a police aircraft, obviously, but she was winch-capable, which meant we now had search and rescue capabilities too. Later, the police force partnered with Ambulance Victoria, and one of the Dauphins became a dedicated aeromedical aircraft,” he says. However, Daphne was also capable of aeromedical support in the event that the dedicated ambulance aircraft could not complete the mission.

One of Daphne’s most famous search and rescue ventures was the Sydney to Hobart race of 1998. On the second day of the race, 27 December 1998, severe weather struck the fleet of 115 racers, which brought on Australia’s largest-ever peacetime rescue operation. VH-PVF was one of 35 military, search and rescue, and civilian aircraft that flew to the Bass Strait to winch stranded sailors to safety. Reports from the time suggest Daphne was responsible for returning at least five mariners from the stormy waters of the Bass Strait that day. “The crew actually received a valor award for that rescue because it was quite perilous,” Whorlow says. “They flew out to the site very quickly, but faced massive headwind coming back, so fuel became critical, and they ultimately landed on vapours.” Daphne also performed evacuation efforts of stranded Victorians during the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires. “Daphne was the first of her kind in Australia, and participated in major rescue efforts, so she is an important part of Victoria’s history and police history,” Whorlow says. “She symbolises the bond that we officers formed with each other during our multi-role operations, search and rescue, and aeromedical. And we bonded with her too – the bond of man and machine that I think is common in aviation.”

After over two decades of service to the Victoria Police Air Wing, Daphne was decommissioned in 2001. “At that point, she was largely stripped for parts,” Whorlow says. “The engines, the main rotor gearbox, those were removed. She was basically just a fuselage and an instrument panel after that.” Daphne was purchased by a private collector and changed hands a handful of times over the next few years. “She ended up in Maryborough in central Victoria, and the guy who owned her ended up listing Daphne on eBay.”

After years of working onboard Daphne and knowing what she symbolised in terms of pioneering aerial police capability and search and rescue operations, Whorlow wasn’t about to let VH-PVF end up in the wrong hands. “Someone posted a link to the eBay listing on a police Facebook page I was a part of, and straight away I reached out and put down a $500 deposit to get him to remove the listing,” Whorlow says. After taking money out of his mortgage in order to afford it, Whorlow spent a total of $15,000, plus moving costs, in order to secure ownership of VH-PVF.

“I had a group of people supporting me, ex-Air Wing officers, who all, like me, wanted to see Daphne preserved and restored for future generations,” Whorlow explains. “We had a number of ideas of who to approach to see if we could donate PVF and see her spruced up and looked after. We would have liked Victoria Police to take her on as a project, either at the police museum or the police historical society. However, I think when they got presented with an 11-metre helicopter, they probably realised, somewhere along the chain of command, that taking her on posed logistical problems for them and they ultimately said, a year and a half later, that it’s not something they could be involved in.”

At the time, Whorlow was storing Daphne initially on the property of her previous purchaser in Maryborough, however later had her moved to a friend’s property in Sunbury. “After trying to get Victoria Police to take her on, and being rejected, I felt at this point at a bit of a crossroads. I had spent a lot of money to save her and just wasn’t sure what to do next.” After this, a few key pieces fell into place at once for Whorlow, and ultimately, for Daphne. “I was speaking with some of my old crew, and they were in dialogue with the Australian National Aviation Museum at Moorabbin, and it seemed that they could see the importance in keeping her and restoring her. At the same time, with some support, I decided to set up a GoFundMe in order to recover some of the funds that I had spent to acquire Daphne and used some momentum from that to also assist in getting PVF into the aviation museum.”

Whorlow says that through the support of others who crewed Daphne during their careers, and those who saw the importance in preserving Victoria Police’s first helicopter, he was able to largely recoup his costs, and as of 9 September 2021, the Australian National Aviation Museum accepted Daphne as one of their own. “We couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. The people at the museum are just as passionate, focused and dedicated to Daphne as any of us who flew onboard,” Whorlow says. “They’ve already started their work to restore her to her former glory and are working on how they will exhibit her. Now there aren’t that many people in the world that recognise the importance of preserving important things, parts of history, for future generations, but they understood what we wanted to do, and why we wanted to do it. And more than that, they were just as excited to take her, as we were to give her away to a new, fitting home.”