VH-AFA  'Hume'                     c/n  9813                          Previous Identity:  42-23951

                                        Essendon, 1955

                                       Below is a very rare shot from the Dick Hourigan collection showing VH-AFA at Archerfield in
                                       April 1945, immediately after civil conversion for the Commonwealth Government for the planned
                                       new postwar Government airline which became TAA.      It was loaned to Qantas while the new
                                       airline was being established.    It then flew with TAA until 1957 when it was sold to Australian
                                       Aircraft Sales who had already on-sold 4 other TAA DC-3s to West African Airway.  VH-AFA
                                       became VR-NCO.     The contract to ferry these 5 DC-3s from Australia to Lagos, Nigeria was
                                       given to Captain Bryan Monkton, founder of Trans Oceanic Airlines in Sydney and South Pacific
                                       Airlines in Honolulu. He captained each DC-3 over 4 months with a different copilot on each delivery.