VH-TAQ   'John Forrest'                                                 c/n 64

                                     Consolidated Vultee photograph taken at San Diego, 1948 in original non-white top.

                                     VH-TAQ, although third in registration sequence, was actually the first Convair delivered
                                     to Australia, being officially handed over on 25 Aug 1948, and use to crew-train until
                                     early 1949. .  After eight years service, mainly on the Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane run,
                                     it was sold to Trans Arabian Airways as 'Kuwait Emirate Special' in Aug 1956 and registered
                                     in the U.K. as G-AOFC. When that enterprise failed to make it off the ground it passed to
                                     aircraft broker William C. Wold and Associates and was 'foreign' registered on the US civil
                                     register as N9853F.  It probably resided somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula or possibly
                                     Japan at that time, since in 1958 it was registered to the Arabian Oil Company with the
                                     registration JA5048.  Its history is even more convoluted after that and, after a multitude
                                     of owners (with bank repossessions from several of them) it is still on the active US register,
                                     as N295M registered to Bahama Air Ferries and leased to Trans Florida Airlines.  The
                                     photograph immediately below is by Richard Maclean shows VH-TAQ at Essendon just
                                     before it set out on its delivery flight to Trans Arabian Airways (the name is on the forward
                                     fuselage).  The small color photo on the bottom of the page of c/n 64 as N295M came from
                                     the www.prop-liners.com site, although there is no credit line on it.  If the photographer would
                                     like to identify his/her self I would be happy to append the appropriate line.  Finally, at the
                                     bottom of the entry is a superb Bob Garrard shot of this Convair taken at Port Columbus
                                     International Airport (Ohio) in 1972 whilst the aircraft was operated by Diversified Marketing,
                                     Inc.   By his time it had been converted to CV-300 standard.