VH-ADG  de Havilland D.H.90 Dragonfly                  (c/n  7516)

                                

                                     This gorgeous shot of a Dragonfly comes from the Geoff Goodall archives.  It was registered for
                                     the time, a couple of years out of sequence, (VH-AAG would have been nearer the mark) but,
                                     being ex G-AEDG retained its UK 'last two'.    It was originally delivered in October 1937 to
                                     the Hon. James V. Fairbarn, the then Minister for Air, who used it is a private aircraft.  Fairbarn
                                     flew it in an "around Australia" tour in it in 1940 to review all the RAAF stations (and was sadly
                                     killed in August of that year in a crash at Canberra), but not in VH-ADG, since he had just sold
                                     it to Airlines (WA) Ltd of Perth.   The airline used it to replace their Dragon VH-URY which had
                                     been earmarked for impression into RAAF service.  Charles Snook, AWA's founder, left Essen-
                                     don in July 1940 to bring -ADG back to Perth then delivered -URY from Perth to the RAAF at
                                     Parafield that same month.   VH-ADG was named  "Murchison" in AWA service as can just be
                                     discerned in the image above taken at Maylands, Perth, in July 1940.    VH-ADG was damaged
                                     beyond economical repair on 1 December 1947 when it ran off the runway and overturned. It was
                                     operating a regular newspaper delivery service to Bunbury and southwest towns, which involved
                                     air-dropping bundles of papers.    Captain Colin Cook and a passenger were not injured but the
                                     dropping boy was hurt when buried under the bundles of newspapers.   Another shot from Geoff's
                                     files (below) shows poor old -ADG just after the accident.