VH-BCG    Auster III                              c/n  615

                                 

                                     VH-BCG was built for the RAF in 1943 as NJ785.   It was shipped to the Royal Australian
                                     Air Force in 1945 where it was allotted the serial number A11-40.  Since the war was winding
                                     down by then, the RAAF stored it and sold it as surplus to Kingsford Smith Aviation Services
                                     in Bankstown in 1947 for 1000 quid.  (Pretty good price, the Commonwealth got for it in those
                                     days, if you ask me).   It entered the civil register as VH-BCG registered to Bluebird Air Taxi
                                     Service of Bankstown.  It is still current.  The above shot is from the Ian W. O'Neill collection
                                     (taken by the late Peter Keating) and depicts it at an Auster rally in St. Arnaud, Victoria, in 1991.
                                     Geoff Goodall caught it (in more halcyon days?) in a hangar full of Austers (wow!) at Parafield
                                     in February of 1963 (below).  In those days many ex-military Austers were given a sort of "civilian"
                                     cabin greenhouse treatment.