VH-BKU   Avro 652A Anson 1  

                           

                              This decrepit old heap is bearing the grandiose title 'Petroleum Drilling Corporation Ltd' above the
                              cabin windows. My shot, above, and Peter Keating's, below, were both taken at Bankstown in 1955.
                              Its sphere of operations was undoubtedly New Guinea at that time. I would have thought that an oil
                              company, even in 1954, could have come up with something a little more substantive than an Anson
                              for their executive transport.  Like maybe a Dove?   Anyway, VH-BKU was ex RAAF W2084 and                          
                              was sold by Commonwealth Disposals Commission to James Loneragan of the Eric McIllree/Longeran
                              partnership of Mudgee NSW in 1947 to market civilianized Ansons.   W2084 was stored for the next
                              7 years in a hangar at Camden NSW, until sold to Petroleum Drilling Corp Ltd of Sydney, given a civil
                              conversion with a pointed nose, and a CofA issued on 29 Sept 1954.     In December 1956 the oil
                              company sold it to Papuan Air Transport Ltd of  Port Moresby.   It soldiered on in New Guinea for
                              several more years before being retired in 1960.  At the foot of the page is a shot from the Geoff
                              Goodall collection of -BKU at Kokoda in 1958 in Patair titling, loading rubber for Port Moresby.