VH-RCT  Auster AOP 6                                 (c/n  ?)

                                                                                                  
                                      This was the second VH-RCT, the first being the Auster IIIF which became VH-BED.  It had been
                                      purchased by R.C. Tucker of Flinders Island.    Mark 6 Austers were rare in Australia   This one
                                      had previously been part of the Antarctic Expedition and served as A11-201.  The reason it has
                                      no apparent c/n is that is was built from bits of RAF Auster AOP Mk.6s VX126 and VX127.
                                      Norm Weeding's photo above was taken at Launceston in the 1960s.  It had suffered a prang in
                                      1955 and was undergoing a rebuild when Geoff Goodall took the shot below in the Tasmanian
                                      Aero Club hangar at Western Junction, Launceston in December 1962.   I assume Norm's photo
                                      was taken after it emerged.    Despite all the hard work evidently going into to it at the time, it was
                                      destroyed in a crash at Cape Barren Island just over a year later (February 1964).   Mr. Tucker
                                      replaced it with the former Tasmanian Aero Club Cessna 175 VH-RBF which he then had re-regis-
                                      tered as yet another iteration of the rego VH-RCT.