VH-RER
Cessna 180
(c/n 32581)
VH-RER was an early Cessna 180, seen above as an
amphibious floatplane on the Swan River at
Perth in
November of 1958, the same month that it was registered in
Australia. The aircraft, owned
by aluminum
giant Reynolds Metals of Richmond, Virginia (just up the road from
where I now live),
had been
operating in Australia for several months as N7684A. Immediately
below is a photo by
Jeff Atkinson
of it wearing its US registration at Bankstown in January 1958.
In
1960 Reynolds
Metals
completed that part of
their mineral exploration work and sold the Cessna off to Jim Hazelton
of
Orange, NSW who put
it back on wheels. Demonstrated at an agricultural operators
symposium
Wagga in
November 1960 with the very
latest in cropdressing gear, it was sold to Goulburn Air
Ser-
vices.
It was then passed around to
several air ag companies and wound up with Bob Couper Co at
Cunderdin,
WA. In 1968 it was
restored to private use with a very nice and very original contemporary
Cessna livery.
It is seen at Jandakot in
August of 1968 in the photo below. In 1969 VH-RER
partici-
pated in the England-Australia
Air Race. (How did it get to the U.K. - did it fly both ways?)
Anyway,
by 1975, and
back in Australia,
it working as a glider tug with the Perth Gliding Club and is seen in
the
image at the
foot of the
page at Narrogin, WA in January 1975. It later went to the
Pilbara Soaring
Club at Wickham,
WA., although
is now no longer on the register. All photos from the Geoff
Goodall
collection.
