VH-TAR  Convair 240-5                                                    (c/n  92)

                              

                                  Delivered in 1949, this aircraft had its name changed later from its original 'Thomas Mitchell'
                                   to 'John Roe' and later still to 'William Dampier'.  In my early shot at Essendon in 1954 it
                                   carries the first name. When airlines named aircraft (which, I always thought, gave them
                                   a more personalized touch) it was common for new and more modern  additions to the fleet
                                   to assume the 'pioneer' names and hence the older types got pushed down in the hierarchy. 
                                   VH-TAR was leased to Guinea Airways in 1958, and the nice color shot below from the
                                   archives of the Civil Aviation Historian Society of SA (via Nigel Daw) shows it in that livery
                                   at Parafield.    It returned to TAA and then was sold in the USA in 1959.      Its history
                                   pretty much then parallels that of its sister craft VH-TAO and a full history of it can be
                                   found on Fred Niven's site at:
                                                                 http://www.ansettinwa.org/Pages/fredspages/convairs.htm