VH-UAI  Miles M.2 Hawk                             (c/n  155)

                                 

                                        VH-UAI was a prohibited registration back in 1926 when it should have been assigned.   In the
                                        event it was released in 1935 for this Miles Hawk.  At the foot of the page is a take off of a news-
                                        paper photo appearing in the Adelaide Advertiser for 4 May 1935 showing the Aero Club of
                                        South Australia's "All new British Miles Hawk monoplane assembled at Parafield yesterday ......
                                        it was purchased by the public subscription fund inaugurated by Mr. C. J. Melrose".  By 1938
                                        it had obviously received a new silver paint job as seen in the photo above, from the CAHS
                                        (Civil Aviation Historical Society) collection.  The image immediately below is courtesy of the
                                        State Library of South Australia and shows -UAI in an interesting line-up of Royal Aero Club
                                        of SA aircraft at Parafield in 1938.  What is odd is that -UAI appears not to be carrying markings
                                        on the top of the mainplane.  Whilst normal today, that would have been almost unheard of in the
                                        days when this machine was in operation at the Aero Club.  VH-UAI "did its time" in the RAAF
                                        as A37-5 during WW II, eventually crashing and being struck off the register at Mt. Eba, South
                                        Australia in 1948.        The air-to-air picture following the line-up photo is courtesy of the Daryl
                                        Mackenzie collection.