VH-UTG British Klemm BK.1 Eagle
II
(c/n 113)

The photos above
and immediately below are both from the Civil Aviation Historical
Society
archives, the top one
being from the Len Dobbin collection, whilst in the lower it is wearing
its
No.35 race number when it took part in
the 1936 Adelaide
Centenary Air Race
from Brisbane
to Adelaide. .VH-UTG
was originally imported in April 1935 for
Adastra Airways of Mascot.
It spent time in South Australia, however, and
was the subject of a couple of belly landings..
One of
these occurred at Oodnadatta, SA on 13 July 1935 and was captured on
film by the
father of Robert Milburn, who supplies image
# 3 below. The Eagle had a similar mishap at
Beltana, SA on 7
October 1935. Perhaps the pilot wasn't used to a
retractable undercarriage?
Anyway, it was sold
to R.T. Vincent of Geelong in May of 1936 (who later moved to Broadford,
Victoria).
In 1940 it went to Aircrafts
Pty Ltd in Brisbane and then to Queensland Flying
Service
in 1946. In 1947 it was sold to
A.C. Cameron
and D. Scott of
Tenterfield, NSW, and
by April
1950 was owned by East-West Airlines (as a
company hack?). In
their service it crashed during
a forced landing 10
miles south of Moree, NSW on 28 July 1950. The fourth photo is a
rough
print from the Roger
McDonald collection and was taken at Lismore, NSW, circa
1948. Finally,
the
clipping at the foot of the page is from the Brisbane Courier Mail for
17
Dec 1936, and shows
-UTG
in a line-up of aeroplanes awaiting starter's orders in the above
mentioned air race.
31 aircraft took part in the race. The Eagle was
owned at the time
by the above mentioned R.T.
Vincent of Geelong, although was flown
in the race by C.D. Pratt. This aircraft also appears in an
historic shot of the
1950 Casino Air Pageant line-up seen in
the entry for the Chipmunk VH-BFT.
(foot of that
page) wearing an all- enveloping
cockpit cover.


