VH-UZY de Havilland D.H.89A Dragon
Rapide
(c/n 6384)
Here's an evocative study of a working
Rapide, circa 1945, from the Geoff Goodall collection.
Originally
delivered in January 1938 and destined for W.R. Carpenter and Co Ltd's
Sydney-
New
Guinea service, the Rapide was quickly sold by the end of that year to
North Queensland
Airways.
This outfit was founded by Cairns jeweller Tom McDonald, and itself was
very short-
lived,
merging into Airlines of Australia within a month of its
inception! Which makes Geoff's
shot of it (below) in
NQA titling extremely rare indeed! In AOA service is was
named 'Iluka'.
It was impressed by the RAAF in August 1940 as A33-6, being released in
1944 to Airlines
(WA) Ltd in Perth in
whose service it is seen above at Esperance, WA and named "RMA Perth".
This
small airline had, like many others, relinquished much of its fleet to
RAAF impressments
and
desperately needed replacements in order to maintain a modicum of
service. DCA there-
fore negotiated to
have a RAAF DH.89A released to it. A33-6 was being stored
dismantled
at de
Havilland
Aircraft at Mascot for overhaul, so DCA arranged for it to be shipped
to Perth
in March
1944 along with spare parts from Rapide VH-UXT, and additional RAAF
spares from
Melbourne. On arrival in Perth, the aircraft and the spare parts
were found to be in extremely
poor condition,
leading to an acrimonious dispute between Airlines (WA) Ltd
and DCA over the
purchase
price. A major rebuild at Maylands resulted in VH-UZY being test
flown on 17 Nov
1944 and
restored to the Civil Register two days later.
-UZY was sold to Connellan Airways
in
1948. It
crashed on takeoff from Coolibah in the Northern Territory on 22
October 1949 and
was
destroyed in the resultant fire.
