PK-REY  Douglas DC-3                                 (c/n  20041)

                                 

                                     This image is somewhat rare insofar as it illustrates a DC-3 of Garuda registered before the
                                     PK- "Garuda" series was adopted, wherein the middle letter designated the type. This aircraft
                                     would become PK-GDC.   This former C-47A-85-DL (43-15575) was civilianized in the Dutch
                                     East Indies in 1946 for KNILM  with the serial number DT-971.  It was given the ADAT call-sign
                                     in Australia of VHREY in order that flights could be made from the NEI to West Australia in the
                                     mid 1940s. . It was finally demobbed and, for convenience sake, registered PK-REY.  In 1949 it
                                     passed to Garuda Indonesian Airways, when this shot was taken.  In 1971 it found its way back to
                                     Broome, W.A. although sustained some damage whilst there. It therefore languished in that far
                                     western Australian city as kind of the "gate guardian" for the Tourist Bureau.  In the 1990s plans to
                                     salvage it by the Western Australian Museum of Aviation apparently came to naught and the aircraft
                                     was auctioned off, becoming,  incredibly, a house trailer residing in Armadale, W.A.  (I understand it
                                     has now been resold and has moved to, or will move to, Albury, NSW - confirmation, anyone?).