VH-BNB  (2)   Percival P31C Proctor IV                                     (c/n H.707)

                             

                                  VH-BNB was the former Proctor Mk.IV NP336 which was based at Canberra in 1945 while with
                                  the Governor General's Communications Flight.  Civilianized in August 1953, it was the first Proctor
                                  Mk IV on the Australian civil register.  My photo above was taken at Moorabbin in October 1954,
                                  while the short below, from the John Hopton collection, shows it as NP336  in company  with the
                                  Communication Flight's Avro York MW140.  When the Flight was disbanded after Prince William
                                  of Gloucester returned to England, the Proctor was handed over to RAAF in May 1947, who had
                                  no real use for it during the postwar austerity period and it spent the next six years in storage at Can-
                                  berra and Point Cook RAAF Stations, having regular engine runs then rolled back into the hangar.
                                  Finally offered for civil disposal in January 1953 in was acquired by a Melbourne owner having flown
                                  a total of only 151 hours with the RAAF.  VH-BNB crashed in bad weather at Chiltern, Victoria on
                                  23 May 1958.