G-AUJU de
Havilland D.H.60G Gipsy Moth
(c/n 836)
The shot above is from the George
Matthews collection and depicts "De Havilland biplanes parked
inside and in front of Matthews
Aviation hangar at Essendon in the late 1920s".. This
Moth was
originally registered to
E.E. Davies of Swan Hill in February 1929. By August 1930 it had
become
VH-UJU and the two rough images following immediately below were
gleaned from
newspapers
by Graeme Parsons. For the
upper, from the Adelaide Advertiser of 25 March 1935, the caption
reads 'Aero club colours being
painted on one
of the Gypsy Moths at Parafield yesterday by Mr.
B W
Monks in preparation for today's aerial 'At Home' which will be held in
conjunction
with
Empire
Air Day.'. The lower clipping is from a much
earlier Brisbane Courier of 1 October 1929
stating
that the Moth
was being flown in the East-West Centenary Air Race from Sydney to
Perth,
by
pilot Edgar Davies. The Sydney Morning Herald of 8
October 1929 also featured a photo of
a
line up of race machines at
Kimba, SA (reproduced below). VH-UJU is prominent, and shows
clearly the
name 'Swan' on the
nose. In
February 1935 it was acquired by the Aero Club of
SA,
and
despite a crash on Kangaroo Island in May of 1936, went on to be
impressed into the
RAAF
in
July 1940 as A7-95. A photo of this crash, at the foot of the
page, was
gleaned from the Adelaide
Advertiser
for 20 May 1936.
The aircraft became Instructional Moth
Airframe #
13 and, after
the war
was 'RTP'd in
1955.
