VH-ULK  (as G-EBLE)  Handley Page W.9a Hampstead                        (c/n W9/1)

                                  

                                       After its days with Imperial Airways were done in August of 1929, the one and only H.P. W.9
                                       was shipped out to Salamaua, New Guinea for the Ellyou Goldfields Development Corporation
                                       Ltd.  Registered VH-ULK, it was named "City of New York".  I do not really like showing these
                                       ancient VH-U types in their previous identities, but I probably have Buckley's* chance of securing
                                       an image of it as  -ULK inasmuch as the poor old thing crashed  into Mount Misim on a flight from
                                       Salamaua to Wau, New Guinea on 30 June 1930.    Clearly its altitude experience on the London
                                       to Paris flights of 1925-29 were not nearly up to coping with the requirements for operating in the
                                       highlands of New Guinea.

                                      * In my days in the state of Victoria there existed, on Bourke Street in Melbourne, a large department
                                         store named Buckley's and Nunn.  This gave rise to the local rhyming slang axiom "You've got two
                                         chances, mate, Buckley's and Nunn", meaning slim or no chance.  (Other states prefer the explanation
                                         for Buckley's chance as being derived from adventures of escaped colonial convict William Buckley).