VH-ULV Waco 10T
(c/n A.100)
Developed from the docile 'Waco
Ten' the Model 10T Taperwing transformed the aircraft into a
truly sportsman-pilots dream
machine. This aircraft was originally registered to Aircrafts Pty
Ltd
of
Archerfield, Brisbane in August 1929. It was sold to
Holden's Air Transport Services Ltd in
Salamaua, New Guinea in October 1931. The above blurred image
from the Frank Walters coll-
ection shows it
at that locale sometime after its arrival. I suspect
that the image below, from the
State Library of Queensland
collection, predates the one above and depicts the aircraft at Archer-
field in
its original livery. The caption does not identify the three
gentlemen, but one was almost
certainly Ron Adair, founder of
Aircrafts P/L. (After advancing to scheduled passenger flights,
the
airline became Queensland
Airlines in 1949). Note rego applied under the cockpit
allowing space
on the fuselage for the Waco
logo. Anyway, VH-ULV then spent its whole life in New Guinea
and in
1936 was sold to J.W. Williams of Fly River, Papua and then to Stephens
Aviation of Wau
in mid
1937. Later that year it forced
landed in a swamp, but by 1939 had been rebuilt. VH-ULV
was
one of the aircraft destroyed by a Japanese air attack on Salamaua, New
Guinea on 21
January
1942. (The Nips probably thought it was a deadly P-6 or
something
of that nature!).