VH-UVW  Waco YQC-6                       (c/n  4403)

                               

                                     The versatile Model C "Custom Cabin" for 1936 was available with no less than seven different
                                     engine options, although all of them were radials (see future fate below!).   The YQC-6 had the
                                     225 h.p. Jacobs L-4 up front.   This example was imported new in September 1936 for G.B.S.
                                     Falkiner of Haddon Rig, NSW.  It had several owners prior to the outbreak of WW II and was
                                     then impressed into RAAF service as A54-1.  It was sold to W.J. Meehan in Melbourne upon
                                     being released and then went to Geelong Airways in 1947.          Somewhere along the way the
                                     original Jacobs engine was replaced with an inline.         Brown and Dureau Pty Ltd, at Belmont
                                     Common aerodrome in Geelong at around about that time had stocks of both Menasco Pirate
                                     and Fairchild Ranger engines on hand and it was probably one of these.  In addition the company
                                     had received DCA approval for various types of engine substitutions.    Theoretically, then, this
                                     aircraft would have become an MQC-6.  (There never was a Waco engine code for the Ranger
                                     since inlines were not typically fitted to their biplanes!).  The nice shot of it installed with this inline
                                     engine appears in the photo immediately below from the Mike Wishart collection, via the CAHS
                                     archives.   VH-UVW was withdrawn from use in 1948 and officially stricken from the register in
                                     1951.   The image above is from the E.A. Crome collection, courtesy of the National Library of
                                     Australia, and shows the aircraft circa 1937.       . At the foot of the page are two more shots of
                                     -UVW in its Jacobs engine form.    The upper one was taken at Mascot by Bob Fripp whilst the
                                     lower, from Geoff Goodall's collection, shows it in the lee of Ayers Rock in October 1939 when
                                     it was owned by well-known Sydney pilot Joe Palmer,