VH-UZG de Havilland D.H.84
Dragon
(c/n 6027)
Photos of -UZG have
been hard to come by. Bruce Robinson has unearthed these
three fuzzy ones
shown above and
below, from the album of his grandfather, George A. Robinson, founder
of New
England Airways. Shot No 2 shows it being reassembled after
shipment from the U.K. while photo
No 3 shows the remains after its disastrous crash. This Dragon
was ex G-ACFG and left the U.K
in
February 1937 having been sold to North Queensland Airways Pty Ltd of
Cairns.
It appears never to have
received its Australian CofA, but clearly did carry the VH- rego for a
short while as evidenced in
Bruce's photos. It crashed some 3 km north of Cairns
on 7 May
1937.
At the foot of the page is a photo discovered by Graeme
Parsons which is an extract of a much
larger image, of the
Dragon flying over the Queen
Mary on 24 March 1936. The full picture
can been seen on the
website at
http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/spw049802
It had an
interesting history, and the
following excerpt is
from the February 25, 1937
issue of Flight:
The fact that G-ACFG has just
been sold to an Australian company, we believe
may not be very interesting news. This, however, of all Dragons, has
had a more
than usually eventful career - though Dragons, as the first large
machines to pay
their unsubsidized
way, are always eventful. This particular D.H.84 was built in
1933, finished fifth in the King's Cup race of that year (pilot Hubert
Broad) and
was bought by an
Italian count, with whom, apparently, she travelled to Vienna,
Belgrade, Bucharest
and Constantinople. In 1934 she was
purchased by Mr.
George Nicholson to operate
his Northern Airways' service between Newcastle
and the Isle of Man.
When Northern and Scottish Airways was formed by him
in November of that
year, -CFG came over from Renfrew to start the services,
and was used for the
inaugural Skye and Hebridean flight. Her log-book shows
some 130,000 miles. Let us hope that she flies another 130,000 miles in
Australia.
Unfortunately this was not to be.