ZK-AMA  Short S.30 Empire Class                        (c/n  S.886)

                                    
                     
                                           This gorgeous shot from the Robert Blaikie collection shows Tasman Empire Airways Limited's
                                           "Aotearoa" landing at Evans Bay, Wellington, New Zealand on 19 January 1940..  TEAL was
                                           founded jointly by the governments of New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom..  The
                                           actual inaugural flight of the company took place on 30 April 1940 when ZK-AMA covered the
                                           Auckland-Sydney route with 10 passengers in 9 hours.      This aircraft was first flown from the
                                           Shorts plant at Rochester in England on 18 April 1939 as G-AFDA.  It was joined three weeks
                                           later by G-AFCY which became ZK-AMC in TEAL service.  These two S.30s  maintained the
                                           trans-Tasman service until 1944.       ZK-AMA was withdrawn from service in 1947 and was
                                           preserved, for a while, at Mechanic's Bay in Auckland, as a coffee bar/tea rooms.  It was finally
                                           broken up at Mission Bay in 1950.