vhumh

View of 'City of Grafton' aeroplane with pilot and visitors, 1933-1935

from Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons

• 1 older comment, and then…
• velton said:

  interesting shot. I wonder what the plane is. A high wing trimotor, maybe Ford or Fokker?

• pellethepoet said:

  velton Fokker F.VIIB/3m, licensed and modified by Avro in 1928 for the British Empire (excluding Canada) market. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/amphalon/4370895714/]The plane, registration VH-UMH, is New England Airways "City of Grafton", an Avro 618 Ten. New England Airways purchased the plane in 1933 from Australian National Airways. It was previously known as "Southern Sky". Crash landed in 1935 and scrapped - which dates series to between 1933 and 1935.

• pellethepoet said:

  Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons Oh, and the State Library of NSW have the other two photos in this series (your object no.'s 00035779 & 00035780) in their Hood Collection part II (Aviation), see no.'s 120-121 - acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=153389. They name the pilot K. A. Virtue. 3650 HOURS IN THE AIR, Northern Star, Saturday 11 November 1933, p. 6.: "With 3650 flying hours to his credit, during which he has covered over 400,000 miles, the well-known New England Airways pilot, Mr. Keith Virtue, is one of the most travelled people the world has ever known." - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/94547720 AERIAL RECORD BROKEN, The Courier-Mail, Tuesday 19 June 1934, p. 12.: "The air record between Sydney and Brisbane was broken yesterday by the monoplane City of Grafton, belonging to New England Airways. The machine was piloted by Mr Keith Virtue, who did the 500-mile journey in 3 hours 17 minutes flying time, beating the previous record, also held by Mr. Virtue, by seven minutes." - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/36727251 COURIER-MAIL SEARCH PLANE FINDS MAHENO AGROUND, The Courier-Mail, Thursday 11 July 1935, p. 13: "Flying from Brisbane this morning the monoplane City of Grafton, chartered by The Courier-Mail, and piloted by Mr. Keith Virtue, of New England Airways, found the missing steamer Maheno ... 'It was just a pleasant outing—all in the day's work. We are so used to running to time-table on the Sydney—Brisbane service, like trains do, that a special flight like this is just a picnic jaunt. It is just another instance of the value of aviation in modern times.'" - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/1958248 After a career which saw him log about 23,000 hours in the air, flying nearly 4 million miles in 28 years, his flying days came to an abrupt end when he was grounded in 1954 ... after forgetting to put the wheels down on landing. ( !!! ) - K. VIRTUE RELIEVED OF FLYING DUTIES, Townsville Daily Bulletin, Thursday 2 December 1954, p.1. - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/62541856.

• Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons said:

  pellethepoet Wow, thank you for that detailed history pellethepoet. Not a nice ending to his career, but a distinguished one for sure. Did you see this article too? Also interesting :)

• pellethepoet said:

  Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons Ah, yes I saw that. Actually, I quoted from that article above - the "picnic jaunt" quote. I linked to the whole page rather than any "story" within it, so that those interested wouldn't miss the related stories, which Trove had separated from the main body of the article. :)