jokova
I don't want to get into p!ssing competiton here, but it was Murchison Air Services and Southern Airlines from at least 1966 on.
I cant remember the serial nos but we started with a the usual Aztec, C206 then C411 and new 1967 model C402/Navajo. You could only buy new then, except for one VH-PDN we bought slightly used from Julia Downs? and the Drover we finally used on the Rottnest run. The boss was Robert Oliver now deceased.
Civils the only real competition were using mosty Beech Baron and Queen Air. Alex McDonlald and Max Foulkes Taylor were the drivers then.
And yes PAGAS and Maslings started about the same time, who was first ?? it would have been a close run thing given the times.
When we sold the company we were operating 25 aircraft and had the first purpose built FBO in Australia at Perth Airport. The subsequent owners drove it off the edge of a cliff, but thats an whole other story.
As a matter of interest the company stared in Mullewa and Carnarvon before being brought to Perth it transmogrified through a painful series of joinings including Transwest and East West into Skywest.
You might drag that book out and have a look, they might have somehow missed us, which is not surprising given that the end of the world starts about Eucla.
PM me if it has the whole story in it I would be interested in buying one.