It was definately taxied a least a few times...at least twice by me...after one of our Talair Canadan Engineers serviced the brakes and filled the tyres with air. It was always amazing to me that after 15+ years stored in POM somewhere it fired up, mag checked, prop checked beautifully....taxiing was easy once you realised it had a tailwheel lock a la P51...stick forward=unlocked, stick back = locked.
There was much talk about getting it airworthy...we even had the Talair prop shop in Goroka lined up to overhaul the prop (which had started to leak from a seal) and the Canadian Senior base engineer had plenty of experience overhauling the radial engine fitted and was going to do it in his spare time. It actually only had ferry time on it since it's last overhaul many years before. The fabric covered flying controls were so rotted you could, and some dickheads did, poke the fingers through...no biggy the expertese was at hand to do those. It was in generally excellent condition. The RAAF had completely overhauled it prior to ferrying it up to PNG and presenting to the Tech College as an instructional airframe. It was dissmantled and stored away in a big box, the tech college never used it and after years someone asked the question..."WTF is in that big box?" "Ohh look...emi balus tasol". They tried to present it to the War Museum but it wasn't historically significant so they declined and we at the Aeroclub raised our hands Oh Oh..pick us!!!! We put the wings back on and connected everything back up and it then just sat there outside the club...until one day someone said "I wonder if it runs?" Beers in hand we pinched a battery cart from Yorke Mendoza's hangar, pinched fuel from somewhere else and viola...she kicked over a ran a treat.
I reckon 12 mths would have seen it flying....but then the fun police showed up and issues of actual ownership etc (ownership never passed from the Govt to the aeroclub) meant it all got to hard...people were transfered, went finish, etc, etc.