Vege re you question on aircraft types.
In my time the ONLY people who had Turbo 206s was the missions. I flew P2-SIA a little, which was purchased from SIL by Karimui Spice Co, to train their new pilot. He and I joined Talair on the same day 6 months or so later.......he joined QF a year after that.
It was a Robertson STOL Turbo 206 and the little red 'flap dump' button on the control column came in usefull I can tell you. Not to mention all those 'extra' inches of pure grunt. When all your take-offs are well above full throttle hieght a turbo is just the ducks nuts.
The rest of us flew battered old 185s and 206s which were nearly all 60 models. P2-BAF, my first command, was a 1961 C185 which had been upgraded from 260hp to a 300hp F model at some point. It still had the 'ground pointer' AH and barrel DG in it in 1987.
My own C185, while immaculate, was a 1963 A model which had also been upgraded to F standard by MAF in the 70s.
All the non God botherer 206s I can think of were mostly late 60s/early 70s models and had been many times crashed and repaired. One ex TAL machine I flew a few times even taxied crooked it was so bent. I hated 206s (except for SIA) and would only fly them rarely...much MUCH prefering 185s because they were easier to land on rough, steep strips and you didn't have to worry about the nose wheel falling off or the strut collapsing backwards. I had tailwheels fall off 185s twice and just collected the bits up before flying home on the remaining 'skid'......taking off and landing with the tail up from standing start to stopped.
I remember an Allison 206 coming through one year on a demo tour but it never was used in PNG. SIL brought an Allison powered BN2 to PNG in the early 90s.......I remember looking up at POM and seeing an Islander shape making kerosene noises and being very confused
They had lots of troubles
with the engines flaming out on wet strips when the nosewheel flung gallons of water at the little intake until they put a large water deflector each side of the nose wheel
All the Islanders were really old too......even when I flew them....and in most instances they are the same aircraft the Herc Jerc, Alistair etc are/were flying at NCA recently
Some from memory had over 20000 hours on the airframes.
The Talair 402s were all A models except for GKB which was a short nosed 402.......you'd remember GKB, Dennis bought her in 1969.......his FIRST 402! They had all had at least one spar replacement, which from memory happened at 16000 hours time in service.
All our -200 Otters at Talair were ex TAA -100s/200s......Old RDB which was 'my' Otter in WAU still had the TAA stamped crash axe on board.......which I pinched and is now buried in Rabaul
The -300s were of course a lot younger.
The only 'modern' singles I flew were the Mountford Catholic Mission's C180 while training one of their pilots (on loan from Talair) and John Senior's C180( to which I had my own set of keys and unlimited use) which were both late 70s models, John's with every option Cessna offered. I also flew MFX and MFU, both 185s, which were from memory about 74 models.
Re the Phantom.........that would be the same guy that I shared MANY beers with when he ran the Kavieng Hotel........he died of liver failure about 6 or 8 years ago........exactly as he would have wanted I suppose.
Chuck.