VH-MXK. It has to be perhaps the aircraft that I have fondest memories of. I flew it for 5 years in Cairns.
I only know its history from 1986-1991
It was sent to Cairns in March 1986 to fly the OK-Tedi contract. A service that went CNS-Daru-Tabubil and return 5 times a week, it was about 7.5 hours. We only flew 5 day a fortnight. John Newmarch (RIP) was the base manager and check pilot. He was the pilot who flew it from Adelaide to Cairns. It was a great job lots of hours lots of time off and for a young fella a dream job, really.
When Lloyds was bought by Ansett (1989ish) they merged the operations into the SkyWest brand which was also owned by Ansett. Hence the SkyWest logos in one of the photos. It continued in the North Queensland region till around 1991.
Then it went to the west and did charter, I think, maybe the run to the Granites for a small period of time. I think it also went to Darwin and flew the air med contract for SkyWest or Pearl, I know I saw it there one time and it looked in pretty poor shape.
I didn't realise that it ended up doing the calibration contract as VH-FII, there you go.
I guess it is in Caloundra now.
Funny how you get attached to some aircraft.
Last edited by socksfirst thenshoes; 29th Jul 2017 at 11:54.