The Department's Fleet of Fokker F.27 Friendships


In the late 1950s DCA needed to modernise its fleet of aircraft, especially those used for the flight checking and calibration of radio navigation aids, work previously done by Douglas DC.3s. The major airlines were in the process of re-equipping with turboprop aircraft: Viscounts, Electras and Fokker Friendships. Jets were on the horizon. As the 1960-61 DCA Annual Report put it, "The DC.3 was not adequate for the task of electronic facility checking because of the limitations of speed and altitude and the dissimilarity of flight characteristics as compared to the classes of aircraft which the facilities are designed to serve."

DCA therefore purchased two new Fokker F.27s, which became VH-CAT and VH-CAV, fully fitted out for flight checking duties. A third F.27, VH-TFE, was acquired in 1965 for crew training and miscellaneous duties.


Click on the images below to see photos of the Department's F.27s:

 

< VH-CAT

   
< VH-CAT in later life with CSIRO
   
< PH-FAY (which became VH-CAV)
 

 

< VH-CAV
   
< VH-TFE
   
< F.27 Flight Deck
   
< F.27 Flight Survey station
 
F27 safety card - click here < F.27 Passenger Safety Card
Click here to read more about Airways Survey in the F.27 era
F27 ad

 

Back to the Departmental Aircraft index page


If this page appears without menu bars at top or left, click here

 

 

 

F27 passenger safety card - click here