The Wombats

John Vogel Flies With …
The Wombats

Certain flight crew of Ansett Airlines of Australia proudly wear a tie pin with a small wombat badge affixed. These are the crews of the three Lockheed Electra aircraft that fly the night freight around Australia. The wombat, known for its nocturnal habits, has been compared with these modern-day counterparts on the Electras by the rest of the flight crews. on the Boeihgs and DC-9s.

The job of handling one of Australia’s largest freight operations is a source of much satisfaction for the flight crews and all those involved in the loading and unloading, storage and movement of cargo, and computation of the load and trim sheets for each flight, not to mention the ground engineers and mechanics who keep the aircraft serviceable 24 hours a day.

In the March issue of AADR, we covered the Electra story from its inception to the present time; but just to recap – in March 1958 Ansett took delivery of their first Electra, followed by two others the same year. Taking the initials of the founder of the company, Reginald Miles Ansett, AMA was followed by RMB and AMC. These three gave tremendous service as passenger aircraft until withdrawn in 1971 for conversion by Lockheed to pure freighters.

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