VH-URW was a DH.84 Dragon II built by De Havilland Aircraft at the Hatfield Factory in Hertfordshire UK.
MMA ordered three D.H.84s (VH-URW, VH-URX and VH-URY) after winning the Government tender for the
North-West W.A. service.
DeHavilland dismantled those three Dragons (VH-URW, VH-URX and VH-URY) and crated them for shipment to Fremantle on the Aberdeen & Commonwealth Line vessel SS Largs Bay.
After arrival at Fremantle, VH-URW was taken to the Maylands Aerodrome for assembly and testing by MMA.
VH-URW was registered to MacRobertson Miller Aviation Co., named ‘Pilbara’ and test-flown at Maylands on 29 August 1934. On 5 September, MMA’s Bert Hussey flew VH-URW around Perth.
Its color-scheme was a dark, royal-blue fuselage with silver wings, tail and stripes and it could carry 8 passengers.
On 9 December 1934, VH-URW inaugurated MMA’s Perth-Daly Waters service.
On 8 March 1935, VH-URW overturned on landing in waterlogged ground near Wyndham. Its pilot, Arthur Affleck, then travelled some 80km on horseback to Ivanhoe Station to pick-up a relief aircraft.
MMA’s Jimmy Woods then repaired VH-URW using tea chests as replacement plywood and flew it back to Maylands for full repairs.
In March 1939, VH-URW was sold to W.R. Carpenter & Co. of Sydney for use in New Guinea by Mandated Airlines.
In January 1940 on a flight from Salamaua-Wau, VH-URW crashed into Little Wau Creek killing its pilot Ronald Ernest ‘Ron’ Doyle and two passengers and injuring three other occupants.
Kevin Parer’s Air Transport Co. purchased the wreckage of VH-URW for use as spare parts, but Parer later began to rebuild the aircraft hoping to sell it to the Australian Government.
Enemy action at Madang in January 1942 destroyed the incomplete VH-URW and killed Kevin Parer.
See our Flickr album about VH-URW
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