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flyernzl

RMAF Devons, ex-RNZAF

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Selamat petang

 

I am an aviation historian in New Zealand and I am attempting to compile a history of the DH104 Devons and Doves that operated over the years in this country.

 

The RNZAF acquired 30 of these aircraft, and two of them were presented by the New Zealand Government to the Royal Malaysian Air Force in 1968.

 

These two Devons were NZ1823 which became RMAF FM1056 and NZ1825 which became FM1057.

 

I seek details of their activities in Malaysia, details of their eventual disposal, and any photographs of these two aircraft that may exist in your collection.

 

I would appreciate any help you may extend and any leads that you may be able to provide to assist me in this search.

 

Selamat tinggal

 

Peter Lewis

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Peter

 

The aircraft were WFU in 1975 and as no reports of them have been seen it is probably reasonable to assume they were scrapped. It is also reported FM1056 and FM1057 were reserialled FM-1504 and FM-1505 respectively. The reserialling of aircraft started in January 1975 so if the new serials were applied to the ex NZ aircraft it would have only been for a short time before their withdrawal.

 

The only aircraft I have a photo of with the new serial range is FM-1501. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of FM1056/FM-1504 or FM1057/FM-1505 so I to would be interested to see any photos people have.

 

FM-1501 (ex FM1051) is the only Dove that remains as far as I know and resides in the TUDM Museum.

 

The aircraft were used for communications and VIP transport, but later, in the early 1970's they were also used as advanced multi-engine trainers at the RMAF Flight School at Alor Star.

 

The aircraft used at Alor Star for training had a dayglo red or orange band on the rear fuselage.

 

Hopefully other people can provide more detailed information.

 

Regards

 

Geoff

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Thanks Geoff.

 

The two Devons involved, NZ 1823 and NZ1825 had flown very little in New Zealand.

After delivery in 1953 they were then stored as attrittion airframes.

In August 1966 they were removed from storage and transported to de Havilland New Zealand where they were completely overhauled and updated prior to moving to Malaysia in early 1968.

I believe that they were repainted into RMAF colours in New Zealand and possibly even test-flown in RMAF livery at that time.

 

In any event, they would still have been fairly low-time aircraft by 1975.

As I have been unable to track them any further past that date, I agree that they were most likely scrapped at end of their military service.

 

Possibly, given that they were gift aircraft, there was some form of agreement that they would not be on-sold once they had become surplus?

Edited by flyernzl

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I can now advise that I have tracked down photos of these two Devons in their RMAF colours.

 

These photos were taken outside the DHNZ factory at Wellington's Rongotai airfield on completeion of the overhaul that was carried out 1966/67.

 

This dates the photos as approx November 1967.

 

If anyone does come across photos of these two later in life, I'd still be very interested in seeing them.

 

NZ1823_FM1056_zps2c08dc50.jpg

 

NZ1825asFM1057WN11-673_BB_zps72fc217e.jp

 

(photo FM1057 courtesy Dave Paull)

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