Another Seagull V

A Seagull V photo from the Cairns H S collection. We have no information about it however it is taken at Cairns airport looking south towards the city. The high ground on the right is the end of the ridge near the highway and the mountains behind the wing are the ones across the inlet so the aircraft is parked in what is now the GA area where the old terminals where.

Cairns aerodrome was built in 1937 before that it was Tom McDonnalds private strip dating back to 1927. During this period it was little more than a salt pan which was regularly inundated during high tides and in the wet season so its unlikely the RAAF would have landed there. A2-7 and A2-8 are on record as landing on the inlet in October 1936

The partly obscured serial reads A2 2 but it looks as though there is room for another number so I am thinking 12 or 22.
Its still wearing the yellow outer ring on the roundel. Any one know when this was deleted?



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Great picture. For what it's worth I think the unseen number would be 2, the spacing looks too wide to be a '1'
A2-22 was up north in 1938

10/5/38 To Thursday Island for photo survey of Northern Australia
1/12/38 Damaged in storm at Rockhampton, Qld

A couple more photos of A2-22

A2-12 on the other hand was embarked aboard HMAS Australia during the same period


Our Seagull V and Walrus page

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Thanks Martin I agree possibly 22 rather then 12. I found a couple of mentions in the Cairns Post 17/5/38 about the arrival of A2-22 in Cairns over the weekend of 14/15 stating it was doing a 10 day survey in the Cairns area.
Then on 28/5/38 states the aircraft is now at Thursday Island for two weeks then returning to Cairns for a further three weeks. It is doing " an Army and geophysical survey "
Mentions a crew of four with officer commanding F/L Gibson

So a month in Cairns would be a good chance for some one to take the photo.

I did a bit of enhancing of that photo of A2-22 at RAAF Pearce in 1940 supplied by Mike Mirkovic and it looks a though the yellow ring on the roundel has been painted out so that narrows the time frame.

Anyway I shall do some further digging and also have a look at A2-12 and see what I can come up with

Cheers Ray

Hi guys

Nice pic. That is not a yellow outline to the roundel, it is white.

Look back into the 1920s with the Imperial Gift aeroplanes. The white outer ring was originally for a PC10 (khaki) background (and referred to as the "A2" roundel), but was then still applied when aircraft were later finished in Aluminium. It was standard too on the initial Cirrus Moths, as well as the Seagull Vs.

Check out the A3-4 colour pics in the adf-serials imagery library.

What happened to the slots/slats on the upper wing.

In some images they appear to be removed or faired over.

Great pics indeed!

Thanks Batman I had always just assumed it was yellow. Learn something new every day

Thanks Brendan the society has tens of thousands of photos many still uncatalogued. Cairns of course was a hive of activity in WW2 so there are quite a few RAAF ones which I am wading through. I will keep posting

Thanks Cristo,

We do appreciate it.

Cheers

Some further searching in local papers and it turns out A2-22 stayed in Thursday Island untill the 4/11/38 then it returned to Cairns for about three weeks. It arrived in Rockhampton on 26/11/38.
So the photo could have been taken sometime over the five weeks it was working in Cairns.

A2-12 departed Rathmines 1/10/39 for Port Moresby to join 11 Squadron and departed Port Moresby 15/7/40 to Rathmines so could have been in Cairns. Nothing reported in local papers due to war time censorship

Anyway most likely this photo is A2-22

A few further reports of A2-22 adventurers and misadventures during its 8 month survey in Queensland.
The Townsville Bulletin in its Aviation notes in a report about the poor state of the Cairns aerodrome mentions it being badly bogged during its stay in Cairns on the way north. Then in its Thursday Island notes records it taking part in a search for two fishermen from Badu Island adrift in a small boat on 3/11/38. They were found by another search vessel

The Rockhamton Evening News reports it arriving on the 26/11/38 for a ten day survey in the Conners range area. Then a further report of it making a forced landing at Balmoral Station at Glen Geddes north of Rockhampton. F/L Gibson states this is caused by " a clot in the petrol pipe " and will not delay their survey.

Then under the headline " Exciting time at drome " reports that " in spite of being held down by two pegs and the efforts of seven men holding it down the aircraft was tipped on to its port lower wing which was damaged and would have to be replaced " when a violent storm hit the area on 1/12/38.

A2-19 departed Richmond 2/12/38 to assist in the repair and returned 16/12/38

A2-22 returned to Richmond 21/12 38 after nearly eight months away.

One of the perks of operating a seaplane in the remote north in the 30s the fishing must have been amazing.
Cheers Ray

This post has been edited by cristo on Feb 21 2019, 09:23 PM

I have enlarged photos of A2-12 and A2-22 and using some math worked out a formula comparing the widths of the letter, space, number, dash, number, space, number to each aircraft and using the same formula compared it to the Cairns HS photo and making an allowance for parallax error because the Cairns photo is shot from an angle.

Assuming the serials are painted a standard size there is no doubt this is A2-22

Wow,

I like the scientific approach!

Well done.

It's good to see science proves the accuracy of the Mk.I human eyeball analysis that I did on Feb 9
Thanks Ray :rolleyes:

Another photo of A2-22 during its time in Cairns. The photo was taken at Cairns airstrip either May or November 1938

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