Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander Air Melanesiae (#605 F-OCXD 1974) livery.
Livery by Haddock31.
Requires the BlackBox Simulation BN-2 Islander (commercial product) for Microsoft Flight Simulator.
About the Airline
New Hebrides, officially the New Hebrides Condominium (French: Condominium des Nouvelles-Hébrides) was the colonial name for the island group in the South Pacific Ocean now called Vanuatu. In 1906, Britain and France signed an agreement to share the administration of the New Hebrides.
Air Melanesiae was founded in 1965 as a joint venture between the British-owned New Hebrides Airways (founded 1963) and the French-owned Société Néo-Hébridaise de Transports Aériens, known as Hebridair (founded 1964).
By the early 1970s, the airline control was shared by Qantas and British Overseas Airways Corporation, via their shareholdings in New Hebrides Airways ;
and Union des Transports Aériens (UTA) which had taken over Hebridair and renamed it Société Française des Nouvelles-Hébrides.
In 1980, the New Hebrides became an independent country : the Republic of Vanuatu.
In 1981, Vanuatu started issuing local airplane registrations, with the "YJ-" prefix.
In 1989, Air Melanesiae was renamed Vanair.
In 2004, after an early unfruitful attempt a few years before, Vanair fully merged with Vanuatu's government-owned flag carrier, Air Vanuatu.
About the plane
Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander #605 was built in 1969, and it seems to be still active today in the Fiji Islands.
As far as I know, #605 bore all these different registrations :
- G-AXSU out of the factory in 1969 ;
- VH-EQZ (Australia) in 1970 ;
- VP-PAU (reg. from the British Pacific High Ccommission, based in Solomon Islands) in the early 1970s ;
- F-OCXD in 1974 ;
- YJ-RV6, a national Vanuatu registration in 1981 (some documents erroneously quote this as YV-RV6).
In 1981, #605 left the Air Melanesiae fleet. It was updated to the BN-2A-26 standard and became :
- P2-ISU (Papua New Guinea) for Talair in 1981 ;
- VH-XFI (Australia) for Flight West Airlines in 1991 ; sold to Air North West in 1993 ; sold to Uzu Air Jan in 1994 ; sold to Wide Bay Air Charter in 1996 ; sold to Sunshine Coast Air Charter in 2002 ;
- DQ-SLM (Fiji) for Pacific Island in 2005 ; it seems to be the only former Air Melanesiae BN-2 from the early 1970s orders still active.
Thank you! Great job on this livery and a comprehensive description to go with it.
2 years ago
savvysigma