Built as NF886 at Loughborough, Leicestershire, Dominie NF886 initially flew with the headquarters flight of the Air Transport Auxiliary from White Waltham, Berkshire. It was taken on charge by 1 Parachute Training School at Ringway, Cheshire, in January 1946, moving with the unit to Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire, later that year. Demobbed in 1948 it became G-ALPK and by 1964 was based at Blackbushe, Hampshire (where it is illustrated in October 1965). It stopped flying in 1966 and was cannibalised for spares at Netheravon, Wiltshire, in 1968.
Dragon Rapide G-AGZO was ‘born’ in World War Two and ‘died’ in another conflict 17 years later. Built as NR848 in 1945, it saw no RAF service, joining Marshall of Cambridge as a civilian from July 1948. It is illustrated at Sywell, Northants, in April 1962, and the following month it was sold in France, taking up the registration F-BGZJ. By October it was placed on the Belgian register as OO-IIT and it was ferried to the Congo. On December 29, 1962 it was strafed and destroyed at Kolwezi, on the Angolan/Zambian border of Congo, by Swedish Air Force SAAB J29s from F22 Wing. The jets were part of the United Nations peace-keeping force deploy…
