Fleet History
TAA didn't have the luxury of a slow start. From the appointment of the first Chairman of the Australian National Airlines Commission (Arthur Coles) in April 1946 to the date of the first flight on 9th September 1946. The "new" airline had to go from nothing to a fully operating carrier — hiring staff, borrowing a tin shed at RAAF Laverton because Essendon Airport was still being completed, and even building their own baggage carts because there wasn't time to buy any.
At 5:45am on 9 September 1946, Captains Hepburn and Nickels lifted off from Laverton in a war-surplus Douglas DC-3 VH-AES Hawdon, carrying a cabin full of VIPs and one paying passenger. Two hours and fifty minutes later, they touched down at Sydney's Mascot Airport — and Trans-Australia Airlines was in business.
VH-AES Hawdon — TAA's very first aircraft, and its most storied. Originally built as a military C-47, it was converted to airliner configuration and named after Joseph Hawdon, the pioneer overlander, before flying that first Melbourne–Sydney service. VH-AES Hawdon went on to a long working life — including service in Papua New Guinea under the "Sunbird" livery as VH-SBA and 10 years mounted on a pole in front of Tullamarine Airport— before being restored and repainted into its original 1946 TAA livery for the airline's 25th anniversary. It remains one of the best-documented survivors of the fleet today.
