Tuesday, 7 July 2020

Airspeed AS.65 Consul, part three, various Asian users

The Airspeed AS.65 Consul was a British twin-engined light airliner of the immediate post-war time. It was a conversion of the Airspeed As.10 Oxford military trainer surplus after the World War 2.
The type saw use with many airlines and air forces all around the globe and, on this post, we're going to cover the Asian ones:

  • Burma: The Burmese Air Force got 7 aircraft that were supplied between September 1949 and February 1950. They were used as communications and light general transport aircraft. Two aircraft were bought by the Burmese Air Force in September 1949 from the Union of Burma Airways. Their fate and their looking are unknown, so the drawing should be considered as speculative.
  • Indochinese Union: Various airlines operated the Consul in the French Colony of Indochina. One of them was the Société Aigle Azur (Blue Eagle Society) which operated five Consuls in Indochina. One of them was destroyed by the Viet Minh on 4th March 1954 at Gia Lam airport, in Hanoi.
    Another important airline which operated the type in this region was the Société Indochinoise de Transports Aeriens (Indochinese Air Transports Society) which was a company operated by the local colonial government. This company operated at least 14 machines, most of them based in Saigon, in local flights to Phnom Penh. Many of them were resold to minor companies like Société Indochinoise des Plantations Reunies de Minot. As both the graphical material and information of these machines serving with those companies is rather scarce, the drawings should be considered as speculative.
  • India: Shortly after achieving independence, the government of India acquired four Consuls, although some sources claim it was two of them. They were assigned to Airways (India) Ltd. which was one of the forerunners of Air India. Many of them were also acquired by local Maharajahs as private transports. As we couldn't find photos of these planes in Indian service, the drawing should be considered as speculative.









Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspeed_Consul
2. http://britishaviation-ptp.com/airspeed_as65.html
3. https://www.ab-ix.co.uk/pdfs/airspeed_oxford_&_consul.pdf

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