In the mid-1930s the British Air Ministry put out a tender for a coastal maritime reconnaissance aircraft. The Avro aircraft company already had a small twin engined, monoplane airliner called the Avro 652. A variation of this, initially called the 652A, won the competition and a prototype first flew in March 1935. When the first order was placed it was renamed the Anson, after Admiral of the Fleet the Right Honourable Lord (George) Anson (1697-1762). I don't know how he'd feel about the aircraft that was named after him picking up the nickname "Annie".

The wing was a low mounted, single piece wooden affair made from a combination of plywood and spruce. The fuselage had a welded steel tubing framework, mostly covered by fabric, despite the slivery, metallic appearance of this one. (Though the nose was clad in a magnesium alloy.) The combination of wood and fabric explains why there are so few airworthy examples today.

The Mk I used twin Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah IX 7 Cylinder engines (250 kW each) giving a maximum speed of 163 knots at 7,000' (303 km/h), a cruise speed of 137 knots (254 km/h), a range of 1,060 km; important for maritime operations) and a ceiling of 19,000'.

It carried a .303 machine gun in the front fuselage, plus another in the dorsal turret, and could carry 360lb of bombs.

The Annie was considered to be quite a little hottie when first released. However by the time the Second World War rolled around she was regarded as being quite a sedate performer. Consequently many Ansons were deployed as training aircraft. Others put in good service in, for example, RAF Coastal Command where they weren't likely be chased by a Messerschmitt.

This one, serial number W2121, was shipped from England to Australia in May 1941. It was used as a trainer. The RAAF code for the Anson was A4-, but as far as I can determine they all flew under their RAF serial numbers (K8713 to W2660) rather than being assigned RAAF ones.

On 18 June 1947 it was transferred to the Royal Flying Doctor service (a service which provides airborne doctors to remote locations in Australia) under the registration VH-BEL.

On 21 August 1962 it was issued with a short extension to its Certificate of Airworthiness which allowed it to finish some survey work. At the end of that extension (4 September 1962) it became the last Anson Mark 1 to fly in Australia.

By that year, the Ansons were grounded because their wooden wings spas were in danger of disintegrating due to age.

After W2121's grounding it was sold to the Air Training Corps some time in 1963 for the princely sum of five cents (or so I wrote in 2015 and I now (2024) can't find a reference to that), and left at Kalgoorlie Airport. I saw a 1970 photo of her looking in a really bad state, with much of the fabric of the rear fuselage having rotted out.

On 16 July 1970 she was donated to the Museum. A 1972 photo shows her in an even worse state, with the wings removed (and partly rotted), most of the rear fabric gone, and windows broken. However in 1983 restoration started and the result is the rather fine example that you see here. Well done to the members of the Association.

Addendum: My personal opinion is that Facebook is a sociopathic organisation that steals other peoples' intellectual property (including the images in this gallery) despite being explicitly denied permission to do so.