Background Information.

 

Qantas purchased four of the larger de Havilland Canada Otters to replace the Beavers. The first two were delivered in May 1958, the third in July 1958 and the last airframe in August 1958 for use in Papua-New Guinea. These were based at Lae and Port Moresby with three flying as landplanes, based at Lae serving the small strips in the New Guinea highlands and one, VH-EAW, fitted with floats, operated in the river delta area of Papua from its base on Port Moresby. Qantas never operated Otters on mainland Australia.

Qantas Airways transferred all of their Australian mainland domestic and Papua-New Guinea regional services to Trans-Australia Airlines (T.A.A.) on September 01, 1960 and the Otters were then transferred to T.A.A. operations.