1717 was one of the first two of Shackletons delivered to the SAAF on 18 August 1957, the other was 1716/J. The aircraft were supposed to painted in alphabethcial order starting with 1716 as J and ending with Q on 1723. However, the squadron commander at the time Commandant M J Uys requested that his machine was given the code O as that was his wartime code letter. 1717/O was retired with the rest of the fleet in 1984 and put on display at the Midmar Dam in Natal and later moved to Stanger, KwaZulu-Natal. Photographer unknown