This the first ZK-AMA Ao-tea-roa for Tasman Empire Air Lines that was instead delivered to Imperial Airways as G-AFCY. ZK-AMC Awarua (c/n S886) became the first S-30 for TEAL after ZK-AMB was also diverted to Imperial. AMC's name was changed to Aotearoa (no hyphens) for publicity photos then the registration was changed to ZK-AMA prior to delivery. About a year later Imperial, which had named G-AFCY Awarua, released it to TEAL with whom it became ZK-AMC thus completing the identity swap.

G-AFCV on its arrival after Imperial Airways' inaugural UK-Canada service . Photo from: Library and Archives Canada

Moored at La Guardia's Marine Air Terminal. Clare made several flights to New York during the Battle of Britain. Photo by: Dmitri Kessel / Life

Connemara on the Medway 'before its first flight' but the date of that does not seem to be known. This aircraft burnt at Southampton on 19 June 1939. Photo from: San Diego Air & Space Museum

Compared to the earlier S.23, the S.30 had Bristol Perseus engines giving marginally less power but better efficiency and less drag. The airframe was strengthened to allow higher take-off weights. Cabot was the second of eight S.30 flying boats built but the first to fly in December 1938. Cabot was used for in-flight refuelling trials with Harrow tankers. Impressed as V3137, she was lost in a mission to Norway in May 1940. Photo from: Flight

At the factory in Rochester, Kent. The hill with St Margaret's Church is much the same today. On the left is the prototype of the enlarged S.26, G-AFCI Golden Hind. Caribou and G-AFCU Cabot, in the background, were equipped as transatlantic mailplanes with aerial refuelling by Harrow tankers after take-off. The two machines were impressed as V3138 and V3137 and destroyed together by German aircraft at Bodø, Norway on 5 May 1940.

Withdrawn from use in 1947 and scrapped. Photo from: Hudson Fysh Collection/State Library of New South Wales

Undated photo but postwar as the TEAL logo was not applied until then. ZK-AMA was delivered in 1939. It was towed into storage at RNZAF Hobsonville in November 1947. In August 1945 it was fast taxied, up on the step according to witnesses, to Mission Bay where it was to become an attraction. This was not to last and -AMA was scrapped in October 1950.