NAL is founded at Johannesburg’s Baragwanath Airport in 1958 by Dick Dunn and Stan Cohen to transport newspapers, passengers, and miscellaneous cargo to Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Over the next five years, Dunn and Cohen actively seek to enlarge their concern by purchasing five other small nonscheduled operators: OFS Air Services (Pty.), Ltd., Pretoria Flying Service (Pty.), Ltd., Transvaal Air Charters (Pty.), Ltd., Aero Sales (Pty.), Ltd., and Swazi Air, Ltd. (1). Some of these will be operated as subsidiaries.
Durban-based Natal Aviation (Pty.), Ltd. is acquired in 1963. At this point, the company, renamed National Airways Corporation, is large enough to become a takeover target and the automotive dealer Fisher & Simmons (Pty.), Ltd. acquires the company before the end of the year, but leaves Dick Dunn in as chairman, with Jack Andrew as general director.
Early in 1964, Chairman Dunn resumes the carrier’s expansion, purchasing Southern Aviation (Pty.), Ltd., Bechuanaland Air Safaris, and half interest in Skywork (Rhodesia), Ltd. Also assumed is Skywork’s interest in Rhodesia Air Service, Ltd. Requiring more space, the company is transferred from Baragwanath to Rand Airport at Germiston.
As a result of all this growth, the NAC fleet by mid-decade is quite large: 3 Cessna 310s, 1 C-150,2 C-170s, 4 C-172s, 1 C-180, 1 C-182, 1 C-210A, 3 Navion Rangemasters, 4 Piper PA-11 Colts, 2 PA-23 Aztecs, 3 PA-23 Apaches, 1 PA-24 Comanche, 1 PA-30 Twin Comanche, 3 Beech Bonanzas, 1 Beech Travelair, 3 Mooneys, 5 Aero Commander 500s, and 1 Hughes 269A.
Employing a pair of Aero Commanders, the company takes over a South African Airways (Pty.), Ltd. service on March 20, 1965, which delivers printing mats for Sunday newspapers from Johannesburg to Cape
Town. Editions of the Sunday Times, Sunday Express, Dagsbreek, and Sondagstem are run off by the presses of the Cape Times and Bie Burger.
The carrier’s new subsidiary, Swazi Air, Ltd. (2), begins services from Matsapa on September 27. In October, the company also begins to fly copies of the Evening Post to Port Elizabeth, East London, and Grahamstown.
Newspaper, air taxi, and charter services are continued in 1966 and in May 1967 a flight school is started at Rand Airport, to which an Aero Commander is dedicated. The Port Elizabeth division is sold to Mel Templer and Theale Stewart in 1968, who operate it briefly as the independent NAC Eastern Cape (Pty.), Ltd.
By 1969, the fleet has been increased by the addition of 2 Douglas DC-3s and 1 Aero Commander 500B.
Just after takeoff from Germiston on October 6, 1970, a DC-3 with a pilot and 10 passengers suffers the loss of its No. 1 engine. The crew attempts to return to their point of origin, but the plane crashes two km. from the Rand Airport (three dead).
At the end of the year, NAC is sold to Protea Airways (Pty.), Ltd.
World History
