Bruce Walker Skylark ZK-MYT at Waipukurau

An interesting sport aircraft flying from Waipukurau recently was the Bruce Walker Skylark ZK-MYT :

This aircraft has been posted on the blog previously, and for more detail about it see:  https://nzcivair.blogspot.com/2012/07/homegrown-single-seat-homebuilt_22.html

Golden Bay Air Airvan at Paraparaumu Today - 20-1-2020

With the fog at Wellington this morning Golden Bay Air flew their Gippsland Airvan ZK-ZUG into Paraparaumu.  Tim Gorman was there to photo it:

Thanks for the photo Tim.

ZK-HQL to a new home.

Hughes 369HS ZK-HQL3 (c/n 1220438S) as seen landing at Heli Maintenance at Christchurch on December the 19th last year.

As you can tell, it is a late 1972 built machine.

It came onto the NZ register on 10-07-2012 for Laurie Prouting of Station Air Ltd at Mayfield, transferring to Mesopotamia Station from 11-09-2018.
It carries the small 'Station Air Ltd ' decal on the bottom of the door.

It has now found a new home with Mick Gray out of Kaikoura.
Mick also lists the Robinson R22 Beta ZK-IMA and the R44 Raven II ZK-HCY3.

Tauranga City Airshow 18-1-2020

The Classics of the Sky Tauranga City Airshow was held yesterday afternoon.  This event also encompassed The Mount Truck Show so there was also lots of exotic machinery on display.

Rodger Coleclough flew down to the airshow and has sent a few photos:

Wayne Cutforth's full scale Jurca Spitfire was again on display, now with an impressive spinner.

NZ Warbirds were there in force with the Mustang and Kittyhawk.  They also had the Roaring 40s Harvard display team at the show and they flew a display with the Air Force's Black Falcon display team.

Fighter Jets NZ flew a display with their blue L 39 Albatross "88".  They were offering an airshow special of $3,500 for a 30 minute jet flight.

This is the Avenger that Classic Flyers have been restoring.  I understand that it has been restored so the wings can fold.

 A pretty mean looking racing special with an aircraft V 12 engine I guess.

And an even wierder looking motorbike!

Northern Aviators Club Flyin at Mata Today 18-1-2020

As you can see from the photos the weather was great for the Northern Aviators Club flyin at Leo Johns airstrip at Mata today.  Leo's 700 metre airstrip is located about 5 nautical miles South West of Whangarei Airport and has the same 24/06 runway alignment as Whangarei and the same frequency of 118.6, which can lead to a bit of confusion in the circuit.  About 15 or so aircraft attended, and some of them were:

A new one to me was Savannah ZK-WTR that has been owned by James Matthews of Ruakaka since joining the Northland Savannah flock on 15/11/18.

Another new one to me was the Kaitaia Aero Club's Cessna C 162 Skycatcher ZK-KTC, which was flown down from Kaitaia by Mark Muller.

An early arrival was Carsten Mathieu in his P&M Aviation Quik GT 450 trike ZK-MAZ2.

A nice surprise arrival was Steve Wynne's Fisher R 80 Tiger Moth 75% scale replica ZK-DSW2 which was being flown by Colin Jordan and Geoff Pritchard (who both own RV 8s in Canada).  It is powered by a UL engine of 107 HP with direct drive to the propeller.

It lifted off very well with 2 up..

And climbed out looking very nice!

Brian Taylor was there when we arrived, then left for Dargaville in his Jodel D 11 ZK-DJQ.

Rusty Russell operated a taxi service across from Whangarei in the Whangarei Flying Club's Tecnam P 92 Echo ZK-KFP.

A couple of aircraft flew up from Waihi Beach:  Dave Evans in his Tecnam P 96 Golf ZK-JAN3.

 and Grant Nordick in his Vans RV 12 ZK-TFP.

Then another of the Northland Savannah flock arrived as Steve Williams flew taxied up in ZK-CVK2.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see Abbas Shahroodi fly up from North Shore in his Beech A 36 Bonanza ZK-NAZ.  It handled the strip easily.

It sure sounded powerful among the Rotaxes!

Altogether a great day of aviating and talking about aviating!

Deregistration.

"Blue Bus" cancelled. 

DBF Christchurch 11th January 2020.

In its thirtieth year.

A private memorial service has been held.

DBF in aviation historian parlance means destroyed by fire.

Above we see the "Blue Bus" on duty at Omaka.

In actual fact it carried the name "La Vida" on the front windscreen with the 

Blue Bus label stemming from when this blog page was set up by MRC. 

I needed a user name in a hurry so I became Blue Bus and this name seemed to carry 

over to the bus as well. 

Pauanui

Amongst the visitors to Pauanui today was the impressive Cub Crafters CCX 2000 Carbon Cub FX ZK-FXC2 from Ardmore.   This was imported from the US in early 2019.

Previously a regular visitor as ZK-HYJ in a bright red scheme,  Heliflite's AS355F1 was reregistered ZK-IRD2 in December 2019 and is now all grey.   It is seen here in the Pauanui Waterways.

Nesmith Cougar ZK-CNA at Foxpine Today 16-1-2020

Simon Hills was at Foxpine today for the delivery of the unique Nesmith Cougar ZK-CNA2 to its new owner:

It looks like it was a good day for flying all across the country today.

Thanks for the photo Simon.

Tauranga

A visit to a busy Tauranga today offered a number of aircraft of interest including the first in a line up of helicopters Robinson R22 Beta ZK-HCJ3 which is registered to Kahu Helicopters, Whakatane

Locally based Aerius Helicopters' AS350B ZK-HZU2 was imported from Japan in 2002 but hasnt been blogged here before

And converted for a parachute role Cessna 172N ZK-JEY was acquired this month by Skydive The Mount

Steadfast Has Flown in New Zealand!

The spectacular Yak 3U Steadfast has recently flown from Omaka airfield under its new New Zealand ownership as ZK-YOV.

This great photo is from the JEM Aviation Facebook page.  I am told that it was taken on take off.