Saturday 24 January 2009

A Bit of This and A Bit of That..

Visited Queensland across the Christmas/New Year period, but unfortunately the aviation industry was "gone - no forwarding address"! Caloundra was the shining exception - where do you get invited onto the field to wander at your liesure nowadays? The Queensland Air Museum has been struggling along for many years now, and I noted it was under threat from airport development this time. They have some nice stuff under cover, but there are some sad cases as well. This unloved GAF N22 Nomad VH-BFH (c/n 35) gets a bit worse each time, but you will note on the top of the fin the faded emblem of Southern Air in Invercargill. This machine served as ZK-SAL from early 1981 until July 1983 when it reurned across the Tasman. They also have Metro VH-BPV which did time here with Air Albatross (unfortunate name, that) as ZK-SWC in the mid 80's.

Across on the airfield, amongst the vintage machines, was H369HS VH-VLM which left here in June last year as ZK-HLM. It was cancelled from the NZ register on 17 June, and registered to an address in Buderim (just down the road from Caloundra) on 7 July.

The Masterton airshow last weekend produced some interesting visitors that I don't think get around much. Amongst them was Maule MX-7-180A ZK-MUL from Mount Manganui. It was first registered here 17 Jan 07.

Also positioned nicely was C180 ZK-CBH from Palmerston North. The 1956 vintage machine was imported from the US and first registered here 14 Mar 06.



2 comments:

  1. that 1956 cessna 180 is in good condition. any idea how much power its producing?

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  2. From memory this machine had a very long and stable life as a pipeline patrole aircraft in the states. Acquired some 11 or 12000 hours. Also note the 3rd window installation (why they did this who knows) as the 180 wasn't manufactured with the 3rd window until 1964(?) on the "G" model.

    PD-
    Should still have a standard O-470 pulling around 230hp

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