A variety from around Christchurch

 Here are a few of the interesting sighting at Christchurch and Rangiora over the last couple of days.

 

 Above is the 1963 Cessna 185B ZK-CMW2 (c/n 1850653) parked near the Canterbury Aero Club today (19-07-2013). A bit of a dark horse is this 185. We can call it a "war bird" because it joined the US military as 63-13595 before being shunted down to Costa Rica. In 1980 it went civilian in Canada and then came to NZ to become ZK-JAO in November of 1996. It was re-registered to ZK-CMW on 03-07-2002 and is currently listed to CMC Investments of Pokeno.

 Outside Heli Maintenance Ltd was this Robinson R44 ZK-HHI (c/n 0097). Ltd. Built in 1994 for export to Japan. It came to NZ in October of 2003 and has moved around a good bit and is currently listed to Franz Josef Lodge Ltd.

 Away on a brief maintenance test flight was the Bell B206B JetRanger III ZK-HQH (c/n 3206) of Cornwall Farms Ltd.

 A splash of colour on an otherwise dull Christchurch day on 16-07-2013.

Garden City Helicopters line up. EC 120B ZK-IQT (c/n 1370); AS 350B3 ZK-IHL(c/n 7219); BK117 B-2 ZK-HJC (c/n 1061); and AS 350BA ZK-HGH (c/n 1443).

 Today at the Aero Club we had the Cessna 650 Citation III which uses part of its construction number (c/n 650-0163) to be N163JM. (And that is SOFIA in the far background).

 Seen on the vertical fin of a yet to be registered (in NZ) Piper PA28R-200 Arrow at Rangiora today.

At Rangiora today - this Cessna 185A ZK-SIA (c/n 185-0427) of the K G Macdonald Trust is about to head away for the weekend. This is a 1962 production aircraft which served in Australia until arriving in NZ in August of 2005.