ZK-CVK

 Alastair Millar sent me a 'bit of trivia' earlier today.

Alastair flies the South Eyre Trust's ICP Savannah XL ZK-CVK2 (c/n 10-7-51-916) from its home strip near Kaiapoi.

 This aircraft was built by the owner/pilot of Perth West Australia and allocated the Australian Ultralight Federation registration numbers 19-7675 (often referred to a phone numbers) and  was hangared at Northam about two hours drive to the east of the City. 

It is powered by a Rotax 912 with a Bolly three bladed propeller.

It was shipped in a container from Freemantle to NZ and assembled at Rangiora.

It became ZK-CVK2 on 09-02-2015 with the South Eyre Trust.

Pic below shows the original five Australian stars on the rudder and its 'Phone Number' registration on the fin. It also carried these numbers in large numerals under its port wing.

Below is a pic taken at Hokitika by Alastair on Wednesday (15th).

You will note that it still carries its Australian Ultralight Federation markings but the smaller fifth star on the rudder has cunningly been covered with a NZ sticker.

Alastair has rightly pointed out that the first allocation of the ZK-CVK letters were applied to a Bristol 170 Freighter Mk31 which also came from Australia.

This was c/n 13179 and was allocated the Bristol Aircraft Co Ltd's manufacturers class B registration of G-18-171 on 29-07-1954 before trundling down to join the Royal Pakistan Air Force to become S4416. 

It was transferred to the Pakistani Government in a civilian capacity and was allocated the registration of AP-AMN for its ferry flight down to Australia.

In Oz it became VH-BFA on 10-10-1961 with Ansett ANA of Melbourne before transferring to Ansett MAL at Lae in PNG from 22-05-1964.

It was withdrawn from use in February 1967 at Goroka PNG with its registration being cancelled in October of 1967.

It was purchased by SAFE Air Ltd of Blenheim and became ZK-CVK on 03-11-1967 and was ferried down to Woodburne (Blenheim) arriving there on 21-11-1967.

The pic below from David Thollar shows it marked as ZK-CVK sitting at Brisbane on 16-11-1967 whilst on delivery to NZ.

 

It along with ZK-CVL, which also came from Ansett MAL about the same time, was never used operationally by Safe Air - being a source of spares only. 

It was cancelled from the NZ register on 05-04-1972 and it was seen below parked up at Woodbourne in November of 1975 by Nigel Daw.