Wednesday 18 January 2017

ZK-HND is also back from the Ice

Also back from Terra Nova Bay, Antarctica is the Aerospatiale AS 350 B2 ZK-HND3 (c/n 2073).
Following six years service in Japan as JA9728 this AS 350 B airframe came to NZ for Helicopters (NZ) Ltd of Nelson and became ZK-HNZ2 on 21-10-1994. 
It also served some time with Southern Lakes Helicopters before being exported to Helicopters (Australia) Pty Ltd of Belmont West Australia where it became VH-WCI on 27-08-1996, by which time it was a BA model. 
After operations in Cambodia it was returned to NZ in March of 2004 and was reworked to B2 standard by Heliquip International Ltd and become ZK-HDO3 02-07-2004. 
It then headed up to Ardmore for the fitting of a winch and the FDC air filter system.
It was back in Nelson on 16-10-2004 and then ferried down to Christchurch International Airport to be loaded aboard the Alaskan Air National Guard Lockheed C130H 82-0056 and was flown from NZCH to Brisbane and Darwin bound to Cambodia for work in Myanmar on contract to the US Missing in Action Accounting Command.
It was back in Nelson again by 05-11-2005 thanks to the C130H 82-0058.
It was then containered back to Belmont WA where it became VH-WDI2 with Helicopters (Australia) Pty Ltd on 14-02-2006. 
Following the Company take over they were renamed HNZ Australia Pty Ltd.
On 25-09-2013 it was back in NZ and was registered as ZK-HND3 with HNZ New Zealand Ltd before being flown down to Lyttelton to board the Araon for a summer Antarctic trip. It was back in Nelson in March of 2014 and its registration was cancelled on the 27th for export to the parent Company Canadian Helicopters Ltd of Montreal with whom it became C-GNZW on 22-04-2014.
HNZ New Zealand re-listed it as ZK-HND3 on 21-10-2015
 and it has spent the last two summers 'on Ice'.
Got all that ?

2 comments:

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  2. busy little bugger, scored a few airpoints in its life

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