Tuesday 3 October 2023

"RNZAF" Tiger Moths in New Zealand

In New Zealand we have several DH 82A Tiger Moths that are painted in RNZAF yellow training schemes.  They have registered colour schemes. as below:

ZK-AIE (c/n 83492) is owned by the Royal New Zealand Air Force and is marked as NZ 662 - which it wore during its WW 2 service.

ZK-ASV (c/n DHNZ 36) was most recently restored by Colin Smith of the Croydon Aircraft Company at Mandeville.  It is marked as NZ 786 which was its serial during its WW 2 service.  Recently (23/3/23) ownership transferred to Wayne Thomas and Craig Wing of Drury and I expect we will see it more often.

And ZK-BRL2 (c/n DHNZ 123) is registered to East Canterbury Aviation Ltd (Russell Brodie) of Rangitata Island.  It is marked as NZ 1443 which again is the serial it wore during its WW 2 service.

And there will soon be another yellow Tiger Moth as NZ Warbirds are restoring one at Ardmore for a projected 2024 completion date (is this ZK-ALM?)

There are quite a few other Tiger Moths out there wearing NZ xxx serial numbers but most of them also have the registration letters painted on as well, so they won't have registered colour schemes (ZK-BLI as NZ 1448, ZK-AKC as NZ 847, ZK-ALM as NZ 841, and a couple of silver Tigers from Masterton ZK-ANQ as NZ 892 and the inaccurate ZK-ANL as NZ 861).  Have I missed any?

There is one more Tiger with a registered colour scheme, being ZK-BJR as NZ 1425 based at North Shore, but this has a grey upper fuselage with yellow below like an RAF Tiger Moth - is this a genuine WW 2 RNZAF scheme?



2 comments:

  1. RNZAF spent a fortune on ZK-AIE $300,000 plus, hasn't flown for years.

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  2. I don't think it would ALM as it is registered to the King Tiger Syndicate of National Park. Though I haven't been at Ardmore, for a while my guess is the Warbirds project is ATN or possibly ANN.

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