Beaver ZK-AYT

Rural Aviation's second Beaver was ZK-AYT (c/n 138) which was manufactured by the DH Canada factory at Downsview, Ontario on 27 July 1951.  It was shipped to New Zealand for the agents DH New Zealand Ltd and registered to Rural Aviation Ltd of New Plymouth on 19 December 1951.  I assume it was assembled at Mangere as were our other earliest Beavers ZK-AVL, ZK-AXK and ZK-AZB.

A nice action shot of it taking off from a topdressing strip, early on in its life as the undercarriage to fuselage fairings are still in place..  I do not have a record of who took the photo.

In this early colour shot taken at New Plymouth we can see that the fuselage cheat line seems to be dark blue and the registration letters are in dayglo orange.  The photo is via Janic Geelen who recalls the photo was taken by a topdressing pilot at the time.

And an interesting shot of it being loaded on a topdressing strip, probably in 1953.  Quite a lot of manpower was required to load the early topdressers!  I understand that this photo was taken by Phil Lightband who flew for Rural and later became their Operations Manager.

It was damaged in a heavy landing at Raetihi on 20/1/54 but was repaired to crash again near the Aohanga River near Akitio (which is on the East Coast of the North Island East of Pahiatua), on 23/4/56, when it hit a down draught while flying near a steep hillside and the starboard wing was torn off and the aircraft was destroyed coming to rest upside down.  It was cancelled from the register on 7/7/56.

Beaver ZK-AXK

In researching the history of the early Beaver topdressers in New Zealand, I found that Beaver ZK-AXK was in fact our earliest example in spite of the fact that ZK-AVL appears as an earlier alphabetical registration.  And I also found that our other three early Beavers, ZK-AVL for James, ZK-AYT for Rural and ZK-AZB for Fieldair were all registered on the same day, 19 December 1951.

Our first Beaver c/n 89 was built in the DH Canada factory at Downsview, Ontario in 1950 and shipped to New Zealand for the agents De Havilland New Zealand Ltd arriving in December 1950.  It is photo'd here being assembled at Mangere in January 1951 by Whites Aviation.

It was registered ZK-AXK on 12/1/51 to Rural Aviation Ltd of New Plymouth, and it is photo'd here looking brand new, at Mangere in January 1951.  Its first flight was on 22/1/51.  It was named Jerry in memory of Rural's topdressing pilot Jerry Hooper who was killed in a Tiger Moth topdressing crash on 3/10/50.  It was the first Beaver in the world to be converted for topdressing operations and you can see the shiny circular hopper and the early version of the hopper outlet underneath the fuselage

Here it is at its home base at Bell Block airfield, New Plymouth with Mt Egmont in the background.

And here is a nice photo of it being loaded by an early topdressing loader, from the Ed Coates collection.

And here it is at work in its element near Raetihi in November 1951 as photo'd by Leo White.  You can see the difficult country it is working over.

It was in similarly difficult country near Mangamahu, North-East of Wanganui that it suffered an engine failure on takeoff on 20/4/54 and crashed on a steep hillside with fatal results.  It was cancelled from the register on 8/7/54.

Beaver ZK-AVL

Back in the very early days of aerial topdressing in New Zealand when nearly every operator was flying Tiger Moths there was a recognition that a more powerful and nearer to mission aircraft would be much better.  That aircraft was the Beaver which had first flown on  16 August 1947 and was designed for rugged bush operations in Canada.  But they were very expensive.  However this did not stop a couple of the early pioneers from purchasing several examples.  Later, when more Beavers would have been bought, production was fully tied up with aircraft for the US military (who eventually bought 970 of the 1647 that were built).

The first Beaver to be registered here was ZK-AVL (c/n 148) which was manufactured at the DH Canada factory in Downsview, Ontario in 1951.  It was imported by DH New Zealand and was registered to James Aviation Ltd of Hamilton on 19/12/51.  It was assembled outside at Mangere as shown in this interesting photo above, where you can also see another Beaver in the background.  This is before September 1951 I think.

It is photo'd above at an unknown location after having been painted with a Stearman Vermilion red fuselage and silver wings and rudder and tailplane.

James Aviation operated it with No 1 on the tail, presumably Fleet No 1 although they would have had quite a few Tiger Moths also at the time.  Again photo'd at an unknown location by an unknown photographer.

In the black and white photos the red fuselage looks to be quite a dark red, but it probably looked more like this colour (depending on the colour settings of the screen you are viewing this on), and I suspect that Stearman ZK-RJS is the same colour.

And here it is in a very early colour photo (in the 1950s) at Rukuhia, I think from the Ossie James collection.  It hit a loader truck very early on in its topdressing life, at Paerangi on 1/4/52 - maybe that was the cause of the all red cowling in the above photo?  Then it hit a sheep on take off at Te Akau on 17/3/56 damaging the undercarriage.

On 20/7 59 ZK-AVLs ownership changed to Aerial Farming (Holdings) Ltd of Palmerston North and it is photo'd above in their colours at Wellington in 1959 while having some radio work done by Aviation Radio.  It was marked as Fleet #7.  Tragically it only lasted a few months in Aerial Farming ownership as it crashed and was destroyed near Utiku (which is near Taihape) on 21/12/59, killing its pilot.  It was cancelled from the register on 21/10/60.

Pilatus Turbo Porter ZK-MCT Ready to Fly at North Shore 26-8-2024

I called into North Shore this afternoon on an avgas run and the refurbished Inflite Ltd Pilatus Turbo Porter ZK-MCT was looking resplendent out in the sun:

Inflite's Chief Engineer Tim told me that a test flight is scheduled for tomorrow - thanks Tim. 

He also said that it might look a little different to this when it flies as it was going to be rebranded for Inflite's parachute operations.  And the decals people arrived to apply the changes just as I left.

Beaver ZK-CZO

The second of the two Beavers that Fieldair bought from Australia in 1969 was ZK-CZO, and this was their nineteenth and last Beaver.

De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver , c/n 1533 , had a date of manufacture of 29/10/63 and went to Australia to become VH-IDE with Robby's Aerial Services Ltd from 17/1/64. It was cancelled in May of 1969 as being sold abroad.

It became ZK-CZO with Fieldair Ltd at Gisborne on 3/6/69 and it is photo'd above at Gisborne on 1/8/69.  It had an accident at Castle Point Station on 19/5/70 when it failed to become airborne but was repaired.

And here it is painted in Fieldair's yellow colours at Palmerston North on 16/1/72.  It suffered a fatal accident near Te Karaka on 6/12/72 when it dived into the ground on a ferry flight back to Gisborne at the end of a days topdressing.

That is the end of my series on Fieldair's Beavers.  I guess I will now beaver away and post about our other topdressing Beavers.

Christchurch on Thursday the 22nd.

 A quick stop at Christchurch International Airport on Thursday afternoon found the Cessna 206 Super Skywagon ZK-DOV c/n 206-0248. Nice to see it in this new scheme. Note the leading edge turbulators.

It has been listed with the DOV Partnership of Napier since late March of 2021.

       Resting quietly after a couple of runs down to McMurdo on the 16th and 19th was the Boeing C-17A Globemaster III 03-3127 c/n 50135.

Beavers and Beavers #17 ZK-CZL - Update

After a few years of no new Beavers, Fieldair bought two from Australia in 1969.  The first of these was ZK-CZL.  Dave Paull posted about ZK-CZL back in 2010 and you can see his post HERE.  I can only add a little more to its history and I can add a few more photos:

De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver , c/n 1541 , had a date of manufacture of 5/3/64 and went to Australia to become VH-IDM with Aerial Agriculture from 6/7/64. It was cancelled in April of 1969 as being sold abroad.

It became ZK-CZL with Fieldair Ltd at Gisborne on 16/5/69 and first flew as such on the 26th. It is photo'd above at Gisborne on 11/10/69.

It is seen here at Gisborne on 8/12/70.

And here at Masterton on 22/5/73 in yet another of Fieldair's yellow colour schemes.

Yet another variation seen at Gisborne on 23/6/75.

And another variation! here also at Gisborne on 8/4/77.

It was damaged when it struck its loader at Gisborne on 20/9/77 and damaged again on take off from the Rototahi Strip on 22/2/79.  It went through the Company changes to Fieldair Holdings (Central) Ltd of Palmerston North on 18/11/80 and to Fieldair Holdings of Palmerston North on 30/3/84.  It is photo'd above, again at Gisborne, in May 1984.

During 1986/1987 it was leased to Island Air Safaris of Tauranga in a passenger configuration as in this photo taken on 20/2/87..

Its NZ registration was cancelled on 25/10/88.  It was shipped back to Australia to become VH-OMO with L McArthur-Onslow of Walcha, NSW on 20/1/89 and was operated by Aerial Agriculture of Armidale where the above photo was taken in September 1990.

It was cancelled from the Australian register on 20/5/98 and returned to Canada where it became C-GEDE in March 1999 with Recon Air Corporation of Geraldton, Ontario. Arthur Esquega of Gull Bay, Ontario features from 15/6/99 and then it went to 1383693 Ontarion Ltd of Thunder Bay are listed from 25/8/00. I believe this is another way of saying NiiGaani Air of Thunder Bay, Ontario.  It is photo'd above in NiiGaani Air ownership at Thunder Bay on 29/7/14.  On 5/3/19 its ownership transferred to Adam Esquega of Gull Bay Ontario and it is still current in Canada.

Beaver ZK-CRE

 Man! Fieldair had a lot of Beavers and their seventeenth example was ZK-CRE: (which is still extant in the US as illustrated below during its long career)

ZK-CRE (c/n 1613) arrived at Hawker Siddeley's at Wellington airport in 1966 and was registered to Fieldair Ltd on 13/6/66.  It is photo'd above and below looking very shiny during and engine run prior to delivery.

It was much easier to take photos at airports back in those days!

Here it is in colour showing the effects of a working life, at Gisborne in 1972.

It changed to a yellow Fieldair scheme as in this photo at Gisborne on 27/10/74.

 

On 18/11/80 it underwent the ownership change to Fieldair Holdings (Central) Ltd of Palmerston North as in this photo taken at Masterton (not sure) on 12/3/83.  Then it went on through another reorganisation to Fieldair Holdings Ltd of Palmerston North on 30/3/84.

On 25 and 26/3/88 it was flown across the Tasman Sea via Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island, to Sydney where this photo was taken on 27/3/88.  It was cancelled from the New Zealand register on 7/4/88.

In Australia it became VH-CEV2 on 11/4/88 for Hadlock Holdings Pty Ltd of Tumut, NSW who traded as Tumut Airspray.  The above photo was taken in 1988.  It stayed with them until 15/7/98 when it was cancelled from the Australian register and freighted to New Zealand for a rebuild by serial Beaver rebuilder Frank Wright at Tauranga.  After the rebuild it was freighted to the US.

Where it became N13VF on 22/9/99 for Andrews Airways of Kodiak in Alaska.  You can see it had the Frank Wright colour scheme but in dark red and grey.  On 29/11/03 it crashed on landing at Viekoda Bay near Kodiak and its US registration was cancelled on 6/7/05.

It was registered as C-FPBJ4 on 3/3/07 to Atlantic Aircraft Salvage Ltd of  Enfield, Nova Scotia.  They had it rebuilt by Sealand Aviation of Campbell River Nova Scotia who incorporated the Sealand Cabin Extension kit and fitted double Alaskan doors on the port side. It flew again on 23/3/10 as in this photo.  

However Sealand did further work on the airframe including moving the engine forward for CG reasons, adding a belly fuel tank and installing wing tip tanks that extended the wingspan, and a repaint, as you can see in the above photo.taken on 29/6/10.  It was sold to Island Lake Trading Co of Island Lake, Manitoba as C-GJWU on 27/4/10.

You can see the double Alaskan doors quite well in this photo.  On 17/11/20 it was cancelled from the Canadian register for export back to the US.

Where it became N83VR for Nicholas A Gill and Kimberly B Ewing of Kila, Montana on 19/11/20.  It is photo'd here at Oshkosh 2022.

Beavers and Beavers #16 ZK-CPZ - Update

Fieldair's sixteenth Beaver was ZK-CPZ (c/n 462) which had a remarkable history up to the time that Fieldair acquired it, and which carried on after Fieldair sold it:

DHC-2 Beaver airframe c/n 462 was built at DH Canada's Downsview, Ontario plant in 1953.  It was shipped to New Zealand for De Havilland (NZ) Ltd and registered ZK-BDI to James Aviation Ltd on 3/9/53.  Its first flight in NZ was on 2/10/53.  It is photo'd above looking very new at what looks like an airshow or demonstration - anyone know when and where?

It was marked as No 2 for James Aviation on the fin as in this photo.  It was damaged in a forced landing at Wairakei on 15/10/56 after an engine failure.

And it was again damaged when it was blown over in a storm at Taupo on 12/5/58, and it was cancelled from the register on 22/8/58.

However that was not the end of this survivor as the damaged airframe was purchased by Aerial Farming of NZ Ltd of Palmerston North who rebuilt it and registered it as ZK-BMO on 12/12/58, flying again on 17/12/58.  It is photo'd above at Wellington which must be after October 1959.  It seems to be having some radio work carried out.

Here it is at Palmerston North in an early colour photo, also in 1959.  It was damaged on an airstrip at Nihoniho, West of Taumarunui on 2/9/60 when it undershot the strip and overturned down a gully.  It was cancelled from the NZ civil register (again!) on 21/3/61 and the damaged airframe was sold to Australia where it was (again) rebuilt, this time by Aerial Agriculture Pty Ltd at Bankstown, NSW and registered VH-AAW2 on 15/8/61.  Then it went to Robby's Aerial Services Ltd at Parafield, South Australia who re-registered it as VH-RAS2 on 22/11/62.  Then on 23/3/66 it was cancelled from the Australian civil register and exported back to New Zealand.

In this ongoing saga it was registered as ZK-CPZ to Fieldair on 5/4/66.  It is photo'd above at Wellington  still with its Robby's Aerial Services titles.

It was repainted in the standard Fieldair blue and white colours as in this photo inside the Hawker Siddeley hangar at Wellington.

And outside the HS hangar.

Dave Paull has a note that it was damaged in a storm on 10/4/68 (again! - actually this was the Wahine storm), and we can see that it was at Dannevirke.

It was repaired and repainted in this yellow Fieldair colour scheme as in this photo of it at Gisborne on 28/10/70.

And in yet another version of the Fieldair yellow scheme at Napier on 1/8/76.  It did the Company name change to Fieldair Holdings (Central) Ltd on 18/11/80.

But it did not end there because on 16/9/83 it transferred to Griffin Ag Air Ltd of Palmerston North who re-registered it back to ZK-BDI and used it in the ag role as in this photo at Masterton in January 1984.

Its ownership changed to the Parakai Parachute Centre on 8/2/88 and then to P Roberts on 26/9/90 and it was  cancelled on 20/11/90 for export back to Australia (yet again!).  The above photo was taken at Wellington on 14/10/88, therefore when it was in Parakai Parachute Centre ownership and I think you can see it has some parachute dropping steps outside the door.

Back in Australia, on 10/1/91 it became VH-BOS2 with Altair Aviation Pty Ltd of Bungador in Victoria.  It is still registered to them in Australia but it is probably in storage.

How's That!