In about mid 2015 a somewhat modified Robinson R22 on a hydraulic arm and trailer mounted appeared in Christchurch in a Garden City Helicopters scheme.
It appeared at various public gatherings for a while.
I often wondered which airframe was involved.
It is now at the New Zealand Helicopter Heritage Museum storage site at Rangiora.
Dan Smith now has 24 helicopters tucked away in the care of Andrew Brian.
I had a bit of a poke around it yesterday and indications are that this is ex VH-THV2 which was c/n 0490.
This would make it ex N8562V and ex ZK-HXU1.
The story of ZK-HXU goes something like this :-
As N8562V it was registered to the Robinson Helicopter Company at Torrance in September of 1985.
C M Green of Austin, Texas took delivery the same month and it was relisted to Austin Helicopters Inc in June of 1986.
This registration was cancelled in September 1987 for it to become ZK-HXU with Skysales Aviation (NZ) Ltd of Christchurch on 16-09-1987.
The late Bob Kerr shot it at Christchurch on 25-11-1987.
And I snapped it at Christchurch on 19-08-1988.
I have a note that it was damaged in the Cascade Valley on 03-12-1988.
With an ownership change to Cougar International Ltd of Timaru from 08-03-1989 only to be damaged again - this time at Drake Flat, near Haast on 22-11-1989.
I next noted it at Rotorua on 17-04-1991 in a slightly different colour scheme.
Its new owner A T Loughin of Taupo was promulgated on 18-09-1991.
Rotor & Wings Engineering Associates of Taupo were next in line from 26-05-1995 followed by Brendan Leddy out of Kumea from 01-04-1998.
It was sent to Craig Thompson of Drury from 18-06-199 who returned it to Brendan from 10-01-2000.
Its NZ registration was cancelled on 29-02-2000.
It popped up in Australia as VH-THV2 on 09-03-2000 with Tony Visker of Emerald, Queensland but was involved in an incident on 09-05-2000 at Aldinga Park - resulting in its cancellation on 04-07-2000.
Below - noted back in New Zealand in 2015
.JPG)
Above is a short clip of it in action.
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