To break up the avalanche of microlights I will try to alternate with posts on other aircraft from the New Zealand register, starting with this:
Douglas C-47B-45-DK (c/n 16966/34226)
Built by Douglas Aircraft Co, Oklahoma City, OK with 2x 1200HP 14-cyl R-1830-92 Twin Wasp radial
45-963 engines
23 Jul 1945 USAAF but diverted under “lend-lease”
Exported to New Zealand flown to New Zealand.
NZ3532 17 Aug 1945 RNZAF 1 ASU, Hamilton
40 Sqn, RNZAF Whenuapai
Aug 1946 41 Sqn, RNZAF Whenuapai
19 Feb 1947 Air Secretary, Air Department, Wellington
Struck Off Charge 31 May 1947 Harewood
ZK-AOI 5 Apr 1947 New Zealand National Airways Corp, Wellington, named “Papua”
converted to freighter by Airwork (NZ) Ltd. 19 Jul 1966 wfu @ 22,758 hrs FT
20 Dec 1966 to James Aviation Ltd, Hamilton converted to topdresser
Used as topdresser from Mar 1967 to Feb 1969 then stored
Flown by Don Thorp from Feb 1970
11 May 1971 Southern Air Super Ltd, Palmerston North (based at Blenheim mostly)
Starboard wing broke off in flight between engine and wingtip and
crashed into head of Ure River, Marlborough (1 killed) 23 Feb 1973
Cancelled 10 May 1973 (@ 1102 hrs Topdressing).
From memory I think the damaged wings off ZK-AOI were stashed in the back of CAAs Wellington hangar in the mid 1970s
ReplyDeleteThere's a place in Seddon,
ReplyDelete13 Nursery Lane
If you street view on Google Earth the fence has propellor blades which I have always guessed were off AOI.
Anybody aware of their history?
ZK-AOI was initially a passenger aircraft but was converted to a freighter in 1948 and remained in that configuration until NAC converted it to a topdressing for James Aviation in 1966. It was not converted at any stage to a Skyliner as recorded above.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Peter. I will alter the post to reflect your information.
ReplyDeleteI checked the history of ZK-AOI from Peter Lewis's posts on the Wings Over NZ forum and that confirmed it was always a freighter. And as a bonus I have added to this post a photo of ZK-AOI in Southern Air Super titles.
ReplyDelete