Restored Tiger Moth ZK-ATN at Ardmore

A NZ Warbirds team led by Woodsy (Graeme Woods) has been restoring the Tiger Moth ZK-ATN over the last four years or so, and it is nearly ready to take to the skies again as can be seen in the photo from the NZ Warbirds Facebook page:

ZK-ATN was originally NZ-751 with the RNZAF and had the c/n of DHNZ1 which makes it a pretty significant airframe (but of the grandfather's axe variety).  

From records I have seen it has a couple of differing early histories but it seems that the fuselage was built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company at Hatfield in the UK and then shipped to New Zealand where the wings were built by DHNZ at Rongotai.  The records I am going by show it being taken on charge by the RNZAF on 29 November 1940, serving with 3 EFTS and being stored at Taieri on 8 August 1945.  Later it was sold to the Tauranga Aero Club on 8 May 1949 as ZK-ATN and then on 10 October 1949 it was sold to Ron Graham who traded as Airspread Ltd of Tauranga and it was converted to a topdresser.  It suffered several incidents and accidents as most of the early topdressers did (forced landing at Komata on 31 December 1949 and undercarriage collapse at Paeroa on 22 February 1951).  It was rebuilt and spent some time based at Dannevirke then went to Stratford from June 1954 to May 1957.  It was bought by F J McDonald who traded as Airspread (Taranaki) Ltd on 4 July 1957 but he quickly on-sold it on 24 October 1957 to Ted Hollick of Auckland (who was known as the Flying Chimney Sweep).  It was badly damaged on 11 December 1959 at Oneriri on Great Barrier Island, when it attempted to take off from Palmers Beach but ran into the sea and overturned.  Some components were salvaged but the rest was bulldozed into the sand dunes.  It was cancelled from the register on 25 May 1990.

The remains were stored by various Auckland owners before being acquired by NZ Warbirds and they re-registered the Tiger as ZK-ATN on 11 May 2021 with the c/n DHNZ1.

Robinson R44 Raven II ZK-HPA

Continuing the Robinson R44 theme below making a very brief visit to Pauanui airfield today was R44 Raven II ZK-HPA4.    Originally exported new to South Africa as ZS-EXC in 2007 this was imported by Heliflite Australia in 2022 and registered VH-8JW.   Moving onto NZ it was registered as HPA in October 2024 and is now part of the Heliflite training fleet based at Ardmore.

 

Salt Air's New Helibarge

Salt Air has introduced the Helibarge 2.0 to their operations out of Paihia.  According to the company, the Helibarge provides a second helipad on the waterfront at Paihia and reduces noise on the waterfront while it also apparently "improves the guest experience".

Here is a Salt Air photo of the Helibarge with their Robinson R 44 II ZK-IWT2 aboard.

Pauanui visitors

A couple of visitors to Pauanui airfield today that havent been blogged here before were the Vans RV7A ZK-RVW.    This was originally registered as ZK-REX5 in July 2009, and reregistered as RVW in October 2024 by its Auckland owner.

And the Robinson R44 II ZK-HPR7 which was originally imported from Australia for Wanaka Helicopters back in 2013 and since 2022 has been owned by the Gisborne leasing company, NR Aviation, and leased out to various operators.

 

A "New" Aircraft at Dargaville on 11-1-2025

A "new" aircraft in the North is Brian Houghton's Meteor S.p.A. Sky Arrow 480T ZK-EBR2 which he flew to Dargaville on Saturday: 

Brian taxying out in ZK-EBR2.  This is the late John Bolton-Riley's machine that he flew to the Chatham Islands and Australia, and is now without John's Glen Oroua and other script.

Lift off into the quite strong SW wind.

And off back into the blue to Parakai.

Yaks at Dargaville Yesterday 11-1-2025

The Yaks from North Shore were not part of the Warbirds programme yesterday, but just popped up for lunch:

That is the way to make an entrance over the airfield!

Then they were marshalled to park along the fenceline out by the runway as the rest of the parking was full.  They were Rob Fry's ZK-BJK2, Chistpoh Berthoud's ZK-DSJ2 and Brent Hempel's ZK-RUS2.

NZ Warbirds at Dargaville Today 11-1-2025

Finally some nice flying weather in the North today, although the continuing South-Westerlies got a bit fresher as the day wore on.  Fortunately the wind was not too far off down-the-strip for Runway 22 at Dargaville:

That was because the NZ Warbirds were in town giving rides to eager customers.  The demand for flights was such that people had to be turned away.  The aircraft that were giving trial flights were the Harvard ZK-WAR,

and the Stearman ZK-BOE2,

and the Airtourer T6 ZK-CPG2 ex NZ1762.

The Messenger ZK-CMM2 was also there but did not fly.  You can see that a good crowd was in attendance so it was a great day.  They even ran out of Penny burgers!

And during the lunch break the public was allowed to get up close to the aircraft which was a very nice touch I thought.

A couple seldom seen - at Rangiora 10-01-2025

Ownership of the Jurca MJ-5 Sirocco ZK-FNQ c/n AACA/601 passed from the estate of the late Phil Meredith to Wim Bresser of Cust on 21-10-2024. 

It hadn't seen the light of day for some years, but Wim has rectified that.

FNQ has been mentioned several times on this site. 

To see these previous posts enter the ZK-FNQ registration in the small search box in the top left of the screen.

 

Another Phil Meredith aircraft is this modified Rans S-7Courier ZK-TKB c/n 0707466 which joined our register on 15-05-2013 and first flew on 16-07-2013.

Previous mentions of ZK-TKB can be seen Here

Since the earlier photos the wing fence has been moved to become a wing endplate.

This aircraft is still awaiting a new purchaser.

See TradeMe HERE

Aerospool WT9 600NG ZK-TCC

Visiting Pauanui airfield today from Tauranga was the new Aerospool WT9 Dynamic 600NG ZK-TCC which was registered back in May 2024.

 

Bombardier Global 7500 N588CH into Christchurch

 Tony McFarlin was on the job again and captured the Bombardier BD-700-2A12 (Global 7500) N588CH c/n 70147 cruising into Christchurch today - 10-01-2025.

N588CH popped up on the US register on 14-07-2023 as delivered to Avwest Aircraft Pty Ltd of West Australia. However it remained on the US register and was swallowed up into the Bank of Utah two days later.