Cessna 208B Grand Caravan VH-EIY

Noted this morning on the Dennis Thompson ramp at Ardmore was the 2004 Cessna 208B VH-EIY c/n 1050.    This was flown across the Tasman on Wednesday/Thursday this week, routing Port Macquarie-Lord Howe-Norfolk Is-Auckland,  and this afternoon flew onto Wanaka,  presumably for one of the Queenstown operators.

It started life as N40363 before moving onto Malaysia as 9M-MAR in 2008 in a skydiving role.  Mid 2023 it was acquired by Wrightsair as VH-EIY operating tourist flights out of William Creek, South Australia.

 

Two Christchurch visitors on Thursday the 17th.

 Tony McFarlin caught these two visitors arriving into Christchurch on Thursday the 17th.The Beech B200 King Air ZK-PMJ c/n BB-1600 arriving in from Whanganui and Palmerston North. It then returned to Whanganui.
It still carries "Air Wanganui" titles behind the cockpit.
A late 1997 production King Air originally registered as N480TC.
It ferried into Auckland on 26-10-2019 to become ZK-PMJ on 04-11-2019.

Also arriving was the FAA's Bombardier CL-600-2B16 Challenger 605 N90 c/n 5817.

Built as C-FZLM at Bombardier Aerospace in Canada in September of 2009.

Transferred to Bombardier USA as N605JK from February 2010 and then to N90 for the FAA.

Meanwhile, 88 Years Ago, Jean Batten Flew Into New Zealand

Yesterday I posted that the Turkish registered Bombardier Challenger 605 TC-RSA of Redstar Aviation arrived in Dunedin on 14 October in 24 hours flying time, having left from London on 13 October.

Also yesterday Grayson Ottaway emailed out in his Today in Flying History series that in was on 16 October 1936 that Jean Batten flew into Auckland becoming the first person to fly from England to New Zealand.  Her aircraft was the Percival Vega Gull G-ADPR which is now on display suspended from the ceiling in the international terminal at Auckland International Airport where I took the photo below in 2013:

This is what Grayson wrote:  

Jean Batten arrived at Mangere in her single engined Percival Gull named ‘Jean’ (now on display at Auckland International Airport). Her world flight had originated in England on 5 October.

She left from Sydney, at approximately 6.30 a.m. (NZ time) on 16 October; bravely declaring that no one should look for her if she was to go down at sea.  She had calculated that it would take her nine hours to reach the New Zealand coast, but when she passed this mark without land in sight she became increasingly convinced that she had flown between the North and South islands, and was now heading out into the Pacific.  To her relief she finally recognised a rocky island and a few minutes later was over New Plymouth.

Batten was tempted to land there but continued on to her hometown of Auckland. She arrived at Mangere Aerodrome at approximately 5 p.m. (NZ time), ten and a half hours after leaving Sydney.

Among many records she set during the flight from Britain, she was the first woman to fly the Tasman and set a world record for any type.

The total journey from England was 14,224 miles and took her 11 days 45 minutes total elapsed time.  

Corby Starlet ZK-LDI at NZKF Today 16-10-2024

 It was nice to see Brian Taylor down at Kaipara Flats in his Starlet today:

Start up...

And lift off!  It looks and sounds really nice.

An Exotic Challenger at Dunedin

It has to be a bit different for a visiting business jet to be featured on our national news, but such is the case with the Challenger 605 TC-RSA which has been at Dunedin for the last few days, and Stuff even had a nice photo of it:

TC-RSA (a Bombardier CL-600 2B16 Challenger c/n 5857) is operated by Redstar Aviation out of Instanbul in Turkey.  According to the Stuff article it left London on October 13 flying six hours to Dubai then carried on to Kuala Lumpur in another 7 hours flying time.  From KL it flew 4 and a half hours to Darwin and after a break it flew direct to Dunedin in another 6 hours, arriving there the morning of 14 October according to Flightradar24.  That is pretty good going for nearly 24 hours of flying! 

Anyway, thanks to Alan Granville of Stuff for an interesting aircraft article.

BK117 D-HWWW at Rangiora.

 This MBB BK-117 B-2 is c/n 7248 was initially allocated the German registration of D-HFIM to Eurocopter Deutschland GmbH but became D-HWWW in January 1993 for DRF Luftrettung.

It was used in the EMS role until being withdrawn and cancelled on 15-08-2019.

D-HWWW as seen at Griefwald on 21-12-2016 by Dieter Risch.

It was very kindly donated to the Museum by Salus Aviation of Ardmore.

Below as seen at the New Zealand Helicopter Heritage Museum storage unit.

The red engine cowling came from P2-HBO.

It was recently added to the New Zealand Helicopter Heritage Museum collection.

Coastguard Cessna 182P ZK-CGD/4 at Kaipara Flats Today

The spring weather at Kaipara Flats this morning was blustery as usual but a couple of GA Cessnas were unfazed by the conditions:

Willy and Lorraine Morton flew down from Kerikeri in the Northland Coastguard Air Patrol Inc Cessna 182P ZK-CGD4.  They came down to check out sightings of an apex marine predator in the area.

Coz that's what Coastguards do!

Another minor mystery (possibly) solved.

 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

I noted it in action at the Garden City Helicopter Ltd's base at Christchurch International on 06-10-2015.

Above is a short clip of it in action.

Hiller UH-12E ZK-HJW

 The Hiller UH-12E c/n 2056 was manufactured by Hiller Aviation at Porterville, California in 1960 and listed to them as N5366V. It carries an acceptance date of 21-06-1960.
Its early days are somewhat vague to me, but I can see Meade Helicopters and Shasta Helicopters - both of Porterville being involved with it in its early career.
I do know that on 01-03-1973 it had a wire strike whilst spraying near Live Oak, California.
In 1974 it was listed with Parsons Corporation of Stockton, California, and then to Big Valley Aviation Inc, also of Stockton from 15-09-1976 only to be cancelled on 27-09-1976 as exported to New Zealand.

From my foggy memory it was registered in NZ as ZK-HJW1 on 31-08-1976 as a Hiller UH-12ET. That infers it was powered with a Soloy Turbine engine. Its c/n was also listed as 2056R (R= rebuild) to Whirl-Wide Helicopters Ltd of Timaru. It was transferred to Wishart Helicopters (1978) Ltd of Hamilton on 13-07-1978 but was quickly relisted back to Whirl-Wide at Timaru on 04-10-1978.

I found the above photo in my large shoe box, and it shows ZK-HJW parked at Timaru on Boxing Day 26-12-1979.

It appears to me to be piston engine powered (VO-540 ?).

Its registration was cancelled on 11-01-1985 as exported to Australia where it became VH-HJW on 13-11-1985 with Darwick Holdings Pty Ltd of Aitkenvale, Queensland.

Two incidents - that I know about - happened in early 1987. 

On 21-01-1987 the clutch let go followed by some undercarriage damage on landing near Ayr, Queensland.

On 27-02-1987 a con rod let go leading to a forced landing on soft terra firma followed by a roll over about 90 clicks southeast of Charters Tower.

Dwyer Aviation Ltd of Aitkenville, Queensland paid the bills from 13-11-1993 followed by Terrileigh Pty Ltd of Lavington, NSW from 30-08-1995.

Next in line was South West Helicopters Pty Ltd at Cootamundra, NSW from 15-03-2002 and it was then operated by Country Connection Airlines Pty Ltd, also at Cootamundra from 23-06-2005.

Its Australian registration was cancelled on 27-06-2014 for a return to NZ to go to Wayne Van der Laan of Helicopter Management Ltd at Te Awamutu who I believe has worked with Hiller to way back in the previous century - and still has ZK-HHV and ZK-HIK listed.

ZK-HJW has not been returned to our register but appears to be in very good condition with its full ZK-HJW registration marked on the tail boom.

It is now a resident at the New Zealand Helicopter Museum in Rangiora.

Photographed today in rather cramped accommodation.

Brand New Air NZ Airbus ZK-OYE to Desert Storage

You have got to feel for Air New Zealand, who along with many other airlines are having problems with the Pratt and Whitney PW1100G geared turbofan engines on the Airbus NEO fleet.  It is pretty serious when it results in brand new aircraft being flown off to desert storage at Alice Springs where their engines are removed for use elsewhere in the fleet.

Here is ZK-OYE on its way to Alice Springs in September.  I think ZK-OYD is already there.