The Fifth Mosquito at Avspecs!

I had reason yesterday to drive down to Naike to see a man about a microlight, and so I called into Ardmore on the way to see progress on the latest Mosquito restoration at Avspecs.  And progress is good!

This latest Mosquito is a FB Mark VI bomber version and its provenance is that it was built in 1945 by the Standard Motor Company of Coventry in England as TE881 for the RAF and after the war it was ferried to New Zealand for the RNZAF where it became NZ2345, being bought on charge on 28 May 1947.  However it was quite quickly put into storage at Woodbourne.  It was declared surplus in June 1955 having flown only 69.35 hours and was sold to the Williams brothers and then made its way to John Smith at Mapua in pieces and was discovered after John's death in 2019.  (Most of the warbird world's attention was focused on John Smith's other Mosquito NZ2336 which was complete and now has been restored at Omaka).  The boxes of NZ2345 were recovered to Avspecs and now form the basis of their latest restoration as photo'd above on 19 May.  And in April 2025 it was registered ZK-WEL2.

When completed the Mosquito will go to Warbird Experiences Ltd/Fly a Spitfire.com in England.  I was told that it will be completed this year so a few more trips to Ardmore will be in order!

Another Savannah Registered - ZK-CEE/2

Last week another ICP Savannah S was registered, making 48 Savannah's that have been registered here to date.  But this one is a bit different - it is on amphibious floats!

ZK-CEE2 (c/n 16-08-54-0496) has been refurbished at Whangarei by Savannah owner Dave Cull at Whangarei after it was imported from the Solomon Islands in 2025.  Last week it was registered to its new owner, F A Watts of Napier.  Dave told me that the nose wheel (which is a bit difficult to see between the floats) retracts forwards when in flight.

It is a 2016 kit and was flown in the Solomon Islands as I-C664 by an Italian Roman Catholic priest to visit the far flung islands in the Western Solomons for missions purposes, but this was curtailed by Covid so it has very low hours.

Bishop Steve Lowe has provided some information on the previous owner of the Savannah:  He was Luciano Capelli who was the Bishop of Gizo in the remote Western Solomons.  It is his family crest on the fuselage and this has been kept for ZK-CEE2.  Bishop Capelli retired in August 2023 and we can assume his replacement was not a pilot!

Belanca Viking ZK-VIX at Rangiora. Plus ZK-TIE.

The Fernside (near Rangiora) based Bellanca Viking 300 17-30A ZK-VIX c/n 79-30944 was photographed yesterday at Rangiora by Tony McFarlin.

This has been listed with Greg Ward since about March of 2025.

 SEE HERE for previous post on this aircraft.

We also have a better photograph of the Tie Upp Aviation Cessna A152 Aerobat ZK-TIE c/n A1520917.

See Here for any earlier post in ZK-TIE.

Two Nelson visitors today. Saturday the 16th

 Bill Mannix captured these two visitors at Nelson this morning.

The Apollo Air Ltd.'s Beechcraft B300 (350i) Super King Air ZK-APL2 c/n FL-415 as seen on short finals for 02. It had flown Nelson to Westport and back to Nelson. Later it returned to home base at Christchurch.

See here for previous posts on this King Air.

             In from Murchison and parked at Repaircaft was the Murchison Heli Tours Ltd 's Eurocopter AS 350 B3 ZK-IKA2 c/n 3409.

See here for several other posts on this Squirrel.

Tecnam P92-2000RG ZK-MGW

Amongst the visitors to Pauanui today on this stunning autumn day was the rarely seen Tecnam P92-2000RG ZK-MGW.   This was originally imported new in late 2003 and since that time has had 3 different Taupo owners,  the latest acquiring it in 2022.

 

Short S45 Solent 4 ZK-AMO at MOTAT

As I was in the Western Springs area yesterday and armed with my Gold Card, I called into the Aviation Hall at MOTAT to re-familiarise myself with the museum.  It was much the same as I remembered it but I thought it was pretty dark inside, and the aircraft were mostly still hard to photograph.  And a lot of the smaller aircraft were hanging from the roof in the rear part of the big hall.  However the TEAL Solent flying boat is in a position to get reasonable photos of from the mezzanine floor so I took a couple. and I will post them here as we have not covered ZK-AMO on the blog before: 

ZK-AMO (c/n SH.1559) was delivered to Tasman Empire Airways Ltd (TEAL) in November 1949 and along with the rest of TEAL's Solent fleet (ZK-AML, AMM, AMN and AMQ)  flew trans-Tasman services between Auckland and Sydney and between Wellington and Sydney, and also operated the "Coral Route" from Auckland to Tahiti.  Wikipedia details the Coral Route as follows:  

"It became the only air route into Tahiti, with Americans and others from Northern Hemisphere flying by landplanes into Nadi in Fiji, making the short trip across to Suva to join the flying boat at Laucala Bay, for its fortnightly flight along the Coral Route, leaving on a Thursday morning for Samoa, alighting on the Satapuala lagoon about 2:00 pm. Passengers were driven by cab through Samoan coastal villages to Apia, where they enjoyed respite and dinner at Aggie Grey's hotel until 2:00 am when they were driven back out to Satapuala for a pre-dawn take-off to the Akaiami lagoon at Aitutaki where they went ashore for breakfast and an optional swim until mid-morning takeoff for Papeete, timed to ensure that arrival was after the end of the siesta period at 2:00 pm. After launching ashore and completing Customs, passengers had to wait a further hour while their luggage was sprayed against horticultural pests, a time usually spent by the majority across the road from the Customshouse at Quinn's Bar. In all, a 30-hour leisurely introduction to life in the South Seas which made the Coral Route a legendary travel experience."

ZK-AMO flew its last service on 14 September 1960 and on 8 December 1960 it was donated to the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT) whose volunteers have done a great job of preserving and restoring it to its current condition inside the Aviation Hall on Meola Rd in Auckland.

You can see a lot of the smaller aircraft in the MOTAT collection hanging from the roof (where you can't really see them very well).  And to the right of the photos is the equally impressive Short Sunderland NZ4115.

Group arrival at Pauanui

A surprise group arrival at Pauanui airfield late afternoon was a collection of 4 aircraft from Christchurch and 1 from Dunedin who all did a touch and go before heading north to Waiheke Island.

They comprised Rans S6-ES ZK-SIX,  Searey ZK-WET, Kitfox VII ZK-ROX, Kitfox IV ZK-JFA and Karatoo ZK-KTI.     Their histories have been well covered on earlier Blogs on this site.

 

Citation ZK-XXK on the move.

According to the rumour mill the Cessna 525A CJ2+ Citation Jet ZK-XXK c/n 525A0411 is about to be delivered to a new owner in Queenstown.

See HERE for previous mentions of this aircraft.

It flew into Nelson back on 31-04-2026 for attention at Generation Global and was noted above by Lord Nelson on 06-05-2026.

To see what Generation Global is about SEE HERE

It was noted again by Lord Nelson on 12-05-2026.

A flight of around 45 minutes, out west and returned, was carried out today (13-05-2026).

P.S. 16-05-2026. ZK-XXK flew south from Nelson to Queenstown on Saturday the 16th.
With an ownership change from Wellington Jet Charters Trust to Little Lightning Ltd of Wanaka.

Microlight Aircraft of New Zealand - Mark Elworthy's Easy Riser

In researching for information on my series of Microlight Aircraft of New Zealand I have been provided with a scanned copy of The History of the South Canterbury Microlight Club (thanks Grant) which was published by John Nicolson in August 1996.  His first couple of paragraphs interested me greatly and I quote them as follows:

1.1  Pete James was one of a small gathering of North islander's who were to to become the original microlight founders in New Zealand.  During 1978-80, Pete - an accomplished hang glider pilot - was one of several hang glider pilots who decided to experiment with powered hang gliding.  They had been watching the events of powered flight by the Americans who had been flying "ultralights" since about 1976.  After trial-and-error flights the "microlight" soon became a reality for the assembly of thrill seekers.  And so the NZ microlight came into being.  (this is as I have posted in my first post on early Microlight Aircraft of New Zealand that you can see  HERE )

1.2  Meantime, here in Sth Canty in 1980, a local PPL was into powered hang glider flight too.  Mark Elworthy had purchased an American Easy Riser bi-plane hang glider, the first aircraft to resemble a microlight, and had been flying it frequently in free flight from atop Mt Horrible.  Mark had been corresponding with Pete in the NI and was keen to move into powered flight.  Mark attached a McCulloch 101 (125cc) go-cart engine to his Easy Riser.  Although initially plagued with growing pains, Mark eventually got things right and made numerous powered flights in his Easy Riser, later registered (?) as Maanz 060.  George Adams was to purchase Mz060 a few years later. (I do not think this Easy Riser was ever officially registered on the civil register).

This information was new to me and it shows that there was another flying microlight in New Zealand in 1980, before microlights had to be registered (joining Pete James' Easy Riser and Richard Brett's machine in the Waikato, Murray Hagen's Pfedgeling in Southland and Terry Delore's trike around Christchurch).  There may well be others that we don't know about.  Of course, if anyone has information on very early microlights in New Zealand please contact the editor and we will add to the story.  

Also, if anyone has a photo of Mark Elworthy's Easy Riser we would love to see it.  

In case readers do not have an idea of what an Easy Riser powered ultralight is, here is a good video which shows its history:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFwU9O1wjgQ

This is a screen shot from the video, not, unfortunately Mark Elworthy's machine (although it would have looked just like this!).

Microlight Aircraft of New Zealand - Some More Photos from Hamilton in October 1980

In researching for my series of Microlight Aircraft of New Zealand, I have come across some more photos from Janic Geelen of the very early days of microlights here, before they were required to be registered:

Can anyone add any further information about these photos?  I have heard a story about when Americans Tommy Namais and Marty Waller came to New Zealand they bought examples of several microlights with them and offered dealerships.  Maybe these 3 microlights were part of this?  Can anyone confirm?

There was another microlight on the airfield that day, being Pete James' weight shift Quicksilver E but Pete tells me that that one was imported by him and this will form the start of my series of Quicksilvers in New Zealand (of which there have been 112 registered!).