Spirit SE 1 to New Zealand!

Some readers of the blog may be aware of the all metal single seat Spirit SE 1 which was sensationally revealed at Oshkosh 2025 when four of them were flown in from their factory in Grand Junction Colorado.  As well, the SE 1 was powered by a brand new 42 HP 4 stroke inverted vee 2 cylinder engine that was also designed and built by Spirit in-house.  And not only all that, but Spirit Engineering Inc showed photos of dozens more of them back in the factory.  And before Oshkosh 2025 virtually no-one knew anything about the aircraft!

The specifications for the Spirit SE 1 are:  length 18 feet, wingspan 24 feet 7 inches, height 5 feet, width 7 feet 5 inches with wings folded.  Empty weight 420 pounds, MAUW 740 pounds.  Cruise speed at 75% power 100 mph with a maximum cruise speed of 112 mph.  And the price was US$69,500.

One year later at Oshkosh 2026, Flyer TV interviewed Steve Wood, CEO of Spirit Engineering Inc and the designer of the SE 1 about progress in their first year which has resulted in 42 aircraft delivered.  Here is the link to the Flyer TV interview:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiDmdvCQnZM&t=3s 

Around 7 minutes and 50 seconds into the interview Steve Wood reveals that a Spirit SE 1 is on the water to New Zealand and due to arrive in Blenheim in late August!  When it gets here it will only be a matter of wheeling it out of the container and unfolding the wings, and it should be ready to go!

Rangiora Friday pie run 14-08-2026

 A nice catch at Rangiora today was the stopover of the Titan Tornado II ZK-JKD along with the ICP Savannah S ZK-JUN from Takaka.The Titan has been mentioned previously HERE

Following all the drama getting the engine problem resolved John Osmers named his aircraft "PERSEVERANCE"

Back in March John purchased the ICP Savannah S ZK-JUN from the Whangarei Flying Club and decided to sell the Tornado.

So, today's flight was the delivery of the Tornado from Takaka to Alexandra with its new owner Steve Bunting at the controls. 

Steve is well known from his SAB Avionics business - now Alexandra based.

ZK-JKD departing Rangiora for its new home at Alexandra.

Accompanying Steve down to Rangiora was John Osmers in his latest acquisition 

Savannah S ZK-JUN.

This Savannah, c/n 20-12-54-0751, was registered on 08-12-2022 as ZK-JUN to honour June Billings the Whangarei Flying Club patron and it first flew on 30-03-2023.

Above we see ZK-JUN departing Rangiora and heading back to its Takaka base.

ZK-JSS on a brief visit to Christchurch.

 The Piper Arrow III ZK-JSS flew into Christchurch from Omaka yesterday morning (14-08-2026) and returned to Omaka later in the day. Tony McFarlane was there to capture this image.

ZK-JSS c/n 28R-7837203 is a PA-28R-201 Arrow III. 

As the c/n implies this is a product of 1978 and was initially used in the USA as N9504C before ferrying out to NZ in October of 1990 for J S Spry of Wellington (hence the ZK-JSS registration) from 28-09-1990. After a period with Juliet Sierra Sierra Ltd of Johnsonville from mid 1994 until May of 1996 it went to Brian Swan of Dunedin. Chris Fleming of Mosgiel was next in line from September of 2017. then in May of 2022 Serge Luke took it on, still of Dunedin. From May of last year it has been listed with the JSS Syndicate of Blenheim.

Rangiora on Tuesday.

 Nothing new but a couple of interesting aircraft presented themselves today.

An out of towner in the form of Vans RV-7 ZK-SHN c/n 73115, as built by Christopher Schoen of Kaponga, is seen here in a very long shot of it trying to avoid the camera.

The Titan O-360 engine has a sound of its own.

This was first flown on 21-07-2013 by Les Worsley. 

It flew a pretty much direct from, and back to, Hawera today.

It as been mentioned several times on the pages previously.

Also previously covered was the locally based Just Aircraft SuperStol ZK-KAB2 c/n JA314-08-13 as owned by the KAB Syndicate.

The slats and slots show nicely.

Bristells Among the Sunflowers

A few months ago Martin Henton of the local Bristell agents took the opportunity to gather six Bristells together for a spectacular photoshoot among a field of sunflowers just before they were harvested:

The Bristells were ZK-NGZ, ZK-NGO2, ZK-NGT, ZK-EAC3 in the rear with ZK-SAM4 and ZK-DVB2 in front.

Thanks for the photo Martin.

Lancair ES ZK-EDZ has departed our shores.

 As I type this the Lancair ES ZK-EDZ2 c/n LES-254 is on is delivery flight to Slovenia.

It came to NZ as a ten year old having flown in the States as N764ES and listed here on 16-01-2014.

 I received the following from a regular blog reader :-

***************

Thought you’d be interested in the travels of Lancair, ZK-EDZ. 

I have been ‘looking after’ it for the last three or so years. 

Taking it for a warm up flight every month or so. 

It was owned by Kevin Foster at Motueka, who sadly passed away suddenly around 4 years ago. 

The aircraft took a while to sell and was eventually sold to a Slovenian three years ago.

This person is right now in the process of flying it to Slovenia. 

As I write this ZK-EDZ is heading towards Darwin.  

You can follow along HERE

Click on that link again

Then click on "logbook" at the top

Or scroll down to the bottom and click on "Check the route"

Then if you look at FlightRadar24 check its actual route.

(I hope these links all work).

Bird Dog ZK-LAO

Errol Cavit captured the Cessna 305A (O-1A) Bird Dog ZK-LAO c/n 21692 at Ardmore on Saturday the 8th of August.

It was restored at Ardmore and registered to the Lao Syndicate on 28-05-2024.

Since then it has gained underwing tanks and a modified undercarriage.

See HERE for an earlier post on ZK-LAO.

Topdressing DC 3s (7) - ZK-AZL

I am posting this series on topdressing DC 3s in alphabetical registration order, but ZK-AZL really deserves more prominence as it was the original Ag Dak from way back in 1954!

Douglas C-47B-35-DK (c/n 16568/33316) was built by The Douglas Aircraft Co, Oklahoma City, OK with 2x 1200HP 14-cyl R-1830-92 Twin Wasp radial engines as 44-76984 

18 May 1945 USAAF diverted through “Lend-Lease” and exported to New Zealand, flown to NZ 

NZ3545 17 Jun 1945 RNZAF 1 ASU, Hamilton. 

 22 Jun 1945 RNZAF 1 ARU. RNZAF 40 Sqn, Whenuapai 

Withdrawn from use 24 May 1946 and put in storage . Struck Off Charge 31 May 1947. 

ZK-AZL registered on 7 Apr 1953 to NZ National Airways Corp, Wellington.  Named “Kuaka” 

Was to be spare aircraft for the Royal Tour 1953 so she returned to NZ3545 RNZAF 42 Sqn but she was used as luggage aircraft for the tour.

ZK-AZL very early in its topdressing life at Rongotai on 13/7/54 and below at Ardmore in 1956.

ZK-AZL registered on 10 Apr 1954 to James Aviation Ltd, Hamilton.  Converted to topdresser by de Havilland Aircraft (NZ) Ltd at Rongotai. Test flown 4 Jul 1954 First topdressing job  1 Dec 1955.  Named “Hi Land Duster” 

We now jump forward to 28/8/86 when Don Noble took this nice photo of her at Ardmore.

Several of the James Aviation DC 3s were based at different aerodromes so James developed a way to transport small cars in the back of their D C 3s so the pilots could drive into town at the end of the day - these were Fiat 500s and later Minis.  They were driven up ramps through the large rear doors and stowed as shown in the above photo.  Ray Deerness has recounted an funny story about one of these cars: 

"Years ago, I was told by a Fieldair engineer that he had gone to Blenheim to work on a DC-3. The next morning, the plan was to fly him to Paraparumu to arrive in time for the Auckland train and he would travel on that to Palmy.  So all went well at first but the pilot forgot something, so he raced back to Blenheim and then back to Woodbourne but he got a speeding ticket. They got aboard the Dak and over to PPQ but it was getting tight.  At PPQ, they got the Mini out of the back and the raced to station BUT got another speeding ticket however they made the train.

 

So now with two speeding tickets, the pilot had to attend court. The pilot said to the magistrate. "There must be a mistake, I've got another speeding for the same morning. The time was 30+ minutes apart. Surely I could not have been in the South and North Island at the same time." The magistrate looked at the tickets and threw the case out. Over the years, the story got a bit better and different engineers and pilot names were suggested but I never did get the real story."

ZK-AZL was converted to single pilot operation by Airland (NZ) Ltd, Palmerston North, as were all the topdressing D C 3s.

Her last flight was on 4 Sep 1974 @ 14,043 hours flight time, and she was cancelled on 6 Jun 1984. 

Later she was displayed at Mystery Creek, near Hamilton Airport, then moved to Te Kowhai, then removed from Te Kowhai to allow for airpark development. 

This photo was taken at Te Kowhai at sunrise on 3/6/19.  Does anyone know where she is now?

Beech F33A Bonanza ZK-XPJ

An interesting visitor to Pauanui airfield today was the Beech F33A Bonanza ZK-XPJ.  Originally built in 1989 it was exported to Australia in mid 1990 becoming VH-XPJ.    Exported to New Zealand in 2017 it made an easy transition to ZK-XPJ and has been with its current Kerikeri owner since 2018.

 

Microlight Aircraft of New Zealand - Unregistered Ultra Flight Systems Trike 215 - a Better Outcome

In addressing microlight trikes in New Zealand, we open up a can of worms as they are so amorphous.  They can have different and sometimes interchangeable wings and when a new wing is fitted from another trike it could have the registration of the other trike, if it is even registered at all!  I reckon we have had around 140 trikes registered here and more have flown without being registered, as with the tragic case of Gregory Rogerson at Treble Cone that I posted recently.  Here is another example with a happier ending.

An early trike flying at one of the early Waitohi flyins.  How would you know what it was?

One of the many early types of trikes were the Ultraflight models.  These originated with Ultraflight Systems out of Modesto in California but I understand that they were produced locally by Steve Eldridge trading as Ultra Flight Systems at Hamilton.  I can find records that three of them were registered here but this story refers to an unregistered one that also didn't have a MAANZ number.  

It was partly owned by John Blauer of Tauranga, who was one of four pilots who flew the trike.  On 17 April 1983 a bracing wire snapped while it was flying near Papamoa and John Blauer who was wearing a parachute, parachuted to safety!  This must be one of the very few if not the only example of a pilot parachuting to safety from a stricken microlight.  Can anyone confirm this story or offer any more details?

Thanks to Janic Geelen for the information.