Friday, 26 March 2010

Bell Garlick and Tamarack UH-1's

On the 19th of March I just happened to be motoring through Eltham and found this Bell (Garlick) UH1-B ZK-HHB2 , c/n 3114 , sitting on its trolley at Beck Helicopters. Built as 65-12856 for the U S Army for delivery to Kongelige Norske Luftarsvaret as #856 (the last three numbers of its US serial). It was withdrawn from service in 1991 and went back to the US for civil conversion by Garlick Helicopters of Hamilton Montana. It was registered as N123MS in January of 1992 to Construction Helicopters Inc of Porter Valley in California.

By November of that year it was in NZ and become ZK-HHB2 on 18-11-1992 for Beck Helicopters Ltd.

About 1/2 a km north I found Bell (Tamarack) UH-1F ZK-HHF3 , c/n 7009 , seemingly trying to park at the top of a piece of rope. It was actually dousing a small fire which I assume was a training mission.

This Huey was built for the USAF and carried the serial 63-13149 and spent much of its service life supporting the missile sites. It was stored at AMARC (Davis Monthan) in January 1986. Tamarack Helicopters of Stevensville, Montana placed it on the US civil register as N2412G on 28-01-2003. It became ZK-HHF3 on 09-06-2003 for Beck Helicopters.
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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous26 March 2010 at 21:35

    alan beck also has a thrid hhx which i belive to be on long term lease dwn south some where,plus just before christmas i saw a ute at eltham with 3 uh1 tailbooms one with letters hsp on it,and two weeks ago as i went past there was a uh1 fusealge on its side in a jig plus two jet rangers in jigs poss hdu and hzx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Zac "Handbag" Yates20 April 2012 at 12:12

    Hi all, does anyone have images of the other Bell 206 registered to Beck, ZK-HDU? Or of the mysterious UH-1P HHU? Anything would be much appreciated :-)

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  3. Dave Paull20 April 2012 at 14:56

    Yo there Handbag.

    HDU now on the blog.

    I don't believe I have ever seen HHU.

    We need somebody like Greybeard to come forth on this one.

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  4. Zac "Handbag" Yates20 April 2012 at 15:05

    Chur ;-)

    I went to Beck's for a group job interview last year and saw a tailboom marked HHU, otherwise my googling for it and its previous US rego (N156UH) and Army serial have raised nothing.

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  5. Anonymous15 February 2013 at 20:02

    ZK-HUE is a Herbert based UH-1L with a Cobra head I think. Designed for operating on boats and only a few built. Served in 'nam and sister ship was shot down.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Unknown2 September 2021 at 20:00

    Good ol spotters i see

    ReplyDelete

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