Nieuport resurfaces

The Circa Reproductions Nieuport 11 ZK-NIE was registered to John D Lowther, Normanby, Timaru on 20th March 1992, and the first flight of this 75% replica took place 0n the 5th June of the following year.
The aircraft was later sold to Neil R M Lopez of Auckland with the sale being recorded 11th Feburary 1997. The aircraft became inactive around then and the registration was revoked by CAA on the 2nd August 1999.
After some time in storage, the machine appeared at the auction rooms of Turners Auctions in Auckland in March 2007, and I took the following photographs at that location:







Due to a clash of auction date with activity at Whenuapai, I was unable to attend the actual auction, and the aircraft disappeared again after that event.
In the meantime, ZK-NIE has been reissued to the Musso Nieuport 24 bis reproduction built by Paul Musso and imported in 2002 which became ZK-NIE/2 with WWI Flying Company Ltd., Wellington in mid-2005 (this is the one with the cat logo on the fuselage).



The Circa Reproductions Nieuport 11 has now resurfaced, being currently listed for sale on TradeMe.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/Aircraft/Aircraft/auction-278348332.htm
Apparently it was bought by the people who run A1 Rentals, Kerikeri, and has been in their showroom there. From the comment there, they apparently paid around mid-$20,000 for it at that time.

A nice little item, I admit I was tempted but a transponder-free single-seat microlight of low speed and short range would not fit easily into Auckland airspace!