Thursday 15 April 2010

No more Adventurer 333 Amphibians in NZ

With the cancellation of Adventurer 333 amphibian ZK-WAI on 14 April, New Zealand's population of these amphibians has been reduced to zero. The Adventurer 333 is a big 4 seater amphibian with an empty weight of around 950 Kgs (2100 lbs) and a gross weight of around 1360 Kgs (3000lbs) and typically features a Chevrolet 350 V8 engine of around 330 HP.


Our first Adventurer 333 was ZK-WAI which was first registered to the Newton Syndicate of Whakatane on 8/4/99. I only saw it once when I took this photo of it in the old hangar at Tauranga at the SAANZ flyin in February 2004. It looked rather neglected at that time, and I would guess that it did not clock up many hours. Can anyone add anything else to this story? It was cancelled from the register as revoked on 14/4/10.


Our second (and more successful) Adventurer 333 was Marcus Mewett's ZK-JZZ which was first registered in June 2004. This aircraft performed satisfacttorily and I remember seeing it flying by Takapuna Beach on several test flights. Marcus left New Zealand for Australia and he flew ZK-JZZ to Australia where it is now registrered as VH-AJH. It was cancelled from the New Zealand register in June 2006.

Marcus Mewett is an aircraft engineer who came to New Zealand from Zimbabwe and he bought his Rand KR 2 VP-WUP with him and first registered it as ZK-KRZ on 19/7/93. It is still current and is owned in the Christchurch area.

8 comments:

  1. not excactlly pretty

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  2. interesting type....never heard of it before. It is now advertised in Juune 2010 issue of Aviation Trader.
    Also....I now own SUD Horizon that was ZK-CLK in NZ some years ago.
    does anyone have info, fotos or stories about this, or other Horizons in NZ?

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  3. I was talked into putting money into this aircraft, Flew to the factory in Arkansas and met Happy Miles owner of the comapny who I can only describe as a conman. It was shipped to NZ and partly assembled in one of my sheds. Shortly after I sold out and thank god I did as I heard it was more a submarine, than an aircraft. In fact I don't think I ever heard of it flying. The test pilot from the float plane company gave it a few goes and after having the shit scared out of him had the sense to give it a miss. I can recall one crashing in the States on the return from an airshow killing 2 on board. To me the aircraft was simply too heavy. Add to that the huge steel V8 it seemed a death trap from the word go. WAI-exactly

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  4. True. Happy Miles is a great conman.

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  5. In 1997, I was in USA building Adventurer 333. Happy Miles went belly-up due the crash at Fon du Lac. He failed to deliver my parts. I sent him money to ship the aircraft to Malaysia. He never did. Happy is the biggest conman I ever seen

    MJA

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    Replies
    1. Hello MJA Anonymous from Malaysia. What ever you think about Happy Miles; Conman... business man... he was livin' the dream. Anyway, I know where your plane ended up. The workmanship was top notch!

      Grant
      dashriprock3@yahoo.com

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    2. That great "He was livin' the dream". How many peoples dreams did he destroy.

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  6. New owner of Adventurer 333
    VH-AJH as of Jan 2022
    would love to connect with original builder Mr Marcus Mewett if anyone could assist? +61 413339140
    beau@goldcoastairsafaris.com.au

    ReplyDelete