The first is a Royal Air Force Beech B 200 with a strangely familiar serial: ZK 454. I took this photo at an airshow at RAF Lyneham on 7 August, where there were flying displays by both a Vulcan and a Lancaster!
But the next has a more direct New Zealand connection. It is an engineless Fletcher FU 24 registered what appears to be TC-APE near the ancient ruins of the city of Ephesus in Turkey. This small airport was home for parachuting and also probably cotton spraying, as there were 4 PZL Dromadir cropsprayers also picketed there. I apologise for the quality of the photo but it was taken with a long lens out of a bus window as we drove by. I am sure some FU 24 afficionados can fill us in with the history of this aircraft.I caught up with the blog at various places around the world which was neat. However it is good to be home.
Welcome back Sir!
ReplyDeleteYour Fletcher looks to be TC-ARE which would make it Fletcher Fu-24-950 c/n 247.
This was partially built up at Hamilton as a kitset in 1978, registered as ZK-EGY 15Feb78 & shipped to the US for Frontier Aerospace. Not sold, & returned to NZ with other components. Brought by Wanganui Aero Work & assembled by them as 'Wanganui II'. F/fNZ9Sep88.
Ownership transferred to Pacific Aerospace Corporation Ltd. as from 16Oct90. S.Abd to Turkey in April 1990 and became TC-ARE with Belko, Ankara.