Two North Shore Warbirds

Sir Minty captured these two warbirds at North Shore Airfield yesterday (16-10-2010).

This Piper Cub with the manufacturers construction number (c/n) of 9024 was built for the US Military as a Piper L-4A-P1 and allocated the serial 42-38455 with the USAAF - I have the date as 30-06-1942. It was struck off charge on 01-06-1946 and entered the US civil aircraft register as NC62052, becomng N62052 in about 1971. AFAIK it spent all its US civil life in Hawaii. Its final listed owner being J F O'Toole of Honolulu from March of 1994. It was cancelled on 23-03-1994 to allow its entry onto the NZ register as a Piper J3C-65 ZK-AIR on 26-03-1994 to Stan & Gilly Smith/Tech-Air (NZ) Ltd of Albany.


ZK-AIR in period military markings at North Shore on 16-10-2010.
Its ZK-AIR markings are hidden in the shadow below the horizontal tailplane.

Another ex warbird spotted by Sir Minty was this Bell 47G-5A  c/n 25150. This was built for the Royal Malasian Air Force in 1973 and initially carried the FM2002 markings before becoming M26-02. It was withdrawn from use in 1995 with about 12,000 flying hours and stored until purchased by Graham Tadgell and moved to Australia.
It was registered as VH-UTG on 10-10-2001 to Tadgell Aviation Services Pty Ltd of Golden Beach, Queensland. This Australian registration was cancelled on 17-01-2005 for it  to take up NZ marks as ZK-HUN4 on 20-01-2005 with Media Helicopters Ltd of Auckland.