Sunday, 10 June 2012

Ashburtons Percival Provost

Matt Hayes called into the Ashburton Aviation Museum yesterday, 09-06-2012, and caught the Hunting Percival P.56 Provost which had recently arrived in its container from Feilding.
The prototype Piston Provost first flew on 24-02-1950 with something like just under 400 eventually being built.
40 of these went out to Burma. The Museums aircraft is fuselage number PAC/F/451 and left the factory in late August of 1959 and was flown out to Burma in 46 hours and 10 minutes. It was allocated the Burmese serial of UB-232; later as 2232; and was withdrawn from use sometime around 1981 with a total flying time of 2832 hours.
It was acquired by Brendon Deere (of Spitfire, Avenger and Harvard fame) and left Burma at the same time as Brendon's Spitfire for the USA. Both were shipped out to NZ at the same time with the Provost remaining stored in its container for some years (about 13 ?).
I believe the Museum will re-apply its Burmese markings.
There is one other P56 Provost known to be in country - ZK-JOT f/n PAC/F/183 of the Subritzky and House Partnership;
And ZK-PPP f/n PAC/F/228 possibly still at Foxpine, although I had heard that it had been shipped to the States, with N397WW being reserved for it.
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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous10 June 2012 at 14:47

    I see Provost ZK-PPP (ex ZK-SGN) is still registered...albeit to a USA address. Where is it now?

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  2. Dave Paull10 June 2012 at 15:07

    As you say.
    Still registered here but I believe it is at Boulder City, Nevada, with the US registration N397WW pending.

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  3. Unknown20 December 2012 at 12:31

    ZK-PPP is still in New Zealand and still carefully maintained until a hangar can be found in Las Vegas for it. I reserved N397WW as it's RAF rego was WW397. Mike Dale has the other US Provost. His is N435WV as his was 435WV in the RAF.
    Let me know if you'd like to buy it (with all spares) as it would be easier for me to pick up a Bird Dog up here.

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  4. Roger P5 March 2014 at 09:53

    I'm reading this blog 12 months late, however this machine was purchased from the RAF by Mike Crymble. I flew in it on several
    occasions as (NF) WW397.It was restored at RAF Lyneham and I still have the RAF Provost MK1/2 Servicing Technical Manual used to make it airworthy.

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  5. SeaVixen1259 January 2019 at 20:50

    And PPP is still in the country and recently airworthy as well.

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  6. minicooper13 January 2019 at 21:53

    Took of from Fielding on the 5th of Jan at around 2pm!

    ReplyDelete

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