Sunday 2 December 2012

BX at Lake Station

The photograph above from Andy Heap shows the Slingsby T.41B Skylark 2B ZK-GBX (c/n 1199) during its second flight from Lake Station on 01-12-2012 under new ownership.
                                                *******************************
Slingsby T 41B Skylark 2B ZK-GBX (c/n 1199) was first registered to the Canterbury Gliding Club on 10/1/60 and ownership moved to the Hauraki Aero Club on 24/2/69. As with most of these old gliders it has had an adventurous life, including ditching in the sea off Thames, undershooting at Thames, and a wire strike at Walton. However it is still looking good. It has had owners at Rotorua and a succession of owners at Taupo, currently being owned by C J McGrath.
The text and photo above comes from an earlier posting by Sir Minty on 07-01-2011.
***********************************
As you can see - it still carries the "Weet Bix" scripts on the canopy side.
 
I can add a little to what Sir Minty mentions above:
It was built in the UK and allocated the British Gliding Associations BGA889 identity.
Its first flight in NZ was on 27-02-1960. It undershot striking a fence post at Wigram on 06-02-1965. It moved to the Hauraki Aero Club at Thames from 24-02-1969. During a winch launch from Thames on 27-01-1969 the winch wire broke and the glider landed in the sea. It was damaged again when it struck a wire during an out landing at Walton on 10-11-1977 and undershot Thames on 26-03-1978. It then went into private ownership with B E Wiggins of Hikutaia and then to D J W Bird of Rotorua on 24-06-1985. Next in line was David and Sarah Edgar of Rotorua from 01-11-1997. It was involved in an air to air collision on long final to Taupo on 13-10-2001 with the PW5 ZK-GSD. Both surviving. Next came Colin McGrath and John van Ham-Etches at Taupo from 18-10-2002 and then Colin McGrath and Peter Bergman from 13-03-2003; followed by sole ownership by Colin McGrath from 04-04-2005. On 29-10-2012 ownership passed to Marc Edgar of Nelson.

No comments:

Post a Comment