Friday 28 December 2012

I remember when.

During the year some slide copies from an unknown original source came my way.
Below are three photos selected from this small collection.
 The Beech AT-11 Kansan ZK-AHO (c/n 3691) seen here at Christchurch. More on this aircraft can be seen on an earlier posting at :-
http://nzcivair.blogspot.co.nz/2010/06/mention-of-piet-van-asch-in-blog-on-zk.html
 An aircraft well known in "The Gulf" was the Grumman G21A Goose ZK-DFC (c/n B-104). This was built in 1942 as a JRF-5 for the US Navy and carried the USN serial number 84809 before entering the US civil register as N1621A followed by N19DF for delivery to NZ. It trundlled into Auckland on 05-10-1972 to become ZK-DFC with Mount Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Co Ltd on 06-10-1972. It is seen above at Mechanics Bay between 1972 and 1977. It transferred to See Bee Air Ltd on 03-03-1977 and then to Great Barrier Airlines Ltd on 18-10-1989. Withdrawn from use on 26-08-1991 it was exported as deck cargo on the "Direct Kea" and became N3116T in September of 1991. In December of 1992 it was damaged on the west coast of Grand Cocos Island. It was lost in very deep water during a later salvage attempt.
A less well known aircraft in NZ is this Percival P.40 Prentice T1 ZK-DJC (c/n B/3/1A/PAC/252).
This one was actually built by Blackburn Aircraft and became VS316 with the Royal Air Force before becoming G-AOMF on 03-05-1956. After several owners it was flown from the Channel Islands to Mangere over the March to May 1969 period. Reaching Auckland on 20-05-1969. It was then stored at Tauranga until being listed as ZK-DJC on 29-11-1972 with N B Cooper  of Kaiapoi. There was a plan to convert it to an eight seater and to replace the Gipsy Queen 50 engine with a 300hp IO-520 but instead it received a Gipsy Queen taken from a DH Heron. (this would have been about 1990). Ownership seems to have moved to Christian Partners and then to H Christian and I believe the aircraft moved over to Lake Haupiri on the West Coast South Island. Gerald F Rhodes became the registered owner on 09-02-1994. This registration was revoked on 19-05-1998 with the aircraft being tucked away in the Wanaka Transport and Toy Museum. See previous mention at :-
 http://nzcivair.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/wanaka-transport-and-toy-museum-1.html

4 comments:

  1. I actually helped to re-build this airplane back in about 1998!

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  2. I remember the day we first fired it up it was incredible to watch. It cranked for some time and then fired and smoke billowed out and a huge flame shot out underneath it and it started almost always first pop after that...

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  3. The engine was in our shed in Tauranga for a few years!

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