The photo below was sent in by Andy Heap and shows a somewhat damaged Bell 206B JetRanger fuselage in Richmond.
Thanks to Greybeard we can positively identify this airframe as ZK-HSL1 (c/n 2765).
Greybeard's photo below show ZK-HSL at Wellington Airport with the late Peter Button doing an inspection.
ZK-HSL was registered to Sid Lane of Taupo on 11-03-1981 and first flew in NZ on 30-03-1981.
Other operators include Helicopters (NZ) Ltd of Timaru from 24-02-1982.
The Ministry of Transport in Wellington took it on from 30-09-1982 and then it went back to Sid Lane of Lanes Apparel at Taupo from 24-03-1983.
The Ministry of Transport leased it again during 1983 and then it went up to Wanganui Aero Work Ltd from 30-01-1984. They named it 'Kawhatau'.
It was damaged at Horopito on 13-08-1987 (may have been the 14th) and its registration was cancelled on 21-12-1988.
There is a bit of a splurge on ZK-HSL at :-
When I worked at Wanganui Aero Work it was in the big Cresco "barn" hangar, in a corner. in April 2009 I posted in that WONZ thread "The fuselage of HSL, still in this scheme, was in one of WAW's hangars here at Wanganui until very, very recently. Sadly, I believe it was scrapped". Very glad to see it still exists. Dad used to crew ZK-HTM, my Mum recalls both HTM and HSL doing joyrides at an airshow and HTM's pilot Charlie Anderson being rather disappointed everyone wanted to fly in "the Star Wars helicopter" instead of his one. "They look the same inside," is I think what he said!
ReplyDeleteThe joyrides were at Ohakea for their 25th Anniversary and I was heavily pregnant with handbag at the time. If I recall correctly what Charlie said was "but Tango Mike is newer - its a better machine"
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