Tuesday 1 March 2022

Beaver ZK-FPZ at Motueka.

 A surprise at Motueka on the 27th February was the De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver Mk1 ZK-FPZ c/n  717 as listed with Venture Aviation Ltd of Taupo since late March of 1988.

And in a non all white scheme.

It carries Taupo Sport Skydivers script on its fin/rudder.
Well caught  by CMM  on the Nelson Aviation College tie downs

Below is a copy of an earlier post on ZK-FPZ.

De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver Mk1 , c/n  717 , was built as an L-20A for the U.S. Army and had a build date of 01-11-1954. It was allocated the US military serial of 53-7909.
Following military service it entered the US Civil register as N6474 in about 1972 listed with the Texas State Technical Institute at Amarillo, Texas.
Some other operators that I know about were Joe Vaughn Spraying Inc of Kress, Texas; D Wright at Anchorage, Alaska from 09-02-1979; D Carrell in Alaska from 17-06-1980, with a change of registration to N93DC in August 1980 - still with D Carrell and trading as Alaska Travel Air.
It reverted back to N6474 in February of 1982 for Kennedy Air Services of Cordova, Alaska.

It was shipped to NZ and registered as ZK-FPZ to Motor Holdings (Aviation) Ltd of Ardmore on 16-02-1988 and assembled at Rotorua as a floatplane. First flight was from Lake Rotorua on 30-03-1988. It was registered to Float Air Picton (1984) Ltd on 29-04-1988.

Below : Two views of ZK-FPZ at Picton Harbour on 22-05-1989.

 On 22-03-1990 it was overturned by high winds and sank in Picton Harbour. Rebuilt by Arc Aviation (Keith Newton & Jack Lamb) at Taupo to fly again on 16-08-1991, as a land plane. It then served with Mid Island Aviation Ltd of Taupo from 16-08-1991 and then Tandem Corp and then to Venture Aviation Ltd from 31-03-1998.

ZK-FPZ at Taupo on 03-03-2008. (Sorry about that pink thing).

3 comments:

  1. That pink thing is lovely as it was painted as recognition as a great contribution of women in farming

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    Replies
    1. That’s in-correct, it was painted pink when it came out of the factory to go to a dropzone in Victoria VH-MOS. It was then imported to NZ to a dropzone before being sold to an Ag operator who decided to make the recognition to farming woman as opposed to painting it.

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  2. I never new that. Nice.
    Thanks

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