My week of it

 I spent all of the last two weeks pottering around East Otago and inland to Alexandra.
Below we have a selection of some of the aircraft I came across.

The Piper PA-28-180 Cheroke C ZK-CUC c/n 28-4257 'Chuc Wunda' is of 1967 vintage and joined the C.U.C Syndicate of Auckland on 12-05-1995.

It is currently based at Alexandra.

An unexpected catch at Alexandra was the Aerospatiale AS 350BB ZK-HOM3 c/n 2951 

Below is what the NZ Aviation News Magazine said about it back in September 2018.

In July of 2017 Brian Comerford sourced two Eurocopter AS 350 Squirrels from the Defence Helicopter Flying School in the UK – These became ZK-IFI and ZK-IDR.

 During September 201 8another one came onto our register as ZK-HOM₃ with The Alpine Group of Wanaka. ZK-HOM3 differs in that it was specifically built as an AS 350 BB model, with a derated Arriel 1D1 engine to improve its life cycle, for the UK Ministry of Defence and was not a ten year old ex civilian machine taken on charge. 

It was actually first registered to Eurocopter France of Marignane on 20-12-1996 as G-BXAG to facilitate its move via FBS Ltd, Bristow Helicopters Utility to officially become a UK military model HT-1 and military serial of ZJ255 in April of 1997 with the MoD DHFS and given the fleet number ‘55’. These HT.1’s have been replaced in service with the Eurocopter/Airbus EC135/H135 ‘Juno’s. 

Its UK registration was cancelled on 25-04-2018 and it appeared on the US register briefly as N66SB.

It was registered as ZK-HOM3 to The Alpine Group at Wanaka on 03-09-2018 and then to Nigel Hinton on 22-09-2021.

See earlier post at  https://nzcivair.blogspot.com/2019/03/more-helicopters-from-down-south.html

I still have the infinite capacity of catching the rear end of departing helicopters.

Above we see the Helicopters Otago Eurocopter  MBB-BK 117 C-2 ZK-IWD c/n 9156 departing Taieri.

A 2008 model which was imported for Helicopters Otago in Mid 2017.

Also at Taieri was the Enfield Holdings/Mainland Air Cessna 152 ZK-NSZ2 c/n 15281730 doing circuits. This is Momona based.

Previously N67294 from March 1978 - it became ZK-NSZ on 16-06-2009.

At Balclutha the ex Chris Pask Just SuperSTOL ZK-PSK c/n JA342-01-14 was parked in a dark corner.

First registered on 03-3-2015 it was very recently acquired by Steve Bamford of Balclutha.

The Zlin Savage ZK-OHA c/n 0129 was first listed to Lars Fellman of Helensville on 11-03-2009 and was transferred from his estate to Trevor Alexander of Winton and later of Riverton. 

The current Alexandra owners David King and Pauline Hogue took it over from 03-10-2022.