Something Different at NZAA back on 29-7-2024

 

This Gulfstream G550 outside Swissport Executive Aviation T7-JOYY is registered in San Marino.  

Third Level Aircraft at NZAA Yesterday 29-7-2024

As well as Air New Zealand's new A321 Airbus there were a few interesting third level aircraft parked up at Auckland Airport yesterday:

This is Air Chathams' Saab SF 340A ZK-CIT3 (c/n 340A-155) which is now painted in Air Chathams colours.  This was one of the three ex Pel Air Saabs that were registered to Air Chathams in June/July 2023, this one being ex VH-EKD2.

And here is another of them, the Saab SF 340A Cargo ZK-CIW3 which has had its Pel Air colours removed and Air Chathams script applied.

An interesting sight but not much good for a photo, was the entire Barrier Air fleet of five Cessna 208B Grand Caravans parked.  It must have been a quiet day for them.

Air New Zealand Airbus A321 ZK-OYE at NZAA Today 29-7-2024

A taxi pick up from Auckland Domestic today allowed a bit of time before to see what was parked out.  It was great to see Air New Zealand's latest Airbus a 321 parked out in a nice position for a photo over the fence:

ZK-OYE (c/n 11773 was registered to Air New Zealand on 14/6/24.  I think it probably hasn't entered service yet.

A belated Friday report from Rangiora

 I managed a quick stop over at Rangiora early on Friday afternoon.

Nothing new for me but three of nearby locals that I have not seen for some time.The Cessna A185F Skywagon ZK-ROL c/n 18502103 has been mentioned in these pages before - see HERE

The Air Tractor ZK-SXO c/n 602-1280 is back on the line at Rangiora.

It had an engine problem on Mt White Station in early 2023 and for reasons various it had to winter over there. After an on site engine replacement, it was flow out to Rangiora on 23-08-2023 and then to Feilding on 28-08-2023.

The Piper P-18C Cub ZK-LEZ c/n 18-1628 shows its ex military heritage with its extended cockpit 'glass'.

We have covered this previously Here.

Beavers and Beavers #5 ZK-CCY - Update

Dave Paull's original post the DHC-2 Beaver ZK-CCY can be found HERE  There is not much to add to it but I include it here as ZK-CCY was the fifth Beaver in the Fieldair fleet.  I have also sourced some different photos.

De Haviland DHC-2 Beaver c/n 1512 was delivered to De Havilland New Zealand on 06/11/62. It was registered as ZK-CCY to Fieldair Ltd of Gisborne on 26/11/62. First flown on 20/02/63, it was delivered to Gisborne on the 29th of February1963. (see comments below).

It was painted in the Fieldair blue and white scheme as in this photo taken at Gisborne on 27/11/70.

As per the other Beavers in the fleet at the time  it went through the Company changes to Fieldair Holdings (Central) Ltd at Palmerston North on 18/11/80 and to Fieldair Holdings Ltd of Palmerston North on 30/03/84.

It is photo'd above at Gisborne on 7/1/73 and below, also at Gisborne, on 9/1/80.  These Bob Kerr photos are from the AustAirData website.

It was withdrawn from use in 1985 and cancelled from the NZ register on 15/5/89 as sold abroad. 

It went to Aerial Agriculture Pty Ltd at Walcha, NSW and became VH-XIX on 10/4/90. It crashed near Guyra on 27/12/92 and was cancelled on 30/3/92 and then stored at Gilgai, NSW.

It was acquired by Frank Wright of Tauranga and the registration ZK-CCY was restored 15/12/93. Following a rebuild at (I believe) Gisborne it went to Float Air Picton Ltd from 1/6/94.  It is photo'd above at Omaka on 13/9/94.

And it is photo'd here on floats at Picton in January 1995.  It was cancelled from the New Zealand register on on 23-11-1995.  It briefly became N6246X from March until May of 1996 with M L Schmokel of St Paul, Minnesota. then on 04-06-1996 it became D-FVIP to Patricia Steber of Hamburg, Germany. It was still in floatplane mode and based on the Hamburg Harbour. 

You can see from the above photo from the dhc-2.com website that it still wore its Frank Wright colours as D-FVIP.  It was later repainted into an all blue scheme with gold cowling and rudder.  Tragically on 2/7/06 it crashed into the Hamburg railway yards with the loss of all on board - the second ex Fieldair Beaver to be lost on floats with all aboard.

Sexy Texy Delivery to Kaipara Flats

After a great day at Dargaville yesterday we flew back to Kaipara Flats and as we were approaching from the North we heard a radio call from Tango X-Ray Sierra approaching from the South, so we held and he landed just before us:

Taken on our downwind leg, you can just see him on very short final just above the pond (click twice to enlarge).

On the ground we congratulated Harley Brighouse on the delivery of his newly acquired Texan Top Class ZK-TXS Sexy Texy to Kaipara Flats after an extended and eventful delivery flight from Invercargill.  This is the ex Michael Hopper Texan that used to be based at Whangarei so it was a sort of homecoming.   She looks great Harley!

Another Flight to Dargaville for Lunch

As we knocked over our NAC committee meeting pretty quickly, quite a few of us were keen to get to Dargaville for lunch so there were a couple of planes that headed North.  Neil Wright asked if I would like to fly with him and yes, on such a lovely day I surely would.

A smart lift off from Kaipara Flats

There was fog over the Kaipara Harbour but it burnt off at Dargaville to allow arrivals.

There were 12 visiting aircraft of 12 different types.

Robert Prochownik arrived in his unique in NZ Aero-Kros MP 02 Czajka ZK-PRO.  You can see our plane, the also unique in NZ Fantasy Air Allegro 2000 ZK-DCU in the background.

After a lovely lunch and lots of aircraft talk people started leaving for home.  Simon Lowther gave me a nice wave from his lovely old Cessna 120 ZK-BFK.

It sounded really nice on take off,

and climb out.

Another nice wave from Jeff Bonnici in Zenith CH 601XL ZK-SWW.  This aircraft transferred to the Damiani Bonnici Partnership of Auckland on 12/10/23.

Then it was our time to go, this is the view of the State Highway 12 bridge over the Northern Wairoa River as you climb out.  You can see it was pretty calm.

And a couple of pesky power pylons in the bush, hopefully fully bolted down!

Northern Aviators in the North Today 27-7-2024

The weather turned out great this morning for the Northern Aviators Club committee meeting at Kaipara Flats and a couple of the committee members flew in:

John Issott flew across from Parakai in the Tecnam P2004 Bravo ZK-TNM, the first time I had seen it at NZKF.  It has been fitted with a Chinese "Rotax style" Zhongshen engine, the first in the country.

And Willy Morton flew down from up KawaKawa way in his Aeroprakt A 32 Vixxen ZK-VLW.

It was very pleasant having our meeting on comfy chairs out in the sunshine!  The first NAC flyin for the new flying season is a Pancake Breakfast at NZKF on 19 October.

RNZAF Hercules C 130J NZ7013

 Not civil but of interest I reckon.

The RNZAF's third C 130J Hercules NZ7013 has flown in the US.  The photo is from Lockheed Martin.

Beavers and Beavers #3 ZK-BMF - Update

ZK-BMF was one of the Beavers that Dave Paull posted about back in 2010 and you can find his post HERE   However I have been able to do a bit more digging and so here is an update:

DHC-2 Beaver ZK-BMF c/n 948 was built by De Havilland Canada in August 1956 and imported into NZ by the De Havilland Aircraft Company of New Zealand Ltd of Wellington in October of 1956 and was registered to them. It was not assembled immediately but stored until February 1958. It first flew at Wellington on 04-03-1958 and was used by DH as a demonstrator as in the above photo.  The colour of the fuselage stripe was blue with a maroon lower fuselage.  I do not have a record of who took the photo or where it is.

Murray Kirkus has sent in a colour photo of it taken at Rongotai in October or November 1959:

It was registered to Fieldair Ltd of Gisborne on 24/4/61 and was painted in their standard blue and white scheme as in this photo taken by Dave Paull at Wellington on 27/5/64 after repairs following an incident where it swung on landing on an ag strip at Te Whero and hit a concrete roller and overturned.  As with nearly all ag aircraft in New Zealand it suffered further accidents - on 4/10/74 near Palmerston North and on 23/11/81 near Gisborne.

At Gisborne on 28/8/68,

At Dannevirke on 25/7/74,

Following the various Fieldar reorganisations its ownership transferred to Fieldair Holdings (Central Ltd) of Palmerston North on 18/11/80 and then to Fieldair Holdings Ltd of Palmerston North on 30/3/84, wearing various versions of the Fieldair yellow scheme, as here at Waipukurau on 1/8/76,

And here at Napier on 5/4/80.  Both of these photos are by Bob Kerr via the AustAirData website.

After being withdrawn it was stored at Gisborne until rebuilt to passenger configuration by Frank Wright of Tauranga; being registered to Frank & Kay Wright on 18-09-1991.  It was sold abroad and cancelled from the NZ register on 13-08-1992.  I can't find a photo of it as ZK-BMF after its rebuild by Frank Wright, but as usual he made a lovely job of it.  I include the photo of it below as C-FGAL as it shows the colour scheme that Frank painted it in.  Does anyone have a photo of ZK-BMF in this scheme?

On 14-08-1992 it appeared on the Canadian register as C-FGAL with Glacier Air Ltd of Fort James, British Columbia until being canceled on 22-12-1998.  It moved to N712TS on 07-12-2000 with Hans Munich of East Sound, Washington State.  Then it went to Seair Adventures LLC of Washington State and then to Harris Aircraft Services Inc of Sitka in Alaska.  Tragically it disappeared on 20-09-2004 near or on Sitka Island with five persons aboard and it has never been found.

Mosquito ZK-PWL is Now Registered in the US

The DH 98 Mosquito T43 ZK-PWL was cancelled from the New Zealand register on 16/5/24 as exported, and it was then shipped to Planes of Fame at Chino in California:

It was registered N2308Z to Spitfire Ventures LLC of San Antonio in Texas on 31/5/24 (a nice play on NZ2308) after reassembly by a crew from Avspecs.  I don't think it has flown in the US yet, but recently was outside where Craig Bryant took this photo and posted it on the Planes of Fame Facebook page.

My guess, because of the placement of the registration, is that it will be painted in a new colour scheme.

Beaver ZK-BFN

Over the last few days I have posted the histories of the first two Fieldair Beavers ZK-AZB and ZK-BBX.  In those posts I referenced the earlier posts on the blog by Dave Paull who had been requested to do some posts on Beavers in the run up to the Lawson Field reunion at Gisborne over Labour Weekend in 2010.

Dave did not do posts on all of our Beavers at that time so I thought I would fill in the blanks and update his original posts to bring them up to date.  I will start with Fieldair's Beavers of which there were 19 in total.  I have a soft spot for Beavers as I was attending Rongotai College in the 1960s when many Beavers were imported, most of them for Fieldair.  And I often saw Beavers from their fleet and other companies arriving at Rongotai for maintenance. 

The third Beaver in the Fieldair fleet was ZK-BFN  which was first registered to De Havilland Aircraft Ltd of Downsview, Ontario as CF-HGW on 12/4/54.  It was quickly exported to New Zealand arriving in May 1954.

ZK-BFN (c/n 564) was registered to the De Havilland Aircraft Company New Zealand Ltd on 20/5/54 and they used it as a demonstrator and it carried out demonstrations of air dropping fencing materials as in the above photo which was taken near Palmerston North.  The photo is probably a DHNZ publicity photo and is via Janic Geelen.

It was registered to Fieldair Ltd on 4/4/55.  It was damaged when it hit HT wires at Rakauroa on 27/1/58 but was repaired . It is photo'd here with the Fieldair logo on the door.  I do not have a record of who took this photo or where it is.

It acquired the standard Fieldair blue and white colour scheme as in this photo which I took of on one of its visits to Hawker Siddeley in Wellington for maintenance in the 1960s.

And this photo of it was taken by New Zealand Beaver expert Graeme Mills at Dannevirke in 1960.  

However it never got any of the later yellow colour schemes as it was written off in a bizarre accident at Gisborne on 14/4/69 when it took off on a test flight after maintenance with its aileron cables reversed and crashed heavily, injuring the 2 pilots.  It was cancelled from the register on 28/4/69.

Beechcraft Super King Air ZK-APL

 I have waited over two years to capture this King Air. 

It, like myself are Christchurch based and this is my first photograph of it.Beechcraft B350i Super King Air ZK-APL2 c/n FL-415 arrived into Wellington on 28-04-2022.It was registered to Apollo Air Ltd of Christchurch on 10-05-2022.

It was mentioned previously HERE

Guimbal Cabri G2 ZK-HIA

 Noted today at Christchurch was the Guimbal Cabri G2 ZK-HIA3 c/n 1299.

This has been listed with the DC Leasing Partnership of Kaikoura since new on 30-06-2022.Originally just plain gray it now has some fine decals which improves its looks.

Nelson today. 23-07-2024

 Bill Mannix did his duty at Nelson Airport today, 23-07-2024, and captured these photographs.A recent addition to the Helicopters Nelson Ltd's line is this factory new 
Guimbal Cabri G2 ZK-IHN2 c/n 1353.

It has the Nelson Helicopters "swirl" and web details, as do company vehicles and hangar. 

From the Massey University School of Aviation at Palmerston North came the Diamond DA 40 Diamond Star ZK-MTI c/n 40.1013.

It was initially listed to the manufacturers Diamond Aircraft Industries Inc of London, Ontario as 

C-FBDG - a well used factory test registration.

A regular visitor from the Motueka Aero Club is the Piper PA-38-112 Tomahawk ZK-VBM 

c/n 38-79A0608.

This was originally N2384K in the US from 2000 before importation for John and Lorraine Horrell of Nelson in 2004. It joined the Motueka Aero Club from 18-05-2023.