Beaver ZK-BFO

Back in 1954 Beavers were operated as topdressers by Rural Aviation (2), Fieldair (3) and James Aviation who had 2 as topdressers and then bought ZK-BFO as a 6 passenger version to operate the "Beaver Trail" between Rotorua, Kawerau and Mangere.

ZK-BFO (c/n 609) was registered to James Aviation Ltd of Hamilton on 1/6/54.  It is seen here in passenger configuration at the old Rotorua airport at Fenton Street probably in 1955 or 1956 as the first "Beaver Trail" service was operated on 23/12/54.

However the passenger service didn't last very long and it was converted to a topdresser by October 1956 as in this photo, also at the old Fenton Street airport at Rotorua.  It had a bad month in April 1957 as on 11/4/57 it slid on wet super on a topdressing strip at Rotoiti and hit a loader.  It can't have been badly damaged as only a couple of weeks later, on 27/4/57, it ground looped on landing, also at Rotoiti, and ended up running backwards off the airstrip and being badly damaged.

The damaged aircraft was sent to Airwork Ltd in Christchurch for rebuild and it remained with them as a topdresser as in the above photo, and also below in colour.

It later acquired large AIRWORK script as in this photo at Christchurch airport.  It was again damaged, this time at Scargill, North Canterbury on 28/2/64 when it hit a fence on takeoff.

This time it was sent to Hawker Siddeley Aviation at Wellington for rebuild, being transported by Bristol Freighter as seen in the photo below.

It reappeared for Air Contracts Ltd of Masterton on 6/11/64, and it is photo'd above outside the Hawker Siddeley hangar at Wellington.

Here it is at Masterton in 1968.  It suffered a couple of other incidents with Air Contracts, being damaged near Masterton on 17/10/66 and again on 28/2/67 when it hit a post on take off at Te Ore Ore and was further damaged when landing back at Masterton.  It was again rebuilt and flew again on 4/6/68

It was again rebuilt and flew again on 4/6/68, I guess in blue and white colours as in this photo taken at Masterton in 1969 after it had been retired from topdressing.  

It was cancelled from the New Zealand register on 26/1/70 and shipped back to Canada where it became CF-AXD for Bannock Aerospace of Toronto on 14/5/70 and then straight to Cross Lake Air Services Ltd of  Wabowden, Manitoba.  They operated the aircraft as a floatplane, and on 10/6/72 it was involved in a fatal accident near the Nelson River in Manitoba.  It was cancelled from the Canadian civil register in December 1972.