Beaver ZK-BXJ

I have so far posted about our topdressing operators that had several Beavers in their fleets, and now there are three operators who each had one Beaver.  The first of these was Barr Brothers who operated Beaver ZK-BXJ from October 1965:

The 1054th Beaver off the production line at Downsview Ontario in 1957 was delivered to the US Army as a L 20 model on 25/2/57 where it operated with the serial number 56-0364 (later being re-designated as a U-6A) until it was struck off charge in August 1962.  On 2/8/62 it was registered N74085 and on 30/6/65 it was registered to State Airlines Inc of Charleston, North Carolina.  It was cancelled from the US register on 20/8/65 and exported to New Zealand.

ZK-BXJ (c/n 1054) was registered to Barr Brothers (Hawkes Bay) Ltd of Waipukurau on 8/10/65.  It is photo'd above prior to delivery when it has Barr Bros Ltd script (no HB).  Like Fieldair's Beaver ZK-BXN the registration was out of sequence.

It is photo'd above on 28/1/66 where it has a very small (HB) added to the titles.  It can also be seen that the dayglo painted tail had not stood up very well to the rigours of topdressing only a couple of months after delivery.

It later acquired sloped and tapered Barr Bros (HB) Ltd script as well as a red painted tail as in this photo taken at Waipukurau on 8/7/71.

Then later on it had this "lollipop" script, also at Waipukurau but on 23/10/72.  On 2/6/73 it collided with a topdressing loader while landing into the sun at Tutira, North of Napier, and it was badly damaged.  It was cancelled from the NZ register on 9/7/63 and the damaged aircraft was sold "as-is" to Australia.

Where it was rebuilt and registered VH-IMC2 on 3/4/74 to Aerial Agriculture Pty Ltd of Bankstown where the above photo was taken in November 1985.  It seems to have been on and off the Australian register a couple of times ending up still with Aerial Agriculture Pty Ltd but at Armidale.  Finally it was cancelled from the Australian register and exported back to Canada....

Where it became C-FYNT for Les Placements J S G P Inc of Laval-des-Rapides in Quebec on 14/6/96.  It has had several owners, all in Quebec over the years, The above photo is at Sainte Veronique on 30/8/06.  

And here it is on wheels at Saint-Matthieu-de-Beloeil on 9/4/07.  On 23/9/08 it had an accident when it had to set down in trees in poor weather when it was float equipped, but no-one was hurt and the aircraft has been rebuilt.  I believe it is still current.