Karatoo ZK-KTI at Forest Field.

 Aaron Murphy captured these shots of Ian McPhail's Australian Aviation Works Karatoo J6-C ZK-KTI

at Forest Field recently. 

Some more recent ZK-KTI posts can be found HERE

Thank you Aaron.

A Couple from Hawera Today 29-9-2025

The Hawera Aero Club held their Daylight Saving flyin today and Jordan Elvy took a trip up SH3 to get there.  Jordan reports that the weather wasn't too good, but that there were a couple of interesting visitors that flew in from just up the road at Stratford:

Jabiru SP ZK-JJR has been owned by Robert Boniface of New Plymouth since late 2024 and has acquired a new swoopy colour scheme.

And Stolp V Star ZK-MIJ has been owned by Lou Venables of New Plymouth since October 2022.  It carries the Stratford Flyers logo on the rudder.

One size fits all. Wigram 25-09-2025

 During a quick visit to the RNZAF Museum at Wigram yesterday I noted two groups of young folk proceeding boldly forth.

One size fits all.

ZK-HSX. The elusive Huey.

Graeme Stratton recently flicked me this photo below of the seldom mentioned Huey ZK-HSX2.

Jim Shewin is piloting the Bell UH-1H Iroquois ZK-HSX2 c/n 10320 - keeping a burn off “controlled” back in 2010.

This Iroquois has been working away in New Zealand since 1999 but appears to have had very little publicity.

So :-

This is a model UH-1H-BF with the Bell construction number of 10320.

As the c/n tells us it was built at Bells' Fort Worth, Texas facility - It received the U.S.Army serial number of 68-15390 and appears to have been 'posted' to Fort Hood, Texas about February of 1969.

As far as I can tell it was in South Vietnam in 1970-1971 with D Troop of the 3rd Squadron of the 4th Cavalry. 

They were known as the Centaurs and carried a small emblem on the lower rear corner of the sliding door. This was a Centaur - a horses body with a human upper body and head.

68-15390 carried the number 390 on its tail fin in white and was named 'Beloved' whilst being flown by James Tonelli (and probably others). 

It was also known to have used the radio callsign of  'Centaur 23'. 

Now I am not sure if this was the aircrafts or the pilots individual call sign.

It was operated mainly as a 'slick' - for the dropping and picking up of troops.

The above pic I believe show 68-15390.

The below pic shows 'Centaur 23'

Are they the one and the same ?

Renegade Woods was out Northwest of Saigon near Cu Chi.

An LRRP is the abbreviation for Long Range Recce Patrol , and LZ is for Landing Zone.

Brief extract from the April 2nd 1970 action report mentioning Centaur 23.

As the chaos on the ground unfolded, Warrant Officer James Tonelli brought his UH-1 into a low-level approach under heavy fire, dropping down 15 feet from the crater. After the Rangers raced to the chopper and piled in, Tonelli managed to get the overloaded helicopter airborne in spite of taking multiple hits from ground fire, 

Obviously both Tonelli and the '390' survived the American War and the helicopter underwent a civil conversion with Richards Heavylift Helo Inc and joined the US civil aircraft register as N375AV on 31-01-1996 for Aerovantage Ltd of Seattle, Washington.

They moved it on to Construction Helicopters Inc (CHI) of Porter Valley, California from 12-03-1997.

Its US registration was cancelled in January of 1999 as exported to NZ.

It became ZK-HSX2 on 02-03-1999 for Peter Bradley of Rotorua.

Two photos of it in its hangar at Murupara on 17-03-2000.

Below - as seen at Murupara on 30-04-2000.

Title then moved to Lakeland Helicopters (1989) Ltd of Rotorua from 19-12-2002.

Bates

Dave Bates capture this shot of ZK-HXS at Murupara with some colour added on 22-01-2004.

Above photo was taken at Wanaka in February 2008. Photographer unknown.

Presumably marked up for a movie !

Heli Resources (2012) Ltd at Rotorua became the listed operator from 18-04-2013.

Microlight Aircraft of New Zealand - Some More Photos from Very Early MAANZ Days

Recently I posted on the formation of MAANZ (the Microlight Aircraft Association of New Zealand) on 22/8/81.  I posted that there was a MAANZ gathering of microlights at Te Kowhai on 12/12/81.  The link to that post is:  https://nzcivair.blogspot.com/2025/09/microlight-aircraft-of-new-zealand_11.html

It turns out that Murray Kirkus was there and he took a few photos (that was back in the day of black and white photos and you rationed your photos because you only had so many photos on a film that you had to get developed - how things have changed!  A bit like microlights).

In this photo we have a Quicksilver MX and a Mirage.  Murray has also advised that Tommy Namais is the guy in front of the Quicksilver with the beard and shorts and Ken Asplin is standing in front of the Mirage.  Tommy Namais was an American hang glider pilot who came to New Zealand with Marty Waller and together they formed Pacific Kites 1981 Ltd who were the agents for Quicksilver microlights.  You can see that there was a lot of interest in the microlights and also that there was no registration under the wing of the Quicksilver.

In this nice photo of a Mirage in flight taken by Murray on the day you can see that there is a control column and the spoiler is activated on the top of the port wing.

Murray also was at the 1982 AACA flyin at Taupo (where I also was, but we did not meet up).  His photo of the Quicksilver MX and three Mirages is from a different perspective from my photo.  Murray also remembered that none of the four microlights had registration letters under their wings.  Again, you can see that there was a lot of interest in the new types of flying machines.

I will go back to my original post and insert these photos.

New Lifeflight Rescue Helicopter for Wellington

On 19 September 2025 Life Flight's new Airbus H145 D3 helicopter flew into their base at Wellington Airport and Tim Gorman of ZK-Aviation was there to take a series of great photos of the event:

ZK-IXS3 (c/n 21397) is a brand new machine and was temporarily registered D-HBTS in Germany - it replaces Life Flight's BK-117 ZK-HLF which had been in service for more than 20 years!  It has been prepared for Life Flight by Airbus Helicopters at Ardmore.  On ZK-IXS's entry into service Life Flight CEO Mark Johnston said "This isn't just a new helicopter - the Westpac Rescue Chopper service in part of the fabric of our local community."

Thanks for the photo Tim, you can't beat Wellington on a good day!

A Big Weekend for One Designs in New Zealand

The fully aerobatic Rihn DR 107 One Design was designed by Dan Rihn in the US and first flew in 1993.  It was designed with the idea of a one design aerobatic contest that would be sanctioned by the FIA but this never eventuated due to several reasons including the lack of aircraft early on and the reluctance of people to commit to building the aircraft from plans.  Never the less it has proved a popular aircraft and there are more than 50 flying worldwide.  This number was added to at Whakatane on Saturday 20 September when Chris Schadler flew his DR 107 ZK-WAM3:

ZK-WAM3 (c/n 94-115) has been finished by Chris Schadler from a partly built project that Steve Gwilliam bought in from Australia and then sold to Chris.  The One Design is the fifth aircraft building project that Chris has been involved in - several SG Storms and a smart Vans RV 3, ZK-WCO, that he has flown in New Zealand aerobatic competitions since 2015.  The One Design is a step up in aerobatic mounts.

David Wilkinson flew down to Whakatane to see the first flight of Chris Schadler's One Design.  David flew in his own One Design ZK-EZG2 that he has recently re-covered the fuselage on and it is photo'd here at lunch at Matamata where you can see it now has white registration letters instead of the previous black.  David has just got his aircraft back into the air so it was a big  weekend for One Designs here.

Offshore visitors. VH-CYK and D-ADLR

Tony McFarlin - our regular supplier of fine photographs of visiting aircraft has provided thes two shots taken at Christchurch yesterday the 20th.

Above is the Boeing 737-85R (BCF) VH-CYK3 c/n 34797 as registered to Pioneer Australia Pty Ltd.

Pioneer was a NZ startup with a DC-3 before moving to Australia and began FIFO operations and moving into the freight market. ASL Aviation Holdings acquired Pioneer and rebranded it as ASL Airlines Australia.

It arrived in Christchurch after a busy day having flown from Brisbane to Townsville, Cairns, Brisbane again - then to Auckland and down to Christchurch.

This is a 2006 airframe has spent time as VT-JGQ, OE-IBV, VT-SYF, 2-VSYF and OE-LVE.

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This German registered Gulfstream GV-SP (G550) D-ADLR c/n 5093 was previously N593GA before delivery to LFO-DLR Flugbetrieb in January of 2009.

DLR are the flight operations department of the German Aerospace Research Centre and operate a series of highly modified research aircraft.

Note the numerous sensors on the nose, upper fuselage and under the wings for use on its current HALO Project.

D-AGLR flew into Christchurch from Cairns on September the 6th and has already carried out about nine flight to about 65 degrees South. 

For more on this project SEE HERE

Lunch at Dargaville Today 20-9-2025

It is quite a while since I have visited Dargaville Aero Club to sample their very nice home cooked lunch which costs $15.  Yum!  However today I had cause to drive up there and there were several aircraft that were new there or at least new to me:

Les Berger flew in with Dawson Bowles in his newly acquired Maule Lunar Rocket ZK-MSM.  I think this would have been its first time at Dargaville

It has plenty of performance to spare, here leaping into a pretty short take off (the wind was on the nose and maybe 10 knots plus - you can tell from the angle of the windsock),

It looks purposeful climbing out.

And one that was new to me was Richard Prentice's Pipistrel Sinus ZK-LAU, across from Kerikeri.

DH82A Tiger Moth ZK-ASV

An interesting visitor to Pauanui airfield today was the very yellow DH82A Tiger Moth ZK-ASV.  Restored several years ago at Mandeville it is resident at Drury and displays its former RNZAF identity, NZ786.