I remember when

I remember when the Department of Civil Aviation operated two Douglas DC-3's on airways calibration duties based at Paraparaumu (In what is now the Helipro hangar)
If you were in the know, it was possible to cadge a ride for the day (or longer) on what were classed as Famil Flights.
You had to pick your day with care as the continual turning combined with other meteorological phenomena could lead to periods of unwellness.
Here we are at Invercargill on 23rd April 1968 in ZK-AUJ c/n 26651/15206.
It was delivered to the RNZAF on 30-12-1944 and became NZ3530.
It joined the ZK register on 18-04-1952 with CAA, then relisted to DCA and finally to MOT CAD Division after departmental reorganisations.
It was sold in 1973 having been replaced by Fokker F27's.
It departed Auckland on 20-06-1973 and spent about six weeks in Australia before moving to Cambodia to become XW-TFJ.
I heard that it "escaped" from the Pol Pot clutches and flew into Don Muang in April of 1975 for storage and was broken up in the mid 80's.
The original B & W photograph was re-photographed with my digital camera and appears above unedited.

Dark corners.

Walking past a hangar at Rangiora yesterday I spotted the AS350BA upgraded Squirrel ZK-HKW/4 , c/n 1360 , tucked away in the dark corner. Ive seen it around hundreds of times before so I continued my snoop around. Wasn't until I spoke to one of the other aircraft owners that he mentioned that they had a "new" helicopter based on the field. On the way back to the vehicle I had a closer look at the olde familiar HKW and found that there were two guys down from Taupo installing spray equipment on her and that it now operates under a different name; not that of Amuri Helicopters - to whom it was registered on 05-02-2008 - but Way To GO Heliservices.

A bit of a lesson there I guess.

This Squirrell is now 27 years old, but is not long off a prolonged major rebuild at Christchurch Helicopters. (A back of the hangar spare time job).

Incidently it flew as ZK-HDV/2 with Southern Lakes/Helicopter Line and Northland Emergency Services between late 1990 and June 1993 before going to Australia to become VH-HBK.

It returned to NZ in June 2002 for CHCH Helicopters as HKW.

Grumman American AA-5 Traveller ZK-XRE

The Grumman American AA-5 Traveller ZK-XRE , c/n AA5 0282 , joined the register on Monday the 9th.

This was first registered as VH-ETT in early 1973 and arrived at Rangiora earlier this year still owned by Robyn Edwards and previously based at Lesmurdie, West Australia.

A HUG in the back paddock

Our family patriarch (on the other side) had his 70th birthday during the weekend.
The surprise for the day was his arrival into the back paddock and then rides for those interested over a snow covered Christchurch & Port Hills.
ZK-HUG/2 is a AS350BA , c/n 2038 , from Garden City Helicopters.

What ! another Robinson helicopter .

Noted at Garden City Helicopters in Christchurch on Monday the 9th was this relatively new Robinson R44 Raven II ZK-INP , c/n 11524 .

It was listed to Barrington Charters Ltd of Queenstown on 12-04-2007.

It carries the http://www.nuggetpoint.co.nz/ web site address on its tail boon.

Filling in; & Shipping out.

Kawasaki BK117 A-4 ZK-HJK , c/n 1020 , at the Garden City Christchurch heliport, filling in for the Westpac Trust BK117 ZK-HJC which is down for routine servicing.

On the western side of the airport was the Hughes 369HS ZK-HLM being packed into a container for shipment to Australia by Heli Maintenaince.

This helicopter is now 32 years old (nearly as old as me) and reduces the number of registered 500C's in NZ to around 25.

Its c/n of 63-0488S tells us that it was constructed in June (the 6th month ) of 1973 (the 3 being the year) and is the 488th "S" model built.

It was originally a James Aviation import and arrived in August 1980. Its most recent operator was Aviation West out of Double Hills Station in the Upper Rakaia.

It has been replaced at Double Hills by the Hughes 369D ZK-HYY ex Garden of Eden Helicopters - which is now minus all its Star Wars art work. (see pics in Blogs of late February).

Garden of Eden will be receiving a new NOTAR in about a months time - So we can expect the above HYY to become something else so that Barry can retain his HYY letters; and we can look forward to another interesting paint scheme.

The above pic taken on 05-04-08 at Garden City H/C.

More on the Cub

Further to the earlier post, herewith some more on G-KIRK (pictured in the Warbirds Hanger @ Ardmore Apr 04).

From November 2004

04Nov04 G-KIRK Piper J3C-65 Cub. Maurice J. Kirk (c/n 12490). Kerikeri to Norfolk Island, to Lord Howe Island on 6^th, from ?? to Coolangatta on 8^th, from Caloundra to Rockhampton on 9^th, at Darwin on 12^th (then required an engine change before test flight on 24 April 2005), to Dili-Comoro (East Timor) on 25 April, to Borneo and Balikpapan (Indonesia) on 27^th, to Lawas (Malaysia) and Labuan (Malaysia) on 28^th, to Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia) on 3 May, to Puerto Princesa (Philippines) on 6^th, to Manila on 7^th, to Laoag (Philippines) and Kaohsiung (Taiwan) on 11^th, to Taipei on 13^th, to Cheju Island (South Korea) and Yang Yang on 17^th. Pilot re-enacted first solo east-west crossing of Tasman Sea by Sir Francis Chichester in 1931.

Cessna 185 ZK-JHS

Whitianga based Cessna 185C ZK-JHS was spotted at Ardmore this week sporting the addition of a ZK prefix (in different colours) following its stint in Australia which saw it arrive at Kerikeri from Norfolk Island on 02May08.

Spitfire ZK-WDQ

Doug Brooker's Spitfire ZK-WDQ is now making regular flights from Ardmore and it was great to capture it earlier in the week following a 30minute local flight.

Eurocopter ZK-HKX - out with the old, in with the new(er)

Advanced Flight took delivery of their latest Eurocopter EC130, ZK-HKX/2 (c/n 4376) and it was registered on 29May08. This machine replaces one of the same type with the same registration and c/n 3815 which was deregistered as exported on 15Apr08.

ZK-HKX/2 (with temporary rego) departing Eurocopter's Ardmore facility

ZK-HKX/1 back in December 2005.