Thunder Mustang ZK-TMG has Flown the Coop

After having been for sale for quite some time, the Kiwi Thunder Group's Thunder Mustang ZK-TMG has been sold and it was cancelled from the New Zealand register on 2/5/19.  It has been sold to the USA and will be re-assembled in Colorado Springs, CO.

Photo from the Dennis Thompson website.

The Kiwi Thunder Group has/had their own Facebook page and Simon Gault has posted a farewell video at https://www.facebook.com/si.gault/videos/2000845433345988/

So when I was at Ardmore last week I took this photo of its old hangar for old times sake:

I was fortunate to be at Ardmore for the Thunder Mustang's first flight on 12/3/05 and it sure was an impressive machine!  There is a really nice You Tube video of the aircraft in action at Tokoroa at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=830BUm1UvkI

Thanks Kiwi Thunder for the memories!

Bell 427 ZK-IIG

Thanks to Hairy Mole Rat we have a photo of the Bell 427 ZK-IIG as taken at Tauranga today.

Bell 427 ZK-IIG was allocated the Canadian registration of C-GLZO followed by N427HV to Bell Helicopters Textron Inc at Fort Worth in Texas on 29-09-2008. 

Within a month it was on line with Chevron USA Inc of Picayune Mississippi and then with Skyline Aviation Inc of Las Vegas Nevada from 29-12-2017. 

In February of 2019 it popped up on the Australian register as VH-BDS₃ with Flying Wombats Australia Pty Ltd of Marks Point on behalf of Skyline Aviation Group Pty Ltd.

It was noted at Tauranga in early April with its Australian identity being cancelled on 24-04-2019 for its transfer to Adventure Helicopters Ltd on 29-04-2019

Ardmore

A visit to Ardmore today offered more aircraft of interest to those blogged from last week starting with Bell 407 ZK-HNY which was added to the Gisborne Helicopters fleet in March 2019.

An imposing looking aircraft is the Cub Crafters CCX2000 Carbon Cub FX appropriately registered ZK-FXC.   This was imported from the US in March 2019.

And returned to the ZK register is RV6 ZK-VGS which was operated in Australia from 2003 as VH-VGS until its arrival back in Auckland on 22 December 2018.

Ardmore Helicopters on 3-5-2019

There were quite a few helicopters out in the sun at Ardmore last Friday, including these that I had not photo'd previously:

Our only 2 Agusta 109E's posing together.

The Taranaki Rescue Helicopter Agusta 109E ZK-ITR2 (it could be mistaken for TSB). It is registered to Helilink Ltd of Auckland.  (The first ZK-ITR was also an Agusta but an A 119 model).

I have quite often seen ZK-ITR2 in the Heliflight hangar at Ardmore and I wonder what rescue helicopter was filling in in Taranaki, or maybe the Taranaki rescue service is now being provided by others after the reorganisation of rescue helicopter services nationally?

Guimbal Cabri G2 ZK-IRR2 has not been posted on the blog before.  It has recently changed ownership to M R Buttle of Auckland.

I took this photo of Bell Longranger ZK-HMJ3 because it looked so snazzy out in the sun.  The registration is in gold and is partly obscured by the reflection of the sun.  It is registered to M L Jones of Auckland.

Kawasaki BK 117 C-1 ZK-HQZ3 was registered to Oceania Aviation Ltd on 14/6/18 and was parked oujtside their hangar.

Polikarpov Po 2 ZK-POL at Ardmore 3-5-2019 and Another Earlier Example

The Red Star Aviation Trust's recently restored Polikarpov Po 2 was out in the sun at Ardmore yesterday:

A colourful scene outside Aero Technology hangar.  ZK-POL2 (c/n 046) bears the very small numbers 641-046 on the fin.  You can see more photos of the aircraft on our sister blog MRC Aviation, at: https://mrcaviation.blogspot.com/2019/04/polikarpov-po-2-takes-flight-updated-21.html

The Shvetsov 5 cylinder radial engine looking very shiny!

The aircraft will be based at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre at Omaka.

However this is not the first Polikarpov Po 2 we have had in New Zealand, as can be seen from this photo from the 2003 Classic Fighters airshow, also at Omaka, held over Easter 2003. This aircraft (c/n 0094) was owned by Pat Donovan.  It was kept on the ground by paperwork at the airshow but it did taxy along the crowd line.  It had the registration ZK-POZ reserved for it but I assume that it did not fly in New Zealand as it was never officially registered.  Later in 2003 it was exported to England where it was registered G-BSSY for the Shuttleworth Collection with whom it is still current.

French visitors

Amongst the visitors to Pauanui airfield today were a couple of interesting French built light aircraft, being the Auckland owned Socata TB20 ZK-JFC which has had only 1 NZ owner since its importation from Australia in 1991

And from Tauranga the Robin R3000/160 which was imported from Germany in 2006.

AHRT's New Helicopters and New Base at Ardmore 3-5-2019

At Ardmore I was pleased to catch up with the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trusts's two new Leonardo AW 169 helicopters at their new base:

The new AHRT Ardmore base is in the two hangar complex just South of the Auckland Aero Club, where work was going on to make the complex fit for purpose.  It has been well known that their lease is running out for the old Mechanics Bay site, and also that the new helicopters were too big to be hangared there.  So this is their new base.  I am not sure if the new helicopters are operational from Ardmore yet.

 Inside one of the hangars was the new AW 169 ZK-IZB (c/n 69083) which was registered on 22/3/19.  On seeing the Newstalk ZB sponsorship, it twigged to me that the rego harks back to the old 1ZB radio station.

And in the other hangar (they are joined inside) was the other AW 169 ZK-HLH4 (c/n 69082).  This was the best I could do by zooming in with a construction fence erected outside.  A better photo of the helicopter can be seen at https://nzcivair.blogspot.com/2019/02/leonardo-aw169-zk-hlh-re-visited.html

Brace of Black Beauties at ANZ NZAA Today 3-5-2019

A taxi trip to Auckland International this morning under a blue blue sky, saw a nice bevy of Air New Zealand aircraft at their engineering base including a brace of black beauties:

The line up from left is Boeing 777-200 ZK-OKG, Boeing 787-9 ZK-NZE2, Boeing 787-9 ZK-NZH2 in the hangar, Airbus A 321 ZK-NNA and the tail of the long time engine-less Boeing 787-9 ZK-NZF3.

and closer shots of the All Black ZK-NNA 

and the engine-less All Black ZK-NZE.

And so with time on my hands, on to Ardmore....

Pauanui

A great weather week on the Coromandel has brought a flow of visitors to the Pauanui airfield,  predominantly trainers and LSA's,  but also including Hamilton based AS350B-2 ZK-IRS which is registered to Stark Airlines.   This was imported from the US in September 2018.

Also from Hamilton, Diamond DA20C-1 ZK-SFF from the L3 training fleet.

Wittman Tailwind ZK-RET Returns Home

In Blue Bus's last post from Classic Fighters at Omaka he posted a photo of Wittman Tailwind ZK-RET in a new colour scheme.  It occurred to me that this was a home-coming as the Tailwind first flew from Omaka on 20 December 1980.  Here is a link to its history: https://nzcivair.blogspot.com/2013/05/wittman-w8-tailwinds-of-new-zealand.html

This photo, taken at Omaka,  is scanned from the July 1981 Sport Flying magazine.

To add the ownership history of the aircraft after the above link, the aircraft was re-designated as a Class 2 Microlight on 6/9/13 when owned by Bill Izard.  Bill the sold it to the GA Partnership of Belfast on 26/1/16 and it quickly went to ACK Farming of Kaiapoi on 3/5/16, and then most recently to Service Brands Ltd (Andrew Kebbell) of Kaiapoi on 28/9/18.