Charlie's AOPA strip fly in.

The Aircraft Owners and Pilot Association (AOPA) has regular fly ins around the Country.

This weekend Charlie Draper's farm strip near Darfield was the base for 'back country' strip visits

Click on this AOPA link for further information about this group

Saturday morning saw a gathering of fifty aircraft with 48 taking part in the strip visits.

All 48 streamed out within a few minutes so all my take off shots were taken from the same sport.

 There were four Cubs on site. 

Above we have ZK-BKN c/n 18-4754 from the BKN Syndicate of Blenheim.

 Fred Bull's 90hp Cub ZK-BKX c/n 18-4684 departed in a brisk manner.

 And Mike Oakley blats out in his Super Cruiser ZK-BNJ c/n 18-5063.

The 4th Cub was ZK-BNX.

There was a good selection of Cessna 185's with A185F ZK-DSO c/n 18502282 heading out.

This tidy looking Cessna 172G ZK-COL c/n 17254468 has been listed with Ian Sinclair since mid-2017.

Paraparaumu

A visit to Paraparaumu Airport yesterday afternoon revealed a hive of activity, mainly around the Kapiti Districts Aero Club,  including the Club's R22 ZK-HNS

Kapiti Heliworx R44 ZK-IDO was being readied for a local flight

And down from Whanganui the NZICPA Cessna 152 ZK-TOC which was reregistered from ZK-NPD in May 2019

Dargaville on 21-9-2019

A really nice weather day bought lots of visitors to share in the famous Dargaville Saturday lunch - thanks to all the volunteers who do the cooking.

Nice reflections in the Northern Wairoa River beside the airfield.

Three gyros came from Whangarei:

Rusty and Penny Russell in their Autogyro MT 03 Eagle ZK-RBG.

Nigel Howcroft in his Magni M 24 ZK-MWR.

And Baz Norgrove flew over in the newly Northland registered Celier Xenon ZK-ZMY.

Steve Wood bases his Rainbow Aircraft Cheetah ZK-KDM at Dargaville

and he headed off for a local flight.

The Parakai based Tecnam P 92 Echo Super ZK-CDL2 has been repainted in this tidy scheme.

Then Jim Schmidt arrived in Stan and Gilly Smith's Piper J3-65 Cub ZK-AIR.

A great day!

Masterton

A small but interesting group of aircraft attended the Wairarapa Aero Club's 90th aniversary gathering today including the Socata TB10 ZK-JIG which has been around since being imported from Australia in 2004,  but not appeared on this blog.  It is registered to a Masterton owner.

Registered to an Upper Hutt owner is the 1982 model Piper PA44-180T Seminole ZK-MBO

Also from Upper Hutt is the P&M Aviation QuikR ZK-NDS

Not yet entered on the active CAA register is ICP Savannah ZK-SVA,  which lives in the SVAS hangar at Masterton

And in New Zealand since 2013 as N400TL Just Aircraft SuperSTOL ZK-TUX entered the NZ register in April this year,  registered to a Carterton owner.

Oceania Helicopters Pukekohe Ltd

A visit to Oceania Helicopters Pukekohe Ltd base in Drury today revealed their Bell 206L-3 LongRanger sprayer ZK-ILR outside.   This was imported from Japan in 2010 and has been with the company since then.

Rangiora Back on 7-9-2019 (4)

The weather at Rangiora on 7 September was nice with a light wind pretty much straight down Runway 25.  This was after several days of really grotty cold weather with low cloud and strong winds.  I guess because of this there were a lot of sport aircraft movements, and I thought that the number would be more than I have seen on a regular day at any other airfield across New Zealand.  Here are some of them: (and there were others)

Timaru owned Tecnam P2002 Sierra ZK-MVS was doing circuits.

As was the recently registered Savannah S ZK-SRT2

and our earliest registered Savannah ZK-DJB2.

Our latest Zenair CH 701 ZK-DUX2 made a test flight.

The Fern Air Syndicate's 90 HP Piper Cub ZK-CXC was very active.

While the Cub inspired Zlin Aviation Savage ZK-KSC was also out for a while.

Then later on Paul Godfrey lifted off in his nice Kitfox IV ZK-JFA. 

A great day! - thanks Blue Bus.

Chipmunk ZK-JIT

DHC-1 Chipmunk ZK-JIT  c/n C1-0640

This aircraft was delivered to the RAF on 16-05-1952 as WK627 and as of April this year was still painted in its original RAF colour scheme.

Here is a link to a photograph of her as WK627.  WK627 link

It is known to have served with the Northumbrian University Air Squadron in the early 70's until it was struck off charge at No 5 Maintenance Unit at Kemble on 5 December 1974

It 

was registered on the UK civil aircraft register as G-BCSU with Sky Trade (International) Ltd, Rush Green on 2 December 1974. 

Its UK registration was cancelled on 21-04-1975 and it was registered as ZS-JIT to Ralph Saxe of Springs, South Africa on 08-01-1976.  

It was last flown in South Africa on 8 June 1986.

It was shipped to New Zealand in 1995 but its South African registration was not cancelled until 07-12-2000.  

Finally it was registered to Ralph as ZK-JIT on 29 May 2001 under Chipleigh Trust of Palmerston North.  

It first flew here on 22 June 2002 at Palmerston North.

And two shots taken at Masterton on 26 Jan 2003.

Tragically, Ralph Saxe was killed in the crash of his Yak 52TW ZK-YTW at Timona Park, Feilding on 23 January 2012.

Photo above at Ardmore on 8 August 2012 by Keith Morris.

It was noted for sale in the rain at Dennis Thompson International Ltd at Ardmore on 8 August 2012 for $99,950 and 6780 airframe hours.

It was sold to CTE Tooling Pty Ltd of Berkeley Vale NSW on 15 August 2018 and appears to be based at Wedderburn south of Sydney - still as ZK-JIT.

 Two shots as seen on 27 April 2019 at Wedderburn, New South Wales by David Eyre.

Pauanui

An interesting visitor to Pauanui today was the 1965 model Cessna 185D ZK-CKT just off a complete refurbishment and repaint by Wrightair at Tauranga.

Rangiora Back on 7-9-2019 (3)

Several hangars were open at Rangiora when we visited and there were several sport aircraft of interest to me:

Terry Salmon's lovely Corby Starlet ZK-EEZ was looking very tidy.  I didn't realise until later that it now has a fully cowled VW engine (whereas it previously had its VW cylinders out in the breeze).  You can see its history at:  https://nzcivair.blogspot.com/2012/09/corby-titivation.html 

Terry also told us about Turbulent ZK-WPT in the adjacent hangar, and as I hadn't seen this aircraft before he kindly opened the hangar up for us.  It was recently purchased by a new Christchurch owner but it has a few matters that need sorting out before it can fly again.  It flew from Greymouth to Rangiora in 2014 but I understand it has not flown since.  This aircraft was finished by Alan Brizell of Westport and he posted about it on the blog HERE

Then in the back of the hangar our next Karatoo is coming along nicely.

Rangiora Back on 7-9-2019 (2)

Gert Van Kruiningen had his Airdrome Aeroplanes Bleriot XI replica ZK-BXI2 out test running its 1928 Velie M5 five cylinder radial engine.