NZ Civil Aircraft

While attending the Thames Wings and Wheels event last weekend I was finally able to catch up with the latest Yak-52 arrival, Rob Fry's ZK-BJK/2.

Initially serving with the para-military DOSAAF organization from October 1986 and carrying the serial '113' this Yak then entered the Lithuanian civil register as LY-ALK. Later, when Jurgis Kairys began using the aircraft, it appeared as LY-BJK. As such it appeared in aerobatic events in Europe and also in both Japan and Korea as part of the 'Air Bandits' team.
The Air Bandits came about from Jurgis Kairys' desire to introduce something new and different to Airshows - Group aerobatics by different aircraft.

Rob Fry was also living in Japan at that time, and became involved with this team.
Thus the current livery of this aircraft reflects those days.

ZK-BJK/2 at Thames 27th January

I then decided to dig around in the shoebox and find a photo of the original ZK-BJK.

This was a Tiger Moth c/n 86475 that was built under contract by Morris Motors and delivered to the RAF in May 1945 as NM155. Too late to see wartime service, it was stored until sold to dealers Hants & Sussex Aviation Ltd., Portsmouth, in 1953.
Registered to them as G-ANCP on 4Sep1953 ownership passed to F.R.J. Britten, Bembridge, Isle of Wight on 14th December.
John Britten then sold this Tiger (along with at least three others) into New Zealand in early 1954.

Registered as ZK-BJK on 20Dec1954 under the ownership of the Farmers Aerial Topdressing Co Ltd, Invercargill, this aircraft then finally had to work for a living.

Some crashes were inevitable for an AgTiger, and BJK hit a fence at Invercargill in May 1955.
Repaired, it flew on and was eventually sold to Hewett Aviation, also of Invercargill, in January 1958.

The end came at Hillend, South Otago, on 5Dec1963 when it stalled while low flying in an attempt to chase errant sheep off the farm landing area.
The pilot at the time, Ian Christophers, was reported unhurt.

Photo at Invercargill airport in the early 1960s, when BJK was working as a sprayer.

After a very long rebuild Rob Mackley's immaculate Lockheed Electra 10A ZK-AFD2 made its first flight from Ardmore today, in the hands of Ryan Southam. This aircraft as well as the original ZK-AFD and the pseudo ZK-AFD at MOTAT have previously been covered on the blog HERE

The photos below show ZK-AFD2 back in October 2023 before some final work was completed and are sourced from the Hawk Aero Facebook page:

Jordan Elvy was at Paraparaumu airport yesterday afternoon when the recently registered brand new Tecnam P2006T ZK-TVT arrived:

ZK-TVT (c/n 388) was registered to the New Zealand Airline Academy Ltd of Oamaru on 29/11/23. It previously was VH-DBL4 with the Australian Tecnam agents.

To help Peter Layne out, here are a selection of gliders from Kaikohe. Peter Garlick took the photo on the occasion of his visit to renew their annual Certificates of Airworthiness.

We have Grob G 103 Twin Astir ZK-GTA of the Kaikohe Gliding Club with the club's Schemp-Hirth Janus CM ZK-GVQ and Schemp-Hirth Discus b ZK-GTZ in behind. The V tailed glider is the Start und Flug H101 Salto ZK-GIZ also belonging to the club and behind that is Maurice Honey's PZL-Swidnik PW5 Smyk ZK-GWW4. There is one other glider at the rear but I cannot identify it.

The Air Commander series of gyrocopters was manufactured by Air Command International of Caddo Mills in Texas and was available as a kit for amateur construction. It seemed to have a chequered history and it faded away in the early 2000s, but recently Air Command International has introduced a new model of gyrocopter with an 85 HP Polaris engine.

ZK-RBR (c/n NZRA/R78) was built by R J Martin of Tauranga and it was registered to him on 11/1/90. It is photo'd above at the Walsh Flying School 25th anniversary airshow at Matamata in 1991. It was later withdrawn for use and stored at Rotorua and cancelled on 18/2/94. However it was restored by K B Ayre of Hastings as a Class 1 microlight on 22/10/02. It was revoked between 11/4/06 but was restored again on 6/6/06 to K B Ayre of Tuatapere. It then went to M J Morrison of Hawera on 20/5/10 before being finally revoked on 28/3/12.

Ken Brock was an early exponent of gyrocopters in the US and his KB 1 and KB 2 models were developed from the Bensen B 8. In 1971 he was the first to make a coast to coast flight by gyrocopter across the US, from Long Beach California to Kitty Hawk North Carolina.

The Ken Brock KB 2 ZK-RBO (c/n NZRA/R39) was built by B F J Ogilvy of Rotorua and was first registered to him on 27/3/87. The above photo was taken at a microlight flyin at Feilding in the late 1980s. It was damaged in a heavy landing at Tauranga on 22/2/92 and was cancelled from the register on 22/7/92.

The Walsh Memorial Scout Flying School at Matamata wraps up today, 23 January 2024, and from photos I have seen there were a lot of Piper PA 38 Tomahawk trainers there. However three of them had a commonality:

These three Tomahawks are owned by the Walsh Aviation Support Society Incorporated (WASSI) and are painted in their colour scheme but in different colours. ZK-JRS3 is the most recently completed being a restoration of the former ZK-ESI and having been registered to WASSI on 30/10/23.

Back in 2016 I referred on the blog to No 2 Grandson as Master Minty, but in the intervening years he has outgrown that moniker so now I reckon he should be referred to as Mister Minty, And as he lives pretty close to Hamilton Airport he has been keeping an eye out for the latest Texel Air Boeing 737-800(BCF) freighter ZK-TXC2. His photo (taken across the airport today) is below:

ZK-TXC2 (c/n 33798) was registered to Texel Air Ltd of Auckland on 19/12/23. It has been undergoing work at Menzies Aviation at Hamilton since that time. It was previously VP-CJA and VH-VOQ.

As you may see a very wide cross section of the community took part.

Classic Flyers organised an open day with a mini airshow at Tauranga today and the weather co-operated. Mark Pattenden went along and took the following photos that peaked my interest:

You can see more of Mark's photos on the Tauranga Spotter blog at https://taurangaspotter.blogspot.com/2024/01/tauranga-classic-flyers-open-day-airshow.html

The Corsair ZK-COR / NZ5648, temporarily based at Ardmore, has been getting out and about. It also visited the Walsh Flying School at Matamata today.

The Aero Sport Kahu is a New Zealand designed autogyro that was first registered on 3 October 2000 and first flew on 27 July 2001. It was built and developed by Chris Wade and it carried high hopes to revolutionise the gyrocopter market. In fact it was ahead of the later Rotax powered gyrocopters from Europe that have been registered in New Zealand in quite large numbers, and it offered much the same benefits such as carbon fibre construction and an enclosed (side by side) cabin. Power was from a 1745 HP modified Mazda 13B rotary engine so you could say it is a rotary rotorcraft.

I photo'd ZK-RCP at the 2002 SAANZ flyin at Matamata where it has its original tail configuration. Later development has a tail with three vertical elements. It is still registered, to Aero Sport International Ltd of Auckland although I don't think it is actively flying.

The North American Rotorworks Pitbull SS ZK-RUN is, I think, the only tractor gyroplane in New Zealand. It was built from a kit by Brian Taylor of Whangarei and registered in July 2016. I took the above photo on 6 July 2016 at Dargaville with Brian in the cockpit. Brian has since carried out some modifications to the rotor head and has added some fins at the ends of the tailplane which have improved the flying behaviour. ZK-RUN is powered by a Rotax 503 engine.

Pelorus Air have put their Cessna A185F ZK-PRM on amphibious floats and on line from 2 January:

And the 1980 model Cessna 172N ZK-ETK which was acquired by the Ardmore based Airline Flying Club in November. This hasnt featured on this Blog site before.

A nice feature of David Signal's Foxbat ZK-SGI is the large sliding and opening panel in the door that allows you to take photos without having to shoot through perspex. Here are a few shots taken while flying up the West Coast out of Te Kowhai: