ZKNZ

Possibly due to it being the home of New Zealand’s politicians, Wellington often sees aircraft visiting from other countries – bringing their politicians for meetings with ours. This leads to some unique aircraft passing through. There are also a fair few aircraft that drop by for reasons unknown. I’m not sure that all the following examples are unique visits, but I personally have certainly never seen any of them pay a return visit since I saw them in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

First up a C-141 Starlifter of the US Air Force on 17 October 1995. Normally visiting military aircraft would be parked outside the RNZAF hangar, but I suspect the Starlifter was just too large. Here 40616 from McGuire AFB rests alongside the international terminal.

Sometimes the large military aircraft get parked even further away. In mid 1989, a Fuerza Aerea de Chile B707 serialled ’902′ was parked down by the old Air New Zealand maintenance hangar. Note the temporary fencing erected with “Quarantine Area KEEP OUT” on the sign. Perhaps a shipment of llamas?

Back over on the RNZAF Air Movements side of the airport on 21 January 1995 a French Air Force C-160 Transall is seen overnighting. This aircraft was marked 61-ZE. We sometimes see CN-235′s from the French Pacific Squadrons visiting, but this is the only time I have ever seen a Transall.

Not a military aircraft, but an Australian CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) Fokker F28 Fellowship paid us a visit. Seen on 2 April 1995, VH-ATD is parked on the civil side of the airport. Interesting is the painted ground marking ‘F28′ and a large arrow pointing toward the aircraft’s parking spot – I wonder if they were assigned that parking spot on purpose!

A business jet visitor was Falcon 900 N42FJ, seen here on approach in mid 1989.

We also hosted another example VH-PDJ on 2 January 1988.

Not many four engined airliners drop into Wellington owing to it’s size, but this classic would have had no trouble. A bit smaller than most four engined visitors, De Havilland Heron VH-KAM is seen here in 1992, parked in the same area as the Chilean B707. I believe that this aircraft was leased to Wellington’s Vincent Aviation at one stage.

Wellington also has a deep water shipping port, so we sometimes get interesting visitors traveling on the back of ships. In this case on the back of the Russian antarctic research ship Akademik Fedorov. Here a Russian Mil 8T is seen when the ship stopped in Wellington on the way down to Antarctica. CCCP-24468 is seen here in January 1988.

Also on the back of a ship was this Canadian Sea King 12424. The ship was HMCS Vancouver, a Halifax-class frigate (FFH 331). It was docked downtown and opened to the public on 9 July 1995.

In more recent times I have seen a Mexican registered Gulfstream, a Fuerza Aerea de Chile B737, A Polish Government Tu-154 and a Saudi Government B737. Wellington continues to receive all sorts of unique visitors that make for an interesting change from the usual local traffic.

Not long after the Falklands Conflict, the Royal Navy went on a flag waving tour of countries that had helped them out in the war. When the HMS Invincible docked in Wellington Harbour I took the opportunity to go onboard and have a look around – to the best of my knowledge, this was around late 1983. Wellington turned on some great summer weather for photography, but I only had a little point and click camera back then, so unfortunately the photos aren’t great.

This is the view of the flight deck from the ski jump at the front. On display were 4 Sea Kings and 2 Sea Harriers, plus various vehicles and weapons.

The Sea Kings are big helicopters – by far the largest helicopters that I had come across in New Zealand at that time.

Here’s another look at the row of Sea Kings on display, including some of their weaponry.

The big drawcard for most people were the Sea Harriers. Here the two aircraft are seen parked at the rear of the flight deck. Note the dual Sidewinder rails mounted on the front aircraft, which was a Falklands Conflict modification, and the display of weapons on the deck in front of it – a couple of different types of bombs, plus one of the cannons with its ammunition.

The second Sea Harrier was perched right back in the corner of the flight deck.

Not long after the Wellington visit we had the opportunity to see a Sea Harrier in action at an open day at Ohakea. They put on a brief, and noisy, display for a fairly large crowd.

Here the aircraft passes by a line of our Skyhawks.

We were told that the aircraft couldn’t do a vertical take-off from the tarmac as it would damage the surface, so the aircraft was sent off to operate from the grass. It may not have damaged the tarmac, but it looked like the grass may have suffered a bit!

Unfortunately the camera didn’t have any form of zoom so these shots are rather small – here the Sea Harrier is pulling up into a steep climb from the hover.

There was a brief display by some RNZAF aircraft afterwards and then the long drive home.

In 1984 our family was taking a Christmas holiday in Hamilton. At some stage on Christmas day all the guys decided to take a trip to Hamilton Airport to have a look around – yep, Christmas day and we were out looking at aeroplanes… perhaps we were trying to get out of doing the dishes after Christmas lunch!

There was the usual smattering of Fletchers and Cessnas but parked up in a corner out the back we came across these impressively large aircraft.

ZK-NWA and ZK-NWB had just undergone a complete refurbishment for sale to an American concern called Hawaii Pacific Air. They had originally arrived in New Zealand in September 1978 for Nationwide Air who were to operate them as car and freight carriers across Cook Strait. To the best of my knowledge the operation only lasted a matter of months and then they were parked up at Nelson awaiting a buyer. They were eventually ferried to Hamilton for the refurbishment and this is where we came across them.

We took our time and looked over these two giants for a while. No matter which way you looked at them they were impressive, but head-on perhaps more so.

They certainly dwarfed all the other aircraft around and you can get a sense of scale from some of us walking under the aircraft, but also from the Fletcher parked alongside.

Another angle, and one that also gives a good impression of their bulk is this one, which features a young ‘ZK-ARJ’ walking around the front of the aircraft.

As far as I can ascertain both the aircraft left the country soon after we saw them. ZK-NWA became N5459X and ZK-NWA became N5459M, both with Hawaii Pacific Air. Both aircraft went through a series of operators before ending their flying days. ZK-NWA crashed on an airstrip in Alaska in May 2007 and ZK-NWB was last noted as derelict and awaiting the wrecker in Kinshasa, the capital of the Republic of Congo.

On the 18th of July in 1986 I travelled south from Wellington to Queenstown for a week of skiing and relaxing. This was the first time I had flown into Queenstown and was my first flight in the HS748.

The flight in Mt Cook Airlines HS748 ZK-MCF was one of spectacular views and unique flying. Spectacular in that we were afforded some stunning views of snowy mountains such as this view, looking past the Rolls Royce Dart turboprop.

And unique, in my experience, as we flew down the valleys and stayed right amongst the scenery, as opposed to normal airline travel where you pass high above such obstacles.

In those days a cockpit visit was usually possible simply by asking a passing hostess. I visited the cockpit for around 10 minutes and captured this memorable view of some decent sized mountains dead ahead. Shortly after I returned to my seat we executed a fairly sharp left turn down the next valley as we descended towards Mt Cook Airport.

Part of the unique experiences I refer to was landing at Mt Cook on the way to Queenstown. Unique in that as a passenger you had no idea that you were anywhere near an airfield. We had been flying down snow covered valleys for some time. Looking out the window you could see that we were well below the peaks, but it was difficult to judge how high above the snow we were. I was looking out at one stage and realised that I could see animal tracks in the snow, so I knew we must be low. Shortly afterwards there was a gentle bump and we touched down at The Hermitage.

Getting out of the aircraft to stretch our legs we were advised by the crew to tread carefully as much of the tarmac was covered by ice and was very slippery. Just after I took this pic one of the passengers slipped and fell on the icy tarmac. The real star of this image though is the Mt Cook Lily that was carried on the fins of the Mt Cook Airlines fleet.

Also present at Mount Cook when we passed through were a couple of ski-equipped Pilatus Turbo Porters – operated by  the Mount Cook Line. ZK-MCK and ZK-MCT were parked up and awaiting customers. ‘MCT wore the full Mount Cook Line livery, while ‘MCK just had a small decal on the fin and Mount Cook Line titles. You can still see the Swiss White cross of the previous operator on the red tail band on ‘MCK.

After a week skiing on the various fields around Queenstown it was time to leave. I went heli-skiing when I was there too, but didn’t trust myself not to drop my camera on some of the difficult back-country runs we did, so I didn’t get any pics of that. The trips in the Alpine helicopters Jetranger were awesome fun though. Some of the departures from the tiny peaks we visited had to be experienced to be believed – it felt like at times the Jetranger was pretty much ‘falling’ off the peak and into the valleys!

It had rained very heavily on the 25th, the morning of our departure, and there was a lot of standing water on the runway. I sat in the terminal and watched an earlier Mount Cook 748 flight repeatedly run up and down the runway trying to get off, but failing. After a few failed attempts it returned to the terminal but was able to successfully get off the ground on another attempt a little later. In the meantime our aircraft ZK-MCP ‘Tutoko’ was getting loaded up.

Those are my skis in the red and white bag on top!

We got airborne without any trouble, but were advised by the crew that owing to the bad weather and poor visibility we would be spiralling up through the weather while staying over Queenstown Airport. That led to the bumpiest flying I have ever experienced.

On arrival back in Christchurch I had a bit of a treat in store. My Air New Zealand 737 had been replaced by a near empty example of one of Air New Zealand’s brand new Boeing 767s. ZK-NBB was the second 767 to enter service and had only been delivered a few months earlier on March 6th 1986. We got on board and were told to sit wherever we wanted as there were so many empty seats.

As we pushed back in the fading light I snapped one of the short-lived De Havilland Canada Dash-7s of Newmans Air parked next to us, ZK-NEW. That was the one and only time I saw one as they were replaced not long after by Dash 8s.

My apologies for the poor quality of some of the images in this post. They are all from 35mm slides and I am still getting to grips with the slide scanning functions of my scanner. There are plenty more interesting slides to scan though…

When the RNZAF retired their Devons several popped up on the civil register. They made for a good looking executive transport and they were soon to be seen at various airfields around the country. Some are still operating today and are fairly regular visitors to airshows around the country.

I was initially unsure whether they should be referred to as Devons or Doves once they went on to the civil register. While doing some checking into this an interesting fact emerged – they were in fact built as Doves, but the RNZAF chose to refer to them as Devons. All but one of the Doves on the civil register in New Zealand are ex-RNZAF and so are correctly referred to as Dove 1bs, the exception being ZK-DHW which is a Dove 8 imported from Australia (ex VH-DHQ).

Way back in January 1987, at an airshow in Wanganui, I first saw ZK-RNG (ex NZ1807) in this very smart scheme.

A closer look showed an acknowledgement of the aircraft’s heritage.

Around a year later, in March 1988, ZK-KTT (ex NZ1808) showed up at an airshow held at Dairy Flat. Again in a very smart civilian scheme.

Dove ’08 then started appearing at almost all the airshows I visited. Initially in an RNZAF colour scheme with mid-blue stripe and New Zealand Warbirds titles. Seen here at Wanganui in February 1989. The Warbirds Dove was initially ZK-KTT, in 1996 it changed to ZK-CBK, then in 2002 it changed back to ZK-KTT.

On a family holiday to to the South Island in January 1986 I came across INST214 sitting on the grass at Nelson Airport. I don’t know whether this aircraft ended up being active on the civil register at all?

On a visit to Ardmore in September 2000 I came across ’08 again, but this time wearing it’s registration ZK-CBK. The scheme had also changed to a dark blue stripe and markings.

ZK-UDO was a regular at Airshows around the country until it’s demise at Ohakea in February 2006. Seen here during an airshow at Masterton in January 2003.

I also have this image of ZK-UDO in an earlier life. I have a gap in my records for this photo, but it appears to have been taken at Auckland International and has ‘EXECUTIVE AIR TAXI’ titles on the fuselage. I don’t know anything else about it – who owned/operated it, or when it was.

And here’s the exception referred to earlier. The only non-ex-RNZAF Dove on the civil register – Dove 8, ZK-DHW, parked at North Shore. Seen while on a family holiday in January 2007. I believe this aircraft was purchased to replace ZK-UDO.

And just to finish up. Here are NZ1807 and NZ1808, which became ZK-RNG and ZK-KTT/CBK respectively, retired from active service and parked on the grass at RNZAF Base Woodbourne in January 1984.

The RNZAF also still have several immaculate Devons in use for training at Woodbourne, so we may still see more examples coming onto the civil register in the future.

Today we still have ZK-DAK (NZ Warbirds), ZK-AMY (Southern DC3) and a few restaurants around, but it’s not that long ago that DC-3s were still earning their keep as working aircraft around the country.

I was looking through some of my old photos the other day for a research project and I came across this image.

Taken in 1987, it shows three DC-3s at Wellington International Airport, ZK-AWP, ZK-BBJ and ZK-AMR. At the time they were running freight services with Fieldair Freight. ZK-AMR also carries ‘Speedlink Parcels’ titles indicating that the operation was in conjunction with what was then called New Zealand Railways. They weren’t alone in the antiques department at the time either. Alongside them Safe Air Freight were still operating the Argosy, having not long since retired the last of their Bristol Freighters.

A close up of ZK-AWP shows how you get up into the cockpit when the back is full of parcels.

Seen again on 8 November 1987 ZK-AMR seemed to have had a bit of an incident – note the turned up wingtip!

At around the same time ZK-DAK was brought into the country by NZ Warbirds. On 15 November 1987 I captured ZK-DAK at Masterton in the process of being stripped down in preparation for the D-Day scheme that was worn for the next 20 years or so. I had first seen ZK-DAK in this yellow/blue scheme when it visited the Christchurch International 50th Anniversary Airshow in March of 1987. As far as I know that was ZK-DAK’s first airshow appearance since arriving in New Zealand.

Fast forward a few years and ZK-AWP was being operated by Classic Air when seen here on a visit to Paraparaumu airfield on the 4th of February 1995. The occasion was an airshow at Paraparaumu that weekend.

These days you’ll still see ZK-DAK at any major airshow around the country – sporting her new pseudo RNZAF scheme.

Kiwi aviators that is. I’ve been photographing, or ‘shooting’, Kiwi aviation in its many forms for over 25 years.

More recently, I’ve been following the blogs of other Kiwis who follow, and photograph, aviation – blogs such as Rodney’s Aviation Ramblings and zkarj and this has inspired me to create my own. I went through countless potential names before I settled on one that I thought was apt – ZKNZ. I photograph both civil and military aircraft equally so there is a nice symmetry of the ‘ZK’ for civil and ‘NZ’ for the military.

l intend covering current stuff and I get to as many airshows as I can, but I’m also intending to trawl through my older material – there may be some stuff there that people find interesting too.

To start with, the pic in my masthead is a cropped down version of the following image. NZ1057/ZK-TVI was performing at the RNZAF Ohakea open day on the 16th of March 2008 when I snapped it. I like the colour of the aircraft in this shot, the way it is lit and the clear blue sky. And while I will try and post images that are technically good – sharp, well exposed etc, I will also post images just because I like them. 

I hope that other people will enjoy what I have to share.