Civil Register Update

Optica BMC has been in Australia for some years and was shown at the 1988 Richmond Air Show. It has been stored since then while its manufacturing company in England went through several bankruptcies and revivals. It was to have been regis. tered OPT but during its storage period these markings were allocated to a Seabird Seeker so the Optica has become BMC. Tiger Moth EIE, CJ-6 (Yak-18) NNC and MiG-15 NZM have all been painstakingly rebuilt to flying standard with the MIG, unfortunately, destined for export to New Zealand to fly as ZK-MIG.

John Poynton’s Harvard, JHP, is one of the most interesting aircraft to appear in these pages for a long while. The AT-16 was built by Noorduyn at Montreal, Quebec for the USAAC. It saw service with the Royal Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force before being sold to the Royal Swedish Air Force in 1946, On retirement it was donated to the Royal Swedish Air Force Museum where it remained in storage until 1981. At that time the Museum was looking for a Wirraway to graft to a Canadian NA-64 Yale to produce a Saab SK 14, a unique Swedish version of the Harvard. Pearce Dunn, Director of the Warbirds Aviation Museum at Mildura had the remains of a Wirraway and agreed to let the Swedish Museum have it in exchange for the Canadian built AT-16 Harvard. The AT-16 was stored at Mildura until 1993 when Rob Poynton bought it on behalf of his brother John and transported it by road to Perth WA in preparation to it being restored to flying condition

The eight aircraft that have returned to the register are a mixture of old and new machines. The oldest, Tiger Moth BOJ, was first registered during March 1952 after seeing service with the RAAF. It was acquired by the Royal Victorian Aero Club during 1955 and was reregistered RVK in sequence with the other aircraft of the Club. It was withdrawn from use on April 11 1956 and did not fly again until 1993. Cessna Aghusky WBU returns after only six months off the register while Tobago JTO and Archers TVV and BLF have all been repaired after accident damage. JTO and BLF were reported damaged during January 1992 and February 1992 respectively whilst TVV suffered storm damage at Griffith NSW on October 2 1981.

Two aircraft with New Zealand connections are Helicopter Resources Squirrel NLR, which has returned after its second term with Rural Aviation of Auckland, and Cessna 180 Skywagon CDW. The Skywagon was originally delivered new to Airspread of Tauranga, NZ during 1953. It suffered an undercarriage collapse after a heavy landing at Waitawheta on August 16 1962 and was shortly afterwards sold to Superspread Aviation who brought it to Australia and registered it SSQ on February 12 1963. Its registration was changed to CDW on January 25 1967 and it was again damaged on March 3 1976 at Rockhampton Qld. The sturdy old timer has been repaired once more and is now active in the upper Hunter Valley area of NSW.

A new record is set in the Deletions section this month with almost 30% being made up of aircraft that have been exported to New Zealand. These 16 aircraft bring the total number that have crossed the Tasman during the last 18 months to 85, representing a large slice of Kiwi aviation. Most types have been represented in this exodus, from the Cessna 150 and Pitts Special to the DC-3 and Nomad, with the large majority being single engine Cessna models. The most popular type has been the Cessna 172 with 12 units, the Cessna 206 with eight, the Cessna 182 with seven and the Cessna 180/185 series with six aircraft departing Australia for New Zealand. Three Maules are also included in this total although one, LJA, lasted less that one month before crashing in the Cascade Valley on 5 Oct last year.

The biggest loss to the Australian aviation scene is Lodestar XUS which ferried Brisbane/Norfolk/Auckland on November 19 on delivery to Gerald Rhodes of Christchurch. The Lodestar joins Mr Rhodes collection of historic aircraft and military vehicles at Wanaka aerodrome, the home of the New Zealand Fighter Pilots’ Museum. Mr Rhodes’ other aircraft are reportedly an Airtourer, Percival Prentice, Auster, DH Devon, Flying Flea and Canberra and share hangar space with a Centurion tank and a World War I fire engine and ambulance amongst other pieces of historic machinery.

Four aircraft whose demise have been very well publicised are Dove DHD, Lancair HTD, Quickie OIO and Cessna 210 SIK. The passengers and crew on board the Dove were fortunate to escape serious injury when the aircraft lost power soon after takeoff from Essendon and crashed onto houses. HTD was the first Lancair to be built in Australia and was well known around southern Queensland and Northern NSW airshows, unfortunately its crash at Coffs Harbour claimed two lives. The pilot of Cessna 210 SIK died when the aircraft crashed near Oakdale whilst on an evening freight run between Canberra and Bankstown and a father and son flight crew lost their lives when Quickie Q200 OIO ran into the side of a hill near Maleny Qld in bad weather on a flight from Victoria to the Sunshine Coast.

Qantas aircraft figure prominently in the Changes of Owner/ Operator section this issue with the whole of the Australian Airlines fleet being transferred to Qantas on the December 8/9. Two other Qantas aircraft shown are Boeing 747s EBA and EBB which have been sold to American interests but at this stage will retain their Australian registrations. The two elderly 747s departed Australia some time ago and were sighted at the Marana aircraft park in the US during October last year painted all white, awaiting a new owner.

Three other aircraft, Piper Tomahawk CFR, Cessna Skywagon FRL and Beech Duke KEL, have been acquired by overseas interests and therefore can be expected to be found in the deletions section in future issues. CFR and FRL have gone to New Zealand owners while KEL has joined the growing list of aircraft recently exported to Malaysia. Meanwhile Cessna 421 Golden Eagle TWH, which was transferred to a Californian owner as long ago as May 1993, was not exported and now joins the Heli-Muster fleet at Bankstown. Piper Seneca AOQ, although owned by Andrew Bullard, will be operated by Gunnedah Airways in conjunction with Country Capital Flight Centre on executive charter work out of Tamworth.

More of the continuing saga of DH114 Heron NJP has come to light. Heron Airlines, the owners of NJP has confirmed that the manufacturers data plate on the aircraft clearly shows it as construction number 14072 and therefore Royal Navy serial XR445. The confusion seems to have arisen when this aircraft was officially registered in Britain as G-ORSJ on April 20 1990 with construction number 14092. When the machine was found to be in fact 14072 the markings were quickly changed to G-ODLG. Conversely the original G-ODLG became G-ORSJ and the fuselage now resides on the fire dump at Booker, UK, stripped of all useful parts including its data plate. The spares from this aircraft are also in Australia, hopefully to keep NJP flying for many years to come.

There are still some stocks left of the 1993/94 Australian Aviation Civil Aircraft Register so be sure to order your copy today. This issue has been expanded to include ultralights and powered hang gliders (trikes) but even with the increase in the number of pages we have been able to maintain the same price as the previous edition. This is the only publication available that lists registration, type, construction number and owner/operator’s name and address in an easy to read tabulated format. Nearly 10,000 aircraft are listed including those registered with the Civil Aviation Authority, the Australian Ultralight Federation and the Hang Gliding Federation of Australia. The register is only available from AustAirData, PO Box 1142, Toombul, Qld 4012 (phone 074 98 3757) at a cost of $10. 95 including postage within Australia (add 50% for overseas air mail). Details are also available on IBM compatible computer disk in dbase IV or ASCII format at a cost of $50. 00 and credit card facilities are now available.