Register review

Warren has been building his Whiskey for eight years and it is now almost ready to fly. The Whiskey is almost Pilatus PC-9-looking when in the air and although Warren has built his from scratch, the type is also available in kit form or factory built, ready to fly, from Asso Aircraft in Italy.

The Whiskey is the sixth home-built aircraft to be constructed by the Canning family with the most famous being his father Clive’s Thorp T-18 Tiger VH-CMC. Clive left Melbourne in June 1976 to fly solo to the UK, in the process capturing several world records. His plan was to sell the aircraft in England, but after visiting several local air shows, he decided to fly it home and became the first Australian to fly around the world, solo, in a home-built aircraft. It was a feat tht won him the prestigious 1976 Oswald Watt Medal from The Royal Federation of Aero Clubs of Australia – a medal previously presented to such pioneers as Hinkler, Kingsford-Smith, Ansett, Edgar Percival, Hudson Fysh and PG Taylor.

Meanwhile, Russ Carrington’s Cicare CH-7B Angel is a kit-built single seat helicopter based on a late 1980s design developed from a 1961 prototype. Argentinian Augusto Cicare’s first design was a single-seat, single-engine helicopter using a steel tube open frame that first flew in 1961. It had twin counter-rotating main rotors that dispensed with the need for a tail rotor. Cicare also designed and built the engine that powered the CH-1. The CH-2 was a more conventional design with a single main rotor and a two seat partially enclosed cockpit. Next came the CH-3 Colibri, powered by a modified car engine which drove a rigid-hubbed four bladed main rotor.

Ever the innovator, Cicare’s next design was a single-seat, completely open ultra-light helicopter powered by a two-stroke, horizontally opposed two-cylinder engine using motorcycle parts. The Argentine Government then asked Cicare to design a helicopter specifically for its air force to be used principally for fumigation tasks. The result was the CH-6AG, a lightweight but robust machine powered by a Lycoming engine and with a steel frame and composite rotor blades and cabin. The CH-6 followed, which became the forerunner of the CH-7 that is presently in production.
Cicare saw the need for an ultra-light, amateur-built single-seat helicopter that was both easy to build, cheap and fun to fly. The CH-6 used a steel tube frame, composite blades and cockpit with a Rotax engine. The helicopter displayed such good handling characteristics that the basic design was developed into the CH-7 Angel with minor improvements such as dual ignition, a stronger airframe and landing skids and the cabin designed by prestigious car designer Marcelo Gandini.

There have been two original CH-7 Angels in Australia and three CH-7 Kompress’s with a longer cabin to accommodate two side-by-side seats. Russ Carrington’s CLK is the seventh CH-7B Spirit model to come to Australia and is fitted with a four cylinder, four stroke, dual ignition, 100hp (75kw) Rotax 912S engine.

Seventeen aircraft are listed in the Deletions section this month with around one-third of these exported, one-third withdrawn from use or damaged and one-third being re-registered and still flying in Australia. Beech Duchess CGW crossed the Tasman to become ZK-CGW with the North Shore Aero Club at Albany. Also now in ‘Kiwiland’ is Aerospatiale Squirrel PCQ which is now marked as ZK-HQE and operated by Airwork (NZ). It joins three BK117s on charter operations around New Zealand. Virgin Australia Boeing 737 VOU is now in Korea where it flies as HL8287 while GippsAero Airvan EZS has gone to Sweden and Agusta A109 helicopter OCD is now in Brazil. Perth-built Eagle X-TS CLK is now flying in the US allowing CLK to be used for the fourth time on the Cicare noted above.

Vans RV-7A SET and Air Tractor AT-802 NIW have been destroyed in accidents with the Air Tractor hitting power lines while spraying 5km north of Mogumber, Western Australia. Luckily the pilot escaped from the aircraft with only minor injuries. The owner of the paddock to be sprayed detailed two strands of power lines to the pilot who then did a high level survey and identified another strand. Unfortunately the aircraft hit a fourth, undetected, strand and crashed to the ground.

Four aircraft have been withdrawn from use including Qantas Boeing 747 OJJ, which was ferried from Sydney to Marana, Arizona, for storage during March. The withdrawal of Cessna Conquest LBX and Navajo Chieftain TBJ highlights the ageing Australian third-level airline fleet with the Conquest having been built during the 1980s and the Chieftain even earlier in 1975.

Following up on some recent departures from our shores, GippsAero Airvan SZH, which was recently exported to Sweden, was to have become SE-MFX but actually became SE-MEO and is now flying with Ostgota Hopptjanst at Linkoping, while Cessna T206H Stationair DNU, which was shown in the April deletions, is now known to have become ZS-SYV with Elematic of Benoni-Brakpan, South Africa.

On the heavier side, Strategic Airlines A330 SSA was shown in the August 2012 deletions as exported to Switzerland after the collapse of Strategic. The aircraft was to become HB-IQR but ended up on the Isle of Man register as M-ABFL and has recently gone to Belgium where it now flies with Brussels Airlines as OO-SFU. Dash 8 AFF, which was only on the local register for six weeks after returning from PNG, went to Canada to become C-GBGC before moving to Chile where it was registered as CC-ADX. It is now back in Canada where it is has become C-GULN and is registered to World Wide Aircraft Ferrying of Toronto. BAe Jetstream HSW, which spent 15 years with Skywest Airlines between 1984 and 1999 before going back to the UK, is now in Estonia with Solmar at Tallinn and marked as ES-PJB. Also now in Western Europe is Kendell Airlines/Regional Express SAAB 340 KEQ. Since leaving Australia it has been converted to a freighter and worked in Slovenia and Bulgaria before recently becoming HA-TAF with Air Hungary at Budapest.