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VH-100
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A century since the Australian Civil Aircraft Register made the move from G-AU to VH
THIS YEAR marks a significant milestone in the history of the Australian Civil Aircraft Register as it is 100 years since VH started appearing on Australian registered aircraft. Prior to that, Australian aircraft came under the authorisation of Britain, which had been allocated G- for their aircraft. Commonwealth countries were then issued with a third and/ or fourth digit with England using G-E, Canada G-CA, New Zealand G-NZ and Australia G-AU. When Australia was allocated VH- in 1921, existing aircraft simply replaced the G-A with VH- so G-AUAA became VH-UAA and so on. New aircraft were issued with new registrations in the VHseries starting with VH-AAA and continued for some time being allocated in strict chronological order. Certain registrations were banned such as VH-BUM and VHSEX for obvious reasons and VHILS and VH-DME as they could cause confusion with navigation aids on flight plans. The complete VH-Q block was not used due to possible confusion with the “Q” code, which was being used at the time in radio communications whereby for example QRK meant “in contact with”, and some of A century since the Australian Civil Aircraft Register made the move from G-AU to VH these codes are still in use today such as QNH and QFE. VH-G was originally reserved for gliders and VH-H, VH-J, VH-L, VH-N, VH-V, VH-X, VH-Y and VH-Z were all reserved for military aircraft but were later released for civil use, as were the inappropriate markings and others that were previously banned. Registrations continued in chronological order until airlines wanted blocks of marking for their aircraft such as VH-CZ for the Ansett DC-9 fleet and out-of-sequence registrations for personal use later became the norm. Incidentally, there have been several theories about why Australia was issued with VH-, all of which are untrue. These letters were completely arbitrary and fell into line with other commonwealth countries being issued with marking in the “V” range such as Fiji with VQ- (later changed to DQ-) and many African countries using VP-.
Only one new aircraft type can be found in the New Allocations this issue, but several new subtypes are shown. Krishna Parikh’s Silence Twister XYN is the first of its type on the local register and is a single-seat, low-wing monoplane with either a retractable or fixed tailwheel undercarriage. The electronically retractable main wheels, complete with hydraulic brakes, retract into wells that are half in the fuselage and half in the wing underside and are then partially covered by doors attached to the undercarriage legs. A fail-safe system is built into the aircraft in the event of a complete electrical failure. Designed in Germany by Silence Aircraft for the amateur builder, and reported to be inspired, ironically, by the Spitfire, it first flew on 30 September 2000 and can be built from plans or a kit. The cockpit is a monocoque structure with the central wing spar, the landing gear attachments and the seat belt mounts directly connected to the structure. The prototype was fitted with a 40kW, single rotor Wankel engine but the recommended engines are now the 63kW Jabiru 2200 or the 71kW ULPower UL260i. The Twister prototype was fitted with Silence’s own designed automatic variable pitch propeller called the “VProp” but most aircraft are now fitted with a standard fixed-pitch unit. The aircraft can be fitted with a ballistic recovery parachute and the manufacturer is quoting a 110- knot cruise speed, a range of 1,300 kilometres and g limits of +6/-4.
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By far the most interesting aircraft added to the register this issue is Aerial Speed Icons’ Spitfire IUK which joins a CAC Mustang, a North American Texan and an Extra EA300 in the Aerial Speed Icons fleet. It is the second LF Mk IXe to be locally registered the first being IXT, which arrived from the UK via South Africa during December 2004 and returned to the UK in March 2013. There are presently 12 Spitfires registered in Australia and a further two in New Zealand but not all are flying, in fact some, far from it.
IUK was built at the Castle Bromwich factory and began life with the RAF as PL344 but was badly damaged in a gear-up landing at Eindhoven, Netherlands, on 4 May 1946. It was deemed uneconomical to repair by the RAF and then donated to the Royal Netherland Air Force School of Technical Training at Deelen to be used as an instructional airframe. Harry van der Meer collected some surviving parts during the 1980s and Charles Church of Andover, UK, added to those between 1985 and 1988. Church then built a new fuselage and wings and added the recovered parts to build a “new” aircraft, which became G-IXCC and had it first post-restoration flight on 11 March 1991. The following year well know warbird collector Kermit Weeks of Tamiami, Florida, obtained the aircraft and it was ferried from the Netherlands to the UK where additional work was done to bring it further up to original standards. First flight after those changes was on 17 October 2000, shortly after which it was obtained by Tom Blair of Bartow, Florida. The aircraft was then crated and shipped to the US with its first flight in the US on 18 January 2002. It was registered N644TB but painted as PL344 with a squadron code of Y2-P, which was later changed to TL-B.
Next was the second of many cross Atlantic moves back to the UK for overhaul and modifications where it became G-IXCC again on 15 January 2008. Two years later it was back in the US as N644TB and with Tom Blair’s company Spitfire USA at Easton, Maryland. Shaun Browne of Sydney obtained the Spitfire during 2019 and it again returned to the UK, and G-IXCC before being shipped to Australia. It was struck off the UK register on 9 September last year and took up the very appropriate IUK on 14 September this year.
With the upsurge in domestic airline activity within Australia and likelihood of the overseas market opening soon, Virgin Australia Airlines continue to expand their fleet with four more Boeing 737s added this issue. IWQ has been obtained from Silk Air where it has been operating as 9V-MGI since June 1015 and YQG and YQH are back in the Virgin fleet after being returned to their leasing company in August last year. Originally YFG and YFI, they became 2-VYFG and 2-VYFI with the Aviation Capital Group of Newport Beach, California, and were stored at Phoenix Goodyear, Arizona, until ferried back to Australia earlier this year. VUI became N341CG with the Aviation Capital Group but, unlike YFG and YFI, it has returned to the register as its original registration and is therefore shown in the “Restored to Register” listing.
Also returning to the register are Gippsland Airvan LHV and Nauru Air Boeing 737 YNU. The Airvan was exported to Fiji on 2 June but with it only being off the local register for just over one month it seem likely that it was not delivered especially as no Fijian registration can be found for this aircraft. The Boeing 737 returns after being converted to a freighter by Aeronautical Engineers Inc (AEI) at the Commercial Jet facility at Miami. Nauru Air plan to have another of its Boeing 737s converted to a freighter in the near future leaving only three passenger 737s in its fleet along with three freighters.
Twenty-nine exports are shown in the Deletions section this issue with the country of choice being America. Unfortunately the actual owners of several of these aircraft are hidden behind trust companies with Beech 400 EIG now N406XP, and Beaver NTZ now N2415Z, shown as TVPX Aircraft Solutions of North Salt Lake, Utah, and SAAB 340 EIJ/N458CL and Beech Baron PWP/N58NZ with Bank of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. Three Bombardier Global Express’ are now in the US, LBU is now N48WG with Global Express 9148 LLC at Wilmington, Delaware, while LZP has been returned to the manufacturer Bombardier Aerospace Corporation at Dallas, Texas, and is flying as N907GX. The third Global Express is XGQ, which is now marked as N633AD and is registered to another trust company at Willmington, Delaware. Pacific Fleet Aviation at Rochester, New York, have acquired two Australian Piper Aztecs, RJR and YUA and these are now flying in the US as N619BL and N464PD, respectively.
Virgin Australia’s Boeing 737s VOT and VOY are now registered in Guernsey as 2-VVOT and 2-VVOY with leasing company Jin Shan 29 Ireland, while ATR-72 FVZ is 2-BKJS with Commuter Aircraft Leasing 2617. While the two 737s may return to Australia as Virgin continue to expand their 737 fleet, the ATR-72 will not as the airline has already indicated that it will not continue with the ATR-72 on its domestic route network. Richard Feeney has taken his recently acquired Schleicher ASK 21 glider NQI to the UK where it is now marked as G-CMBN and is based at Bournemouth in Dorset.
Only two aircraft are listed as having been involved in accidents this issue, Cessna 150 AFZ and Osprey WID. AFZ came to grief just north-west of Warnervale, NSW, with the aircraft sustaining substantial damage but the two occupants only minor injuries. The amateur-built Osprey was conducting a series of test flights in order to obtain a special certificate of airworthiness when the pilot reported a rough-running engine and that he was returning to the airfield. Unfortunately, the engine appeared to cut out altogether while on approach and the aircraft dove to the ground and was destroyed on impact with the pilot not surviving.
Quite a long list of aircraft changing owners in this issue with quite a few China Southern Western Australian Flying College Grob G-115s listed towards the end. There remains only eight Grobs still showing on the register to China Southern after the recent auction and only a single BRM Aero Bristell, VHYEQ, with Soar Aviation.
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