Fire Sale

The PC-9s are now being replaced by 49 PC-21s and the first batch of 18 surplus aircraft were auctioned at Avalon during March last year with most going to the US, although some went to South Africa and a few to Germany. Six are reportedly staying in Australia for museums and a further eight were sold at auction in March this year, including A23-057/ YMK. The aircraft was delivered to the RAAF at Pearce, WA, for 2FTS and was originally in the orange and white standard training colour scheme but by March 1996 was being used by the Roulettes aerobatic team based at East Sale and painted in the red, white and blue colours of the Roulettes. It was used in the display team at the Red Bull Air Race in Perth during 2008 and again over the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercars race in Adelaide the following year. The aircraft was sold to Arthur Pipe and Steel Australia at Albury in March with 8,104 airframe hours, 7,809 engine hours 5,155 engine starts and 15,731 landings recorded. 

Business Aviation Solutions’ Gulfstream SGA is the first ER (Extended Range) G650 model on the local register following standard G650s LUY and LAL. The G650 was launched during March 2008 and at the time it was Gulstream’s largest, fastest and most expensive business jet. In May 2014, Gulfstream announced it had developed a G650ER capable for flying 7,500 nautical miles at Mach .85 with an increase in fuel capacity of 1,814 kilograms housed in extra wing tanks. The G650ER is powered by two Rolls-Royce BR725 engines each providing 17,000 poundsforce thrust and has a rather unconventional, flat-bottomed oval fuselage cross-section seating between 11 and 18 passengers. The cost of a new G650ER is a cool US$70.5 million. 

The second new sub-type in this issue’s listing is JS Investments’ Maule MX-7-180A Sportplane LHY, although there are three of the type flying in New Zealand. Belford Maule designed his first aircraft, the M1, at the age of 19 and founded several engineering companies before starting aircraft production in 1957. Always a family run business, Maule’s widow, June, continued to be directly involved with factory production after Maule died in 1995 right up to her own demise in 2009 at the age of 92. Maule aircraft have always been single engine, high wing, strut braced configuration of steel tube and fabric construction and remain one of only a few aircraft manufacturers still using this technique. The design provides a very strong, rugged and easy to repair aircraft that has proven popular in the outback areas of the US and Canada. The original M4 design was developed through the M5, M6 and M7 range with the latest being the M9 Diesel powered machine. The M7 has a longer fuselage than its predecessors the M5 and M6 with two front seats, a bench rear seat for up to three passengers and an optional “kids” seat in the rear. An extra cabin window can be fitted if the “kids” seat is to be used. The MX-7 uses the same fuselage as the M6 but with the M5 wingspan and incorporates larger fuel tanks and five-position flaps. Finally, the 180A denotes that it is fitted with a 180hp Lycoming O-360 engine. 

During the drastic downsizing of the Virgin Australia fleet in September last year, Boeing 737 VUR was returned to Shenton Aircraft Leasing of Dublin, Ireland, registered in Guernsey as 2-HVUR and was the first aircraft to be put into storage at Wellcamp, Queensland, on the 23rd of that month. Now that the domestic airline industry is gradually getting back on its feet and Virgin is again increasing its fleet, 2-HVUR departed storage during April and flew to Seletar via Darwin and Changi for maintenance before re-joining the Virgin fleet and becomes the only Aircraft Returning to the Register in this issue. 

Fifty-four aircraft are listed in the Deletions section this issue with almost half of these remaining in Australian skies having been transferred to the RA-Aus register, mostly the ex-Soar Aviation machines, or re-registered with these listed in the New Allocation section under their new markings. Twenty-three have been exported with the most popular destinations being New Zealand and the Philippines with others ending up in the US, China, Canada, Germany, Korea, Vanuatu, PNG, France, Austria and Bermuda. Bell JetRanger FCD, Schleicher glider GTF and Cirrus SR22 PGU are now resident in New Zealand with the Cirrus marked as ZK-PGU with BB Aviation at Feilding. SAAB 340s BQZ and EPU have gone to the US after only a very short time on the local register and are now registered N399CL and N355CL respectively with C and L Aerospace. At the time of writing both aircraft were stored at Bangor, Maine, in the US, awaiting sale. Qantas Boeing 747 OEJ is listed as being withdrawn from use and is the last 747 to be withdrawn from the Qantas fleet. It did several “Farewell 747” flights around Australia during July last year before flying from Sydney to Victorville via Los Angeles on the 22nd of that month for storage and eventual scrapping. 

Alliance Fokker F100 VKN has been in storage at Alice Springs since April last year but was moved to Brisbane on 26 February to be used for spare parts recovery. Airbus A320 VNK is now in Austria with Avalon Aerospace as OE-IMY, while also now registered in Austria is A330 XFH, which is OE-IMZ and presently stored at Teruel, Spain, awaiting delivery to its new owner. Boeing 777 VOZ is now registered in Bermuda as VQ-BTK but was delivered from Singapore to Istanbul and onwards to Moscow on 16 June to join the Azur Air fleet. Although based in Moscow, the large majority of the Azur Air fleet of Boeing 737, 757, 767 and 777 aircraft are registered in Bermuda. Virgin Australia ATR-72s VPI and VPJ have been in storage at Exeter, UK, since May but VPJ has now been registered in Guernsey as 2-KCBA, indicating that at least one will be on the move shortly. The last of the airliners to be listed as exported is Airbus A320 XUG, which has been stored at Alice Springs since March last year but is now in Indonesia flying as PK-SAT. 

The only aircraft show as being deleted due to accident damage is Robinson R22 LNC, which seems to have been written off at Caloundra, Queensland, on 22 December 2011 but has only just been cancelled from the register. While a student was learning to hover the helicopter it struck the ground and before the instructor could take control the helicopter rolled onto its side and was substantially damaged. 

In the Change of Owner or Operator section, most of the CASA registered fleet of Soar Aviation are listed with new owners after the complete fleet of 44 CASA registered and 12 RA-Aus registered aircraft were auctioned in March after the company went into liquidation last year. Only seven aircraft remain listed under Soar Aviation and these are all expected to be shown under their new ownership change in the next issue. Similarly, the entire fleet of the China Southern WA Flying College went under the hammer during May after it went into liquidation in February last year. China Southern had 38 Grob 115s, many of which are listed in this issue as changing hands with no doubt more being shown in the next issue.