More Crew training

Dropping in to Tauranga on Monday on a wet and dull day was Fairchild SA-227 Metro ZK-POF operated by Airwork Flight Operations .It carried out a couple of miss approaches before landing and parking up for only 15 minutes before departing .

Recent visitors into Tauranga in May.

Here is a selection of visitors into Tauranga with some in for maintenance and pleasure during May.

ZK-EAK B.1900 landing from a scheduled service from Auckland.

ZK-EJO C.172 departs back to Te Awamutu 

ZK-EDF ThorpT-18 is based at Whenuapai.

ZK-JKL departs back to its base at Taihape.

Arriving from Whakatane was ZK-HDV of Frontier Helicopters

Departing back to Silverdale Airstrip was Paul Hoppers ZK-EZY Cli-mate 100

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ZK-STO Slepcev Storch

Departing Tauranga on the 20th May this week after maintenance acceptance from Solo Wings was this very strike looking Slepcev Storch U/L ZK-STO owned by Mr AP Robson and is to be based at the nearby airfield of Matamata in the Waikato district .It is painted in WWII North African campaign in the Axis Forces colour scheme of the Luftwaffe Afrika Corp.

Courtesy of Peter Mole , he captured the aircraft departing Tauranga on delivery to Matamata and thanks to the pilot for a dramatic steep-take-off.

ZK-STO Slepcev Storch U/L  c/n 157

New Tecnams on NZ Register

Noted outside Solo Wings at Tauranga on the 15th were 2 newly registered Tecnams .ZK-DDE and ZK-RGA.

ZK-RGA is a Tecnam P92 Echo Classic (c/n 1485 ) recently imported into NZ back in April 2014 was was registered to the Canterbury Recreational Aircraft Club based in Rangiora down in South Island.

Departing Tauranga on the 15th May  for delivery to  new owners in Rangiora.

The second new registered Tecnam from Solo Wings was ZK-DDE pictured out of their hangar at Tauranga awaiting final acceptance to future owner Mr W.L Hopcroft from Balfour.

DDE is a Tecnam P92 Eaglet U/L and arrived at Solo Wings in April .

ZK-DDE  c/n 1479

Metroliner ZK-CIC Visits Tauranga

A pleasant surprise on the 14th may was the arrival and very brief  ,was Chathams Airlines SA.227 AC Metroliner ZK-CIC which apparently was carrying out crew training and landed here via Hamilton.Luckily it just escaped the wet front hitting Tauranga as can be see on the picture in the background.

Departing Tauranga just before the heavens open up

Arriving in pleasant BOP weather

Beech B200 ZK-MAN

On the 13th Beech B200 Super King Air landed at Tauranga for around an hour before departed for Christchuch .Owned by Tasman helicopters Above and Beyond Ltd from Nelson it first arrived in New Zealand back in September 2007 as VH-IMP and up to now it had 2 previous owners before finishing up at Nelson.

RNZAF Hercules pops into Tauranga

RNZAF Hercules C.130H NZ7001 carried out 4 touch and go,s into Tauranga today as pilot training which seems to be a pattern for the RNZAF as per the visit of the Orion last week.

RNZAF C.130H NZ7001  c/n 4052

NZ4204 night circuits into Tauranga

RNZAF PC-3 Orion NZ4204 was carrying out night time circuit training approaches into Tauranga this evening doing at least 6 approaches before departing  back to Whenuapai.

Library picture of NZ4204 PC-3 Orion

VH-UCL AW119.

Noted at Tauranga at Aero Pacific Coatings on the 6th May was this lovely Augusta AW119 VH-UCL being stripped down ready for a full strip and re-paint.Owned by AVIATION UTILITIES PTY LTD ,it was first registered in September 2012 to Silver Rook Company based in the IOM before departing to Camden Australia and used mainly for fire fighting duties and agricultural work before being shipped finally to New Zealand and finally end up here at Tauranga.

Augusta AW119 MkII VH-UCL c/n 14710

An Era comes to an end in KSA

After 15 years living and working in Riyadh ,Saudi Arabia for BAe Systems i finally departed Riyadh (OERK) on board Emirates flight EK818 Boeing 777 A6-EMQ on Wednesday 30th April bound for a 10 hour stay over in Dubai (DXB) before jumping on Emirates flight EK406 on A.380 A6-EDA their oldest in the fleet and flying to Melbourne for possibly to be only for 2 hours!!!!
However owing to a fuel devise problem we departed 2 hours later and headed off to Auckland (AKL) on my final flight destination landing on the 2nd May and to start my new life and career in New Zealand. So i would like to thank everyone who took time to look at my posts from Saudi Arabia and I thank you for your interest in a country where taking pictures is hard at the best of times but i wanted to portray that aviation in Saudi is increasing and if any one does visit Saudi Arabia,i fully recommend visiting Jeddah and Riyadh Airports as both are increasing in aircraft traffic .

So now all my blog posts will be focused on Tauranga and the surrounding areas of the Bay of Plenty airfields in the East side of North Island so please take a look at what New Zealand can pleasantly offer in the aviation world.,especially in war-bird restoration.

My final flight from Dubai to Auckland on board Emirates Airbus A.380-800 A6-EDA