John Mounce sent through a photo of Air New Zealand Boeing 747-200 ZK-NZV the other day and it made me look up my flight log... my memory wasn't wrong... my first flight on a wide-body jet was on ZK-NZV on a domestic flight from Christchurch to Auckland.
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| Boeing 747-200 ZK-NZV at Auckland in August 1998 |
In December 1993, when I was working for the Forest Service, a couple of us were asked to fly to Auckland to pickup two Toyota Hilux 4WDs. We flew up on a Wednesday, so Friendship to Christchurch on NZ701 and then on to NZ228 the Boeing 747 for Auckland.
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| On approach to Auckland |
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| The first arrival of an Air New Zealand Boeing 747-200, ZK-NZV, at Christchurch in June 1981 |
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| Boeing 747-200 ZK-NZV at Christchurch on 12 October 1985 |
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| Boeing 747-200 ZK-NZV repainted at Auckland on 6 October 1998 |
That photo onto approach 23L would be one for the historic Auckland archives....
ReplyDeleteWhat Howick and Bucklands Beach used to look like... Wonder what all of what the camera froze in time would have been all worth
Geeze Steve if only you did a bit of prospecting and snapped up some property on the fly....
If only.... fast forward 28 years you could be flying around the world 1st class
Love those photos
The 200s definitely didn't look that good in the Pacific wave livery it looked better much better on the -400s
ReplyDeleteThat livery being the Teal and blue stripes or cheatlines is the livery that brings back so many memories as a child, very vivid memories of the rare visit to Auckland Airport and seeing the colossal 747 or memories of the 737-200 in Rotorua.
DeleteSome say that the DC-10 livery was the penultimate/flagship livery vying with the current black/fern livery if there was ever one livery that stood out/will stand the test of time for Air New Zealand..
But this livery will always be my favorite livery.
There is something quite impressive and something about those stripes that really makes those birds look much longer and larger than what they were. Even the Saab looked longer in the link stipes, the euro white made them look a little stumpy.
I can see the meaning behind the wave livery. I liked it on some aircraft. It did give that modern/fresh/new outlook for the company and to the aircraft heading towards the 2000's as apposed to the very 80s/90s cheat lines but I always found the waves/ribbons size very inconsistent across the entire fleet and disproportionate on certain aircraft...
The likes of the A320 and the Metro certainly made it looked real average but aircraft such as the 737-200, 744, 767 and the ATR, they had usually very thick and sizable waves that really made it look good...
That euro white really reduced the perceived size of pretty much the entire Air NZ fleet but on a handful of birds the wave gave the aircraft a bit of depth to the perception.
It's a bit like the current fern livery, it made the 777-300s look longer and more elegant where as the 777-200, it really brought out the chunky and stubby side whereas the Pacific wave on the 777-200 really brought out something to the aircraft, maybe a little bit of length. Maybe it's just my perception, everyone has a different vision.