Cessnas and an Airvan

The last from my trip to Jandakot Airport in Perth

Cessna 208B Grand Caravan VH-PON at Jandakot on 3 September 2014 

Cessna 177RG Cutlass VH-REJ at Jandakot on 3 September 2014

Cessna 180K VH-UIA at Jandakot on 3 September 2014

Gippsland GA8 Airvan VH-WPF at Jandakot on 3 September 2014

International Jetstar to Capital

Jetstar has flown in with two new Tasman routes to take off later this year, including its first international service from Wellington. The airline today announced it would start flying three times a week from Wellington to the Gold Coast, and from Queenstown to the Gold Coast as well. Tickets for the Wellington service will normally start at $179, and will cost $229 from Queenstown, though a special deal accompanying the announcement will sell fares for the routes from $99 and $129, respectively. The new service would launch in early December. The low-cost airline made the announcement at Wellington airport today, where it was tipped a new trans-Tasman service would be launched. Wellington Airport said this year its short-term aim was "very much about extending trans-Tasman opportunities".

Source : http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/61128615/Jetstar-to-announce-new-Wellington-service

Mapping NZ Aerial Mapping

With yesterday's sad news that NZ Aerial Mapping is closing I thought it would be nice to take a look at the company's aircraft... and then on their website I found a wonderful company history which I have pasted around the photos...

History

On the 8th May 1936, New Zealand’s now oldest aviation company, NZ Aerial Mapping (NZAM), was officially founded by Piet van Asch in Hastings.

Starting out with a Monospar ST25 twin engine aircraft bought directly from the General Aircraft factory in Feltham, England (for ₤1,450), Piet managed to arrange contracts to photograph farms of prominent land owners in Hawke’s Bay. They had already put up a great deal of money for Piet to be able to travel to England, buy the aircraft and get the training necessary for the successful start of NZAM.

NZ Aerial Mapping's first aircraft, General Aircraft Monospar ST-25 ZK-AFF at Wigram on a wet day in September 1978

The Early Years

The first survey undertaken in New Zealand was for the Geological Survey which started on the 28th April 1937. The survey was of the Richardson Range in Otago and covered nearly 300 square miles (780 square kilometres) at 11,000 feet, yielding 843 frames of photography.

From then until the war years, NZAM grew slowly yet solidly. Initially work was generally carried out for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) and the Public Works Department. In 1938, the first work was won from the Land & Survey Department (L&S), which necessitated purchasing a new camera. This was the beginning of a long and enduring relationship between NZAM and L&S, later known as Department of Land & Survey Information (DOSLI), and now Land Information NZ (LINZ).

The advent of hostilities in the Second World War saw NZAM take on a new and vital role. Under threat initially, having been targeted to be integrated into the RNZAF, Piet managed to keep the company separate and to grow it, taking on an ever-increasing workload with defence mapping projects.

By mid war, it became obvious that the Monospar would need help. With its limited ceiling, a bigger more powerful aircraft was sought and in 1943 a Beechcraft AT11 was added to the line up. By June 1944, NZAM had photographed a total of 25,570 square miles (66,200 square kilometres) for the war effort.

With the advent of the longer range and capacity of the Beechcraft, off shore surveys were a possibility. The first was in 1944 of Fiji, particularly the Suva Peninsula and areas at Lautoka. Since then, NZAM have worked in most of the Pacific Islands and have travelled as far as the Antarctic, Kathmandu, Vietnam and Thailand.

The Beech AT-11 Kansan ZK-AHO at Hokitika on 21 March 1977. On the day this photo was taken the Kansan had been on the job for some 34 years!

The 1950’s

During the 1950’s the company’s progress was in ground-based expansion. 1953 saw the introduction of Photogrammetry on the suggestion of the then Surveyor-General. Science graduate Brian Perry led the company in this field with a special kind of acuity and practicality which was confirmed by the carefully contoured maps his staff turned out down the years.

In a good month 8000 prints could be produced using the only three types of film available then. However it was still a tightly managed operation within the financial constraints of the Government, which continued to supply NZAM with the majority of its work well into the 1980’s.

The company’s premises in Russell Street had reached maximum capacity. Therefore in 1956 a custom designed headquarters on the corner of Avenue Road and Warren Street in Hastings was built, tangible evidence of the company’s progress.

This impressive building boasted its own central powerhouse, which provided the essential clean air and water for the photography. The installation of copper tanks and refrigeration and with the use of positive pressure, dust was shut out of all the areas where film was being worked. Dairy industry pumps were even used to suck the films and papers flat in the various enlargers and copy cameras.

This set-up was the envy of overseas visitors, providing cheap operation and played a valuable part in reducing dust on the film. In NZ this was of huge importance as NZAM keeps its film negatives forever, as opposed to the UK and Australia, which destroyed stocks after 10 years.

Piet’s insistence that the company ‘produce a high quality article’ kept him informed on research and development within the industry which saw equipment moving in and out of the company in fast succession. Three A8 Analogue plotters joined the company and were one of the survivors of the equipment movement era, remaining in use until well into the 1980’s. One in fact is still in use today by a former employee for the production of orienteering maps.

Throughout this decade, weather had a part to play as much as it is found today. Bad weather impacted on flying time and income on occasions but the usual high standard of product was maintained with an increase in the use of aerial photography being noticed in the 1950’s.

The 1960’s

NZAM worked on a number of projects during the sixties, one being the chain cover of all of NZ highways and the subsequent production of folders, which marked where every fatal accident was in order to make road improvements.

The most prominent project was for the National Film Units’ ‘This is New Zealand’ which was made especially for the NZ pavilion at Expo 70 in Japan. Three cameras were mounted in the nose of the Beechcraft enabling three screen stereoscopic viewing which won high acclaim.

With the introduction in 1965 of the longer focal length Zeiss cameras, city survey photography produced extraordinary detail. To view wires on a clothesline and shadows on the tarseal from overhead wires excited the NZAM staff. Some of this earlier imagery was printed on a product called cronopaque made by Du Pont. Supposedly indestructible, its Achilles heel proved to be the hot Hawke’s Bay sun if left in the backseat of a car too long!

Prior to the mid-sixties, NZAM had been trying to discover how to reduce the angle of coverage of the normal lenses that were available for the large-scale city plans Piet wanted so much to supply to the city engineers.

This ability to identify ground marks was only the start with special jobs flown twice, once with the wide angle cover to produce large scale contours which were then overlaid on the narrow angle enlargements allowing the photogrammetrist to only mark the odd fence corner to marry the two.

1965 also saw the introduction of halftones so that the city engineers and planners could superimpose information and take ammonia prints for contractors. The popularity of these saw NZAM producing more halftones than prints right into the 1990’s.

The company’s third aircraft, ZK-CDK started survey in 1964. Named ‘Matariki’ in 1967, this Aero Commander 680F provided an operating ceiling of 25,000ft – treble the camera to ground clearance of the Beechcraft in the high country and 20 knots faster. This aircraft was overhauled in 2003 after a year of ‘retirement’ and still provides a valuable survey platform for the company.

The higher ceiling of ZK-CDK resulted in the aircrew experiencing some cold temperatures in the winter of 1964 – and watching oil pressure gauges go below the minimum due to the oil in the pipelines up to the instrument panel freezing.

NZAM started using colour seriously for the NZ Forest Service photography in 1965. Following that a small length of Agfa 7 film was exposed over the Mt Tarawera eruption chasm from the Eagle survey camera, resulting in wonderful colours – the only drawback was that the film had to be sent to Europe for processing.

Forestry companies weren’t too interested in colour photography until 1967 when a full-scale survey was carried out over the Kaingaroa State Forest to enable studies of a fungus disease (dothystroma). This was quite successful although the Kodak film speed was marginal and when a faster emulsion was available, the Forestry industry became more involved in colour coverage.

The increase in work once again led to renewed pressure on space within the office premises and when the chance to purchase the neighbouring property arose in 1965, it was taken and the original builders’ yard house was converted with a lunchroom at the back and mosaic room at the front, which later was used for picture framing. The house still stands today and occasionally serves as a function and lunch room.

Towards the end of the decade, South Island farmlands were covered and the first flying coverage of the North Island was almost complete.

Aero Commander 680F ZK-CDK in three different schemes at Queenstown...

at Hokitika on 17 October 1982...

and at its home base at Bridge Pa on 23 January 2013

The 1970’s and 1980’s

With the arrival of the Rockwell Commander 690B in 1978, the need for two operational aircraft at higher altitude was met. The Beechcraft was flown to Hobsonville airport in January 1982, where it was collected by NZAM 39 years earlier, and taken to MOTAT for permanent display in Auckland where it can still be seen today.

A notable aerial survey project was that of Greater Christchurch in early 1973 at a 1:10,000 scale. This series of mosaics on the national grid were extremely beneficial to the Police in order to base their security plan on with the 1974 Royal visit to the Tenth Commonwealth Games in Christchurch.

Forestry mapping for Lands and Survey Department continued as did the forestry coverage for both North and South Islands. An unusual assignment was thermo vision work carried out between Taupo and Rotorua using the first two hours of daylight and the last two before dark. This avoided the main heat of the sun and allowed the recording of 2 degree ground temperature changes for the DSIR. The work enabled hotspots to be recorded and therefore avoided for road extensions and cable locations.

The first testing of the DSIR Hasselblad cameras for the Remote Sensing division took place as well as various magnetometer surveys for the department.

1975 saw the purchase of an expensive Kodak Versamat processor to handle the longer lengths of 9 inch film and the testing of 500ft Kodak +X film which at last enabled even development of each and every exposure. The 48 x 48 copy camera also saw major modifications to allow it to make enlargements of the 9 x 9 film in negative size or portions thereof up to 67 diameters.

When Piet bought the 12in Zeiss camera he arranged delivery of a ‘family’ of cameras, which included a 6in RMK 15/23 for each of the aircraft. These cameras with their Pleogon lenses were the price of a house each and the first arrived at the end of 1975 for use in the Aero Commander.

The first replacement for the A8 plotters from Wild, which served the company well for a quarter of a century, arrived in 1984 and was analytical instead of analogue. This BC1 provided digital data stored on tapes or discs and allowed plotting within 20 minutes of setup as opposed to between 2 to 4 hours on the A8.

Piet retired as managing director in 1980 but remained as chairman, and to fill his one-man position resulted in the creation of two joint managing directors, one of which was Piet’s only son, Hugh.

A revamp of the Hastings offices was undertaken in 1982-83 with new paintwork, the installation of a new fire alarm system, new roof and film vault to accommodate all the nitrate-based films that were recopied on safety base modern high resolution film.

An unfortunate accident on 26 June 1986 saw the first NZAM aircraft, the Monospar ZK-AFF, destroyed in a fire at the Bridge Pa Aerodromme. The likely cause was thought to be a static discharge of electricity during refuelling. Only months short of its fiftieth year in operation with NZAM, one of the salvaged wooden propellers is still on display in the Hastings office.

Turbo power... Rockwell 690B ZK-PVA - the glue plane - at Bridge Pa on 20 February 1985.

The 1990’s and into the 21st Century

The previous decades saw the growth of an exceptional company under the guidance of an equally exceptional man. Sadly Piet passed away in October 1996, and even today, he is still strongly associated with NZAM through staff and acquaintances who still talk of his achievements.

The ’90’s saw many changes for the company necessitated by the digital era and the downturn in government and local authority work due in part, to the increase in the ‘tender and do’ market.

The merger in 1993 between computer based land information company Aeroplan and NZAM saw the introduction of not only advanced computer technology and the necessary staff, but the company’s first foray into geographical information systems (GIS).

Hugh Van Asch and a number of remaining shareholders still held responsibility on the Board with the new owner, Craig Atchison. Through Craig’s ability to bring the ideas into the company and the willingness of staff to bring them to fruition, NZAM continued, albeit in some hard times, through this decade.

The advancement in technology heeded the need to move the majority of the operation to Auckland to capitalise on the increased market and staff availability. The remaining lab and photo sales worked with a staff of only 3 at times over a period of years until the return of the main operation in 2002.

With the company still owning the purpose built facilities at Hastings and Bridge Pa it was therefore decided by the Board to return the company to its original home base. The lifestyle that the Hawke’s Bay offered over the major cities meant that staff were more readily available and improvements with technology no longer restricted access to the data and subsequent markets.

The operating fleet of the Aerocommander 680 and the Rockwell 690 were complemented with smaller lower level aircraft like the Cessna 205 and Piper Aztec. When the 680 was grounded for a year in 2002, it was up to the 690 to cover the workload that was spread between NZ and Australia due to a merger with an engineering company based in NSW.

Cameras were vastly complimented by the purchase of an LH Systems RC30 which provides image motion compensation and automatic exposure control. Added to this is airborne DGPS survey technology and the flight planning software that provides superior results.

Film has also improved greatly over the years and the company changes between AGFA and Kodak dependant on who is manufacturing the most superior and cost effective product at the time – a policy firmly installed by Piet himself.

There are now digital cameras operating in aerial survey, and there are various other techniques for aerial imagery such as satellite imagery and airborne laser scanning.

This decade saw the ownership of the company change for better and worse – the large shareholding purchase of the ex-state owned enterprise Terralink was envisaged to provide a complete one-stop land information stop. The separation of the units giving TIL ownership of the GIS components and NZAM aerial survey and intensive photogrammetric projects like forestry, led to the demise of the idea.

Reverting back to full NZ ownership in 2003 saw the company focus once more on core activities. Vast improvements were made especially in photogrammetry which had not maintained an up-to-date presence due to the focus on GIS. Complete new Helava suites were purchased with all the latest software enabling more computer processing and less human intervention. The company purchased its first roll-film scanner and now operates a complete in-house solution, from aerial survey right through to the end photogrammetric and image product.

Rockwell 690A ZK-PVB was added to the fleet in March 2000. It is seen here at Auckland on 15 March 2011

Also added to the fleet more recently was Cessna 402B ZK-PVC at Bridge Pa on 23 January 2013...

and Cessna 207A Stationair 8 ZK-SEU at Bridge Pa on 27 January 2012.

Sad End for NZ Aerial Mapping

NZ Aerial Mapping's 22 staff will lose their jobs with 15 already made redundant. Bank-appointed receiver John Fisk, of Price Waterhouse Coopers, said the decision was made to close the company doors. "We haven't been able to sell the business as a going concern at a price that was acceptable to us, so we are now looking at a process to sell the assets on a break-up basis." It has more than one million images looking for a new home after the company became insolvent, the primary cause a Saudi Arabian contract with more than $1.5 million owing. Staff were told on Thursday the company would cease to trade once existing imagery, for New Zealand local government clients, was processed. Seven staff are retained until then and some may assist with the sale of the company's assets. In his first receiver's report, Mr Fisk said the Bank of New Zealand held a $4.8 million security over the company and unsecured creditors more than $1.8 million. The trade creditor balance was more than $2.5 million. The company has had a presence at the Bridge Pa Aerodrome since the 1930s but this year decided to move some parts of its business to Auckland and sell its Hastings Aerodrome holdings at Bridge Pa. Bayleys Realty said the aerial photography and mapping company's buildings, hangars and land remained on the market. In May managing director Mark Roberts said the shift to Auckland was to capitalise on its 2012 acquisition of Great Barrier Airlines. The company split its business between New Zealand and the Middle East, where it has two specialist planes based. It was founded by Henry Piet van Asch. One of his first commercial contracts was surveying the effects of the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake on the region's water table. It is one of the longest established aerial survey companies in the world with experience on every continent except America. Since Mr van Asch's death in 1996 the it went through several changes, including overseas ownership and a move to Auckland before a return to Hastings. The company's head office is in Hastings' Avenue Rd East. In 2005 Mr Roberts bought the company in partnership with Mohammad Hanno, a Saudi Arabian airline pilot with several aviation business interests in New Zealand and overseas. Its first Middle East contract was surveying the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia border after winning an international tender. The project led to more work in the region, including the holy city of Mecca which required a Muslim crew. The company completed the biggest aerial mapping contract in New Zealand - the mapping of the entire Bay of Plenty for a company owned by nine councils. Mr Fisk said he expected government interest in company's archive, including and maps acquired from its purchase of former Crown entity Terralink. "The company has been around since 1936, it's a real shame." Mr van Asch was inducted into the Hawke's Bay Business Hall of Fame in 2011.

Source : http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11320071

A couple of Warbirds

De Havilland 82 Tiger Moth VH-CKF at Jandakot on 3 September 2014 

North American T28 Trojan VH-KAN at Jandakot on 3 September 2014

Three Barons, a Mooney and a Merlin

Hawker Beechcraft G58 Baron VH-EPV at Jandakot on 3 September 2014. The G58 in the current production Baron version featuring a glass cockpit, improved passenger cabin and changes to selected airframe details.

An earlier E55 model Beechcraft Baron VH-INP at Jandakot on 3 September 2014

Beechcraft 58 Baron VH-JWP at Jandakot on 3 September 2014

Mooney M20J VH-JDY at Jandakot on 3 September 2014

Swearingen SA227-TT Merlin  VH-ZGX at Jandakot on 3 September 2014

 

Do you know what these are???

My visit to Perth's Jandakot Airport on Wednesday threw up a number of new types for me... So many do you recognise... Answers at the bottom of this post...

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3... this should be an easier one!

Number 4... it looks like a cross between an Airtourer and a Tomahawk

Number 5

Number 6

1. Vertical Aviation Hummingbird 260 VH-MPB. The Hummingbird is a development of the certified Sikorsky S-52 that first flew in 1947, adapted to kit form. The aircraft features a single main rotor, a four seat enclosed cabin, quadracycle landing gear 

2. Grob 115C VH-BGQ. The Grob G 115 is a German advanced general aviation fixed-wing aircraft, primarily used for flight training. The China Southern West Australian Flying College has a fleet of these training pilots for China Southern.

3. Czech Sport Aircraft Pipersport VH-EZT. It was the "Pipersport" titling that made me doubt what this was. The CZAW SportCruiser is a two seat, single engine, tricycle undercarriage, fixed-wing aircraft that was introduced in 2006. In NZ ZK-SXY is an example. In January 2010, the SportCruiser was added to the Piper Aircraft line as the PiperSport under a licencing agreement with Czech Sport Aircraft. This arrangement was terminated one year later in January 2011. 

4. Whitney Boomerang VH-KMB. The Whitney Boomerang was designed by C.W. "Bill" Whitney as a replacement for the aging two-seat training aircraft fleets. The type certificate was granted on the 18th of December 2007.

5. Aquila Aviation AT01 VH-OIS - The Aquila AT01 is a two seat reinforced plastic light aircraft produced in Germany from 2002. It remains in production in 2010.

6. Embraer Phenom 100s VH-LWZ and VH-FJP. The Embraer Phenom 100 is a Brazilian very light jet.These two are operated by China Southern West Australian Flying College.

Changes to Napier's flights

The mayors of Napier and Hastings will meet Air New Zealand management next week to argue against a proposal to cut local jobs and introduce schedule changes. Air NZ says it is consulting the 36 Napier-based staff of its Air Nelson subsidiary over a proposal to relocate them out of the region as part of a rescheduling of its regional services. From February next year the airline plans to fly larger aircraft to Hawke's Bay. The move would mean more seats available in and out of the region - and is being promoted as a means of keeping ticket prices down - but has raised concerns that schedule changes will disrupt business travellers. The proposals centre on Air NZ swapping some Q300 aircraft currently servicing the region with larger ATR72 planes. Rather than having three Q300s and their Napier-based crews staying overnight in the region, as happens at present, the airline is considering having two ATRs and one Q300 on the ground at Hawke's Bay Airport overnight. The ATRs are run by another Air NZ subsidiary, Mt Cook Airlines, and their crew would stay in hotels while overnighting in Napier, rather than being based in Hawke's Bay. It has been speculated that the changes would take $2 million of annual wages out of the local economy. Napier Mayor Bill Dalton met Air New Zealand's regional services manager Ian Collier on Tuesday and with Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule will meet Mr Collier again next week. One of Hawke's Bay's top businessmen and frequent fliers, Xero chief executive Rod Drury, said the proposed changes would be an "absolute catastrophe" for the region, in terms of the impact of losing local jobs and the potential disruption for local business travellers. Mr Drury said the requirement for flight crew to have 10 hours off overnight meant if night-time flights arrived late into Hawke's Bay with out-of-town crew, they would be forced to leave late the following morning, creating headaches for local business people planning meetings in the main centres. "It means it is going to be harder for people to have surety for that first flight in the morning, which is a real game changer," Mr Drury said. "For me, it really begins to question the viability of basing yourself in Hawke's Bay." He was also worried Air NZ would cancel evening flights into the region, again impacting on business travellers wanting to do a full day's work in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch. Mr Dalton said Air NZ's proposal was "not set in concrete and we certainly want to make sure we don't lose any service and any frequency". Mr Yule said he was most concerned about the potential loss of Hawke's Bay jobs and he wanted Air NZ to "think differently". "I'm waiting for [next week's meeting] but there's no reason I can see at the moment why Hawke's Bay can't be a base for ATRs as it is at the moment for Q300s - and that's the conversation I'm wanting to have," he said. Air NZ did not respond to a request for comment yesterday but said last week no decision on relocating the crew base had been made yet. The proposed changes would not result in a decrease in the total number of aircraft servicing Napier, the airline said.

Source : http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11318916

Pilatus Paradise

Over the last few months New Zealand has just had its first two Pilatus PC-12s placed on our civil register. In Australia, however, the PC-12s have been operating for many a year. In a three hour plane spotting I caught five at Perth's Jandakot Airport...

Corporate operated VH-JMU at Jandakot on 3 September 2014

One wonders whether we will ever see any air ambulance Pilatus PC12s in New Zealand... Here are four of the Royal Flying Doctor Service's PC-12s as seen at Jandakot on 3 September 2014... Above VH-OWA

VH-OWI

VH-OWQ

and VH-OWU in a different scheme

Auckland Freighters...

Over the month of August I caught up with a number of the international freighters trading through Auckland...

Singapore Airlines Cargo's Boeing 747-412F 9V-SFF on approach to Auckland on 6 August 2014

Qantas Freight's Boeing 767-381F VH-EFR on approach to Auckland on 24 August 2014

The beautiful lines of FedEx's McDonnell-Douglas MD-11F N618FE landing at Auckland on 24 August 2014

Corporate Visitor

Jetting into Auckland on Saturday 23 August 2014 was Australian registered Cessna Citation 680 Sovereign  VH-VPL

Remember the World Cup

Emirates' Airbus 380 A6-EEQ was still wearing its 2014 FIFA World Cup "Pele" livery when it visited Auckland on 24 August 2014... It was caught operating EK435 from Auckland to Brisbane...