NZFF

I spent a good hour at Omaka on the first evening sussing out where the museum was for the next day, but also came across the gorgeous old lady of cargo operations in New Zealand, the Safe Air Bristol Freighter.



This example was in pretty rough condition, the weather was clearly getting at her, but she maintained an air of grace most retired aircraft seem to do. Looking over her, getting close, touching the skin, you could almost hear echo's of her former life.

I give you ZK-CPT 'Merchant Courier'...







This is one of my favorite shots. It begs so many questions to be asked because what you are looking at is not some mass made machine metal panel, someone somewhere curved that metal, snipped the edge to bring it across neatly, and screwed each of the bolts in to keep it in place. This is one of those shots that for me brings CPT to life, it speaks about her past and how she came to be.

Of course another view would be its just a bit of metal sitting in a field attached to other bits of metal.




Of course I pushed...











You can really see the deterioration here..


I missed the Argosy parked up past Woodburne, I only saw that on the taxi out, I was gutted. But at least I now know she is there, next time I'll spend some time with her.

Wonderful shots Jon, of a very proud grand old lady, that did NZ a very good and looooong service. I have fond memories of them, and have even flown in them 3 times.
Thank you very much for sharing them with us all


Lawrie.

Yeah, Bristol freighters are awesome B) But since you were in Nelson, why didn't you take a photo of the one parked off-airport here?

monkeybdg wrote: Yeah, Bristol freighters are awesome B) But since you were in Nelson, why didn't you take a photo of the one parked off-airport here?

Which one is that?

hahah its one of the old mans former rides

JonARNZ wrote:

monkeybdg wrote: Yeah, Bristol freighters are awesome B) But since you were in Nelson, why didn't you take a photo of the one parked off-airport here?

Which one is that?

That would be this:

http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=454711

http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=0 ... TID&size=L

Located at Founders Park:

Ahh right, yeah photographed that one last time, thing is I didn't want to spend $15 to do the same thing, the one in Omaka was a surprise.

I love Omaka, its just a big field with random mowed bits, known as the runways, you then read note 7 on the front page, "Locally based operators may use vectors other than published runways"

http://www.aip.net.nz/pdf/NZOM.pdf

Is the grass outside of the runways very long? Don't think any operator would find much benefit of facing into wind if they have to battle through knee-high grass to take advantage of it

When I was there it wasnt that long, the reason they use different vectors, is some Tail-draggers have very little/no crosswind ability... and a lot of old tail draggers fly out of Omaka