ZK-BRF City of Christchurch. Sole survivor of the NAC five with some 36,000 hours up and over 32,000 takeoffs (and landings!) which we got in the mid 1970s to spare her the scrapyard. In 1993 she went to Air NZ Harewood and over the next few years gangs of old NAC retirees worked on her and then she came back to us. We’d got the hangar by then as a condition of the deal with Air NZ was that she came back to covered lodgings.

Now we’re doing the work the old guys couldn’t do. The undercarriages have been stripped out etc and that was just too hard for 70year old blokes.

She’s heading to be ready for April next year and the 60th anniversary of NAC.

The high nose attitude was to make access to the tail areas more convenient without having to use scaffolds etc, she’s sitting flat again now.