The Vintage Aviator Flying Display November 2013

Yes, I suspect you are correct Avro. Should have said ‘completed by . . .”

Whats all this about the Snipe being ‘pig ugly’ Never!

Very nice pictures. Looks like you had a wonderful day.

two Vintage Aviator-built Fokker D.VIII Replicas

Umm…. I beg to differ on that point Peter.
The wings were built by Koloman Mayrhofer in Austria and the rest of the airframes were built by Achim Engels, who is unfortunately now out of the business. The mighty fine engines were furnished by the Vintage Aviator. The airframes were assembled and finished by TVAL.
Do I get part of the choccy fish? 🙂

Well that attempt did not stir up a great deal of interest, so I shall be forced to answer myself.

The lead aircraft is the Replica Fokker D.VII built by Claude Rousseau of Rosseau Aviation in France for the 1966 film The Blue Max. It was built quickly for the film and eventually became N902AC. It arrived in New Zealand in 1996 and was substantially rebuilt by The Vintage Aviator to more accurately reflect the original D VII. Currently registered as ZK-FOD

To the right of the D.VII is one of the two Vintage Aviator-built Fokker D.VIII Replicas. This one carries the ‘flash of lightning’ graphic and is locally registered as ZK-FES

The second D.VIII Replica has a vertical stripe graphic, and flys as ZK-FEV

The three Fokker Triplane Replicas are, from right to left, ZK-JOC ZK-JOB and ZK-JOG.

ZK-JOC was acquired from Air Nostalgia, Mooresville, NC where it flew as N4203K. It appeared in NZ in mid-2002.

ZK-JOB was built in the USA by T C Southworth and became N240TS before arriving in NZ in late 2002

ZK-JOG was constructed by John H Shell & E Simone as N90165, appearing in late 2001. This registration was cancelled in March 2002 when it came to New Zealand.

So I get to enjoy the chocolate fish.

The Albatros D.II is flying with one of their new build Mercedes. and their Snipe has one of their new-build Bentley rotaries. Amazing accomplishments!
It gives me hope of seeing a flying Gotha, one of these days!

What we are waiting for, of course, is a decent WW1 flying movie, starring the “original’ cast of aircraft……….

Mmmm . . . not too bad for starters, but I’m actually looking for a lot more detail before the fish is available.

The latter part of the display was enhanced by some formation flying.

Name each of the aircraft in this formation. Extra points for complete ID.

Three DR.I ‘Tripe Hounds’, a D.VIIf and two D.VIIIs.

The latter part of the display was enhanced by some formation flying.
Quite impressive.

So, here is a little quiz for you:

Name each of the aircraft in this formation. Extra points for complete ID.

The winner is entitled to a chocolate fish!

The talk of the day was, of course, the EFTO of the Avro 504K ZK-ACU.

This is a 1925-built Avro that served with the NZPAF until sold in 1931.

In the hands of a private owner, it crashed at Wanganui 23Jan36. Airframe then to E R Brewster of New Plymouth who used some of the materials in a Flying Flea project. After his death it and the Flea were donated to the Taranaki Aviation Marine & Transport Museum & eventually to the The Vintage Aero Club in1987 for rebuild by Stuart Tantrum at Levin. The restoration was finally completed at Omaka under the ownership of The Vintage Aviator and its post restoration flight was on the 2nd April 2009.

I have seen this aircraft on the ground several times but never in the air, so it was great news that it was going to fly at this event.

Taxiing out – John Lanham?

Once lined up on the runway, the engine stopped and had to be restarted. It did not sound particularly healthy at that point. I kept the camera on the Avro, just in case.

The takeoff:

It climbed a little, then the engine again appeared to give trouble.
You can see John looking down into the cockpit

Things seem to clear, momentarily

and then the engine seemed to lose most of its power.
John diverted to the grass on the west of the sealed runway

and managed to get the aircraft down within the field.
Fortunatly no blood spilt.
However, the heavy landing seemed to have damaged the airframe.

Hopefully, the Avro will be repaired and fly again in the near future.

The Albatros D.II is flying with one of their new build Mercedes. and their Snipe has one of their new-build Bentley rotaries. Amazing accomplishments!
It gives me hope of seeing a flying Gotha, one of these days!

Brilliant, that they are doing all these aircraft and engines in New Zealand, wish we could do this here in the U.K. Hope there’ll be an article in that popular New Zealand magazine. Your pictures look fantastic by the way, thanks.

Lovely photos. Thanks for posting.

The other new kid on the block was the Sopwith Snipe, a type I have never seen before.

There seems to have been three of these at Masterton (plus one static for the RAF Museum – E6655).

The one marked ‘E8102’ was ZK-SBT in 2011 and went to the USA for Kermit Weeks.

The two others are ZK-SNI (March 2013) and ZK-SBY (October 2013).
I understand that the one at the show, marked as F2367, is ZK-SNI and that ZK-SBY is still at the construction stage.

It gave quite a brief display

The Snipe presents rather a pig-ugly profile on the ground

Reverse Engineering is, I believe, the correct technical term. Yes.

I hear they’re manufacturing new Mercedes engines as well – is this correct?