A Short Story of a Long Flight

 

A Short Story of a Long Flight


1960 Southend

It was 1969 and local Jersey dentist Bill Wilkinson flew his Percival Prentice G-AOMF from Jersey to 
New Zealand; this is a short story of that flight.

Bill Wilkinson had trained as a dentist at Otago University NZ during the 1950s, and had been active with the RNZAF Territorial Squadron based there during that time. After qualifying, he moved to London to practice dentistry but retained his interest in aviation by buying two Prentice aircraft, G-AOLU, and G-AOKF, in July 1962 and a third, G-AOMF, which was registered to WB Wilkinson on 7 Aug 1963.

The Percival Prentice was designed as a basic trainer for RAF use, replacing Tiger Moths. The Percival factory was unable to handle the production order, so most Prentices were built by Blackburn Aircraft at Brough.

Prentice T.Mk.1 c/n B3/1A/PAC-252 was built by Blackburn and delivered to the RAF in October 1948 serving as VS316. When the Prentice was withdrawn from RAF use in 1953, it was one of a batch of 252 bought by Freddie Laker’s company Aviation Traders (Engineering) Ltd. based at Southend.

Most of these surplus Prentice aircraft saw no civilian use. However, VS316 became G-AOMF on 3 Apr 1956 with Aviation Traders but did not attain its UK CofA until 12 Apr 1960. Two days later, on the 14th, ownership was transferred to Lux-Lux Ltd. of London followed by a sale to the Surrey and Kent Flying Club based at Biggin Hill on 23 Sep 1960.



Surrey & Kent flying club 1963  


Bill Wilkinson moved to Jersey, in mid-1965 and used at least one of the Prentice aircraft to commute between the Island and the UK mainland. He sold all three aircraft in 1966, G-AOLU to another UK owner and G-AOKF to Liberia, with delivery to that country as a condition of sale. G-AOMF went to CAVU International Ltd., also of Jersey, on 13 Sep 1966.

Later, Bill decided to return to New Zealand, and flying there seemed a good option. He bought G-AOMF back in late 1968, found a non-aviation friend as a passenger, equipped the Prentice with an additional fuel tank in the rear seat, and departed from Jersey for New Zealand on 29 Feb 1969.

The trip was not without drama, and they did not reach Singapore until 12th March and continued on from there to Brisbane where the passenger left the adventure. Bill then flew by commercial airline to New Zealand to complete arrangements for the trans-Tasman leg. Returning to Brisbane, he then flew G-AOMF solo to Norfolk Island and Auckland, arriving on 20 Mar 1969.



Shortly after arrival in NZ, note the Jersey flag and hand-painted message on the tail.

The Prentice was not a successful private aircraft. Even though it was powered by a 215hp Gipsy Queen it struggled with 4POB, had poor performance with any load at high temperatures, and was suspect of poor spin recovery. Thus, there was not a great rush to buy G-AOMF, and the UK registration was canceled on 21 Jun 1972. Not until 29 Nov 1972 did it take the NZ registration to become ZK-DJC with Neville B Cooper of Kaiapoi.



After re-register as ZK-DJC, note the extra fuel tank fitted behind the front seats. 

There was a plan to convert it to an eight-seater and to replace the Gipsy Queen 50 engine with a 300hp IO-520, but instead, it received a Gipsy Queen taken from a DH Heron. For the next 20 years the Prentice remained in New Zealand flying rarely and slowly deteriorating.  It was not until February 1994 that Gerald F Rhodes of Christchurch bought the Prentice, in poor condition and it went to his Transport and Toy Museum at Wanaka NZ.

 

At Wanaka NZ, not airworthy and given a military paint scheme.


Grounded, the registration was revoked by the NZ CAA on 9 May 1998. The aircraft was slowly restored over the years to display standard and repainted; it is currently at the museum.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Flying the Brittan Norman Trislander Climb on board by the front starboard door and settle into the left seat, the cockpit is an ergonomic nightmare, identical switches randomly placed all over the place. You would expect the flight instruments to be behind the control column and in front of the pilot, no this is the Trislander, the basic six instruments are three inches offset to the left, you get used to it but it takes some time. Engine starting was neat, and if sitting behind the pilot you had to pay attention, as it seemed just a blur of the left hand over a row of identical switches. After pushing in the green mixture levers at the top of the flight panel, unusual as they are nowhere near the other engine controls, and priming all three engines together by the throttle levers, no priming pumps, and after a thumbs up to the ground crew outside it start all three in about 15 seconds, no starting each in turn followed by checks just all three as quickly as possible....
Read more

A Fishy Tail from Intra

Image
It was April 1975 and I had just left the club and joined Intra, a change from instructing on the Cessna 150 to the DC-3, quite a change, but the 3 was quite an aircraft as I soon found out. It seemed huge to me, and those massive throttles and pitch levers. The smell was just intoxicating and the noise of squealing brakes on taxi, not to mention that cacophony of   P&W 1830 engine noise during start and take off, just sublime.   This trip was my first on G-ALWC a DC-3 that Intra was leasing from Clyde Surveys and had only recently been ferried up from Tamanrasset to Jersey by the boss Bernard and Richard chief pilot. The aircraft was freight-only as she (funny how good aircraft are always referred to as she) had been used for freight and survey work by Clyde. This trip was to ferry WC to Shannon pick up a load of freshwater eels, Elvers, apparently a delicacy in Holland, and deliver them to Amsterdam Schiphol. Take off Jersey late afternoon, overnight flight to Sc...
Read more
Image
Anchorage the Last Frontier Every aviation enthusiast has a must-do bucket list, Oshkosh, Duxford etc if you haven’t yet gone to Anchorage, PANC, its one to add to the list. Anchorage is not the easiest place to get to from Jersey unless you’re a long haul 747 freight pilot but start by taking a few days exploring Vancouver and the Islands with Harbour Air, then fly from Vancouver taking the daily Air Canada Airbus northwest to PANC. The jewel in Anchorage Ted Stevens International is the lake at its centre and the Lake Hood Seaplane Base and airfield PALH. Before heading for the lake and leaving the international terminal to take some time to look around to get the feel for Alaska aviation, stroll over to the Ravn Alaska desk, it used to be Era Aviation made famous by the TV series Flying Wild Alaska and run by Jim Tweto. They have a huge network serving remote Alaska towns, you will see the locals checking in with all sorts of hold and hand luggage. Before leaving ther...
Read more