The days of Fokker Friendships flying in NZ skies are about to be over with the three remaining aircraft being withdrawn over the next 18 months. Will be interesting to see what aircraft replace them.

I guess no more visits to Surabaya for simulator proficiency checks then ... ?

Um, the F27 guys have been going to Dinard, in France for at least the last year. I think the old sim in Surabaya was not reliable enough.
NAO being retired because the D check was going to cost more than the aircraft is worth.
As for replacement...time will tell.

As for replacement...time will tell.

ATR 72 freighter?

Coal sales will now plummet....

Plummet? No just dip a little, still plenty of Convairs in NZ...

Earplug sales may suffer too! You can hear those Darts start from the Tower! Mind you the B77W seems to have a particularly noisey start too??

Will be a shame to see the F27 go... and also a shame that it only really flies at night 'cos I love the phraseologhy "follow the Fokker":E

Wash thy mouth out Slackie..that them GE90's be the sound of chaos and mayhem about to begin...;)

Aerologic Boeing 777 with GE 90 insane starting sound!!! - YouTube

Not like those whineeeeeeey darts :8

Who is this AeroLogic mob?

I"m fond of the Fokker. Flown in them quite a bit, especially the ones that were used for the Calibration flight. Solid, honest aircraft.

Many a time I sat in a DC-3, droning from Mangere to Whangarei to Kaikohe to Kaitaia... Always interesting (once quite exciting, when we hit windshear near Whangarei and got thrown to a bank angle of around 80 degrees...).

The old war birds were eventually replaced by these swish new modern F27s, all spindly undercarriage and shattering turbines (if you had your nose pressed to the fence, and small boys always did...)

They flew Mangere to Kaitaia direct! Much faster. Not as much fun...

They were the NEW ones, dammit.

Must be getting old...

diddly squat

AeroLogic is jointly owned by DHL and Lufthansa Cargo.

They operate 8 x B777F's and recently carried 8 non company passengers spread over a number of flights to Hong Kong from Leipzig.

Ah, the Screaming Pencil about to pass into the history books in NZ. I remember seeing ZK-BXA all clean and fresh AND NEW when it arrived. Was peripherally involved with the commissioning of one of CalFlight's two, and spent a few minutes in the RHS of one on a regional service one day when I was the only SLF. (It helped that I knew the captain well.)

Thanks for the memories, Fokker, it's been an interesting ride. (And I mean that in the nicest possible way!)

Le Vieux