VH-SBU
Began flying for STOL on 4th March 1967, and the very 1st 185 I touched was SBU. My 1st trip was being checked on the SE coastal route - Paili,Cape Rodney,Amazon Bay,Cloudy Bay,Mamai and Baibara by Phil Chittock. The highlight was the rough beach front track which served as Baibara Intl.
Subsequently clocked up lots of time on SBU. KRD, STP, CMO, DJU were also with STOL thru 67-68.
By comparison with PNE, a C180 owned by Patair, which we used to fly occasionally to help out... the old hardworked 185's were absolute dogs.
180's the far nicer to fly, especially the earlier 'shark-nose' models, (53-57?), which were a bit faster than the later 'big-chin' models. Once the fuselage was made larger, a la 185, the 180 and 185 seemed alike, HP aside.
ah, memories from a long time ago !