Ray Watts – July 2022.
For the first time in many years a brand-new Cessna 172 has been registered in South Africa. How things have changed.
WE SEE A TOTAL OF nine Type certified aircraft (seven fixed wing and two helicopters) having been registered. The Cessna 172 takes up a registration that has been used five times over the years, the most recent being a Beechcraft 200 King Air which went to Kenya in 2008.
Two Cessna 206s have come onto the register from Botswana. The Lear 45 comes from Namibia. There is also a Dassault Falcon 2000 that has arrived from the USA as well as an Embraer 145 from France.
We have another Robinson R66 registered, and this one takes up the registration previously used by another Robinson 66 which went back to the USA in April 2022. The Airbus A350B3 is a new helicopter, straight off the production line.
The NTCA side of things keeps on growing with another ten aircraft having been registered. However of these ten, five are the very popular Bat Hawk aircraft.
There are two aircraft which have got me foxed; these are the Bathawk Aircraft Patrol, which has a different type of serial number to the other Bat Hawks (and it’s spelt differently as well) and the Foxter EX. I have no idea what these are and with the CAA applying the POPI act religiously, I can’t get the phone numbers of the owners of these aircraft to find out what they are. This also applies to the TCA aircraft and overall, this is very frustrating.
The airlines are expanding and shortly we’ll see FlySafair and Airlink adding aircraft to their respective fleets. FlySafair is getting more Boeing 737-800s and Airlink is getting Embraer 195s. The first one arrived here on 26 July 2022. African Charter Airlines have bought two Boeing 737-300s from Cayman Airways, the first of which arrived on 23 July 2022.
All together some exciting times ahead.
We’ve lost a total of eleven TCA aircraft this month. Two of these, a Robinson R44 and an R66 are listed as scrapped however I think we may well see them re-appearing with ZU-registrations soon – this has been happening quite a lot lately.
Airlink have exported two of their Cessna 208 Caravans to Chad and I’m wondering what they are using to ferry tourists around the game parks in Mpumalanga these days. One of our very scarce Dornier DO27s has gone home to Germany. Two of the exports, a Pilatus PC12 and a Cessna 172RG have been exported to the USA.
Back in April 2022 a Piaggio P166 (known locally as the Albatross) was registered here. This one is not an ex-SAAF machine and is turbine powered and equipped for aerial survey. The picture, from Paul Ludick, shows this quite clearly.
Tail Piece
I attended the Aero South Africa exhibition at Wonderboom earlier this month and was pleasantly surprised to see the number of companies attending the exhibition. It certainly appeared as if the aviation industry, despite Covid, is alive and well in this country.
REG MANUFACTURER TYPE NAME SERIAL NUMBER PREVIOUS IDENTITY / EXPORT COUNTRY
New Registrations ZS-R
ZS-DSL TEXTRON AVIATION INC 172S 172S12779 N2073S
ZS-HRT ROBINSON HELICOPTER COMPANY R66 1144
ZS-TLD CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY U206G U206-05026 A2-AJR, N4647U
ZS-TLE CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY U206D U206-1432 A2-THB,
ZS-NES, N1858C ZS-TLF LEARJET INC LEARJET 45 228 V5-LRJ,
ZS-LOW, N5012Z ZS-TLG EMBRAER EMB-145EP 145177 F-HAFS, UP-EM002, SX-CMC, G-EMBL, PT-SEY
ZS-TWO CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY U206G U206-05439 N6342U
New Registrations ZT-R
ZT-RFP AIRBUS HELICOPTERS AS 350 B3 9265 New
Registrations ZU-
ZU-IWV MICRO AVIATION SA BAT HAWK R 0097
ZU-IWW MICRO AVIATION SA BAT HAWK LSA 0045
ZU-IWX MICRO AVIATION SA BAT HAWK R 0102
ZU-IWY NICHOLAS THOMAS WILKINSON BATHAWK AIRCRAFT PATROL 53P-14A-14B
ZU-IWZ FRANCOIS ROEDOLF PRINSLOO KFA BUSHBABY EXPLORER SN 11-D-20 EXUL
ZU-IXB MICRO AVIATION SA BAT HAWK R 0094
ZU-IXC SEAN GOUWS FOXTER EX 02
ZU-IXD MICRO AVIATION SA BAT HAWK R 0103 ZU-TSM JABIRU J430 #989
ZU-WNW SLING AIRCRAFT (PTY) LTD SLING 4 Tsi 366s
Aircraft deleted ZS-
ZS-BPL ROBINSON HELICOTER COMPANY R44 II 11671 SCRAPPED
ZS-HPX CAMERON BALLOONS LTD KRUSH BOTTLE-105 10140 UNITED KINGDOM
ZS-HUH ROBINSON HELICOTER COMPANY R66 BETA 0895 SCRAPPED
ZS-HZZ CAMERON BALLOONS LTD CAMERON WHISKY BOT-TLE-90 4805 UNITED KINGDOM
ZS-JDD PILATUS AIRCRAFT LTD PC-12/47 805 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA as N805JA
ZS-MLT CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY 208B 208B5155 CHAD
ZS-MLW CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY 208B 208B5160 CHAD
ZS-NDC CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY U206F U206-03029 BRAZIL
ZS-OKY DORNIER WERKE GMBH DO27A4 463 GERMANY
ZS-PMY CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY 172RG 172RG-0218 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA as N4278C ZS-POM CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY 182T 18281407 NAMIBIA
Aircraft deleted ZU-
ZU-IRZ MICRO AVIATION SA BAT HAWK R 0072 MOZAMBIQUE
ZU-IWL SAVANNAH AIRCRAFT AFRICA SAVANNAH S 21-06-54-0793 KENYA
ZS-ZOR DASSAULT AVIATION FALCON 2000 58 N826EW, N26EW, N2133