New Zealand Civil Aircraft   

          As of June 2005 I am working on loading this part of my collection. Kenneth Tilley, Ivan Prince and others have
            kindly offered to assist me with the thumbnail histories.  Although I spent some time in New Zealand in 1952 and
            1953 I was not, at that time, in possession of my 616 camera.  All I had was a Box Brownie and an old, cheap,
            Kodak bellows job. I also traded shots with Ken Meeham, whose quality was on a par with my own at the time!
            Further I gleaned a fairly large collection of snapshots from aunts' and uncles' shoe boxes.  Overall, therefore,
            the quality of the ZK-  material is not as high as it was for the VH- section.   Some are so marginal that I
            questioned putting them out there at all.  I have done so in the interest of historical completeness.

            Two further notes on registrations: 

            Sometime around 1979 the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand (CAA) issued a
            decree which stated that, if an aircraft never flew, or was likely to fly, outside of the Dominion of New Zealand then
            the nationality letters of "ZK-" could be omitted and that the only identification necessary were the aircraft's "last three". 
            I personally decry this ruling, but there it is.  If every country did this it would make the identification of photographs
            of civil aircraft a nightmare.  In some cases, therefore, in depicting contemporary images of old birds, this form of
            registration will be seen.  Certainly all of my original photos will have "ZK-" markings.

            When registrations were issued after WWI II, for some reason the letter "R" was not alloted as the last letter
            of a sequence.   The first of these was ZK-AGR.   There must have been some R/T reason for this.  I am not
            sure if this letter was ever ressurected in later years but, through the era of my collection at least, there were
            no "last digit" Rs.
           
            As for Australia, in order to cut down on the length of the tables I will break the registrations down by group.

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             ZK-AAA   -   ZK-AMZ           These were the first registrations issued in the Dominion.    Up to roughly ZK-AGZ
                                                       these were pre WW II.  After WW II the aircraft which had been impressed into service
                                                       with the Royal New Zealand Air Force were alloted new registrations from (about)
                                                       ZK-AHA on, when they were re-civilianized.    The ZK-AM block was reserved for
                                                       flying boats of Tasman Empire Airlines

             ZK-ANA   -   ZK-AZZ             Issued from 1945 to 1952

             ZK-BAA   -   ZK-BZZ             Issued from 1952 to 1960  (the end of my collection era).
                                                      
             ZK-CAA   -   ZK-ZZZ            "After My Watch" as far as New Zealand is concerned.  I did not travel in New Zealand in
                                                       the 1970s.   This section will contain the odd image furnished by one of the many contributors
                                                       to my collection, such as the indefatigible Greg Banfield, and Bob Smith et al.