Bell Garlick and Tamarack UH-1's

On the 19th of March I just happened to be motoring through Eltham and found this Bell (Garlick) UH1-B ZK-HHB2 , c/n 3114 , sitting on its trolley at Beck Helicopters. Built as 65-12856 for the U S Army for delivery to Kongelige Norske Luftarsvaret as #856 (the last three numbers of its US serial). It was withdrawn from service in 1991 and went back to the US for civil conversion by Garlick Helicopters of Hamilton Montana. It was registered as N123MS in January of 1992 to Construction Helicopters Inc of Porter Valley in California.

By November of that year it was in NZ and become ZK-HHB2 on 18-11-1992 for Beck Helicopters Ltd.

About 1/2 a km north I found Bell (Tamarack) UH-1F ZK-HHF3 , c/n 7009 , seemingly trying to park at the top of a piece of rope. It was actually dousing a small fire which I assume was a training mission.

This Huey was built for the USAF and carried the serial 63-13149 and spent much of its service life supporting the missile sites. It was stored at AMARC (Davis Monthan) in January 1986. Tamarack Helicopters of Stevensville, Montana placed it on the US civil register as N2412G on 28-01-2003. It became ZK-HHF3 on 09-06-2003 for Beck Helicopters.