A couple of early helicopters.

Whilst poking around in the bottom of the dreaded shoebox I found these two Bell 47 photographs.
Above is the Bell 47D ZK-HAD ( c/n 20 ) as seen at Highcliff, Dunedin. The date would be about late 1963 or early 1964. This was built in December of 1947 and initially registered as NC166B and then N166B before reaching NZ and being listed here on 16-06-1957 to Rudnick Helicopters. It crashed (twice I believe) in 1958. It was rebuilt and then transferred to Helicopters (NZ) Ltd on 12-12-1963. It had a wire strike at Waiau on 16-02-1964 but was repaired and finally cancelled in 1965 as exported back to the US where it became N12888 with Utility Helicopters. It is still currently registered to Robert Suess of San Jose.
Below is a colour slide copy of ZK-HAD at Timaru taken before October of 1964.

Below is the Bell 47G-2A ZK-HAL (c/n 2663) outside the Airwork hangar at Harewood and is dated 11-08-1964, which is one day before it became registered to Helicopters (NZ) Ltd.
It had been imported and registered to Airwork (NZ) Ltd on 28-03-1961.
It was lost in a fatal crash on 31-07-1965 at Maungapohato in the Eastern Day of Plenty.

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