Two Datum Points on the same aircraft.

& just to make it easier :- This pic below.

The questions being :-

1] What type of aircraft are we looking at ?

2] What is the item in the lower pic ?

New flights from Tivat

As the tourism season begins Montenegro Airlines is turning its attention away from Podgorica to Tivat. The airline is increasing frequencies on nearly all services to the seaside town. The airline will also introduce new routes. Montenegro Airlines will begin flights to the Danish capital Copenhagen. The completely new service in the Montenegro Airlines network will operate from June 30 to September 8, once per week on Tuesday. If successful the airline will consider commencing services from Podgorica during the winter. The flight will operate with the airline’s Fokker F100 fleet. Details can be found on the right hand side in the new route launches section. The Tivat to Zurich service will also be introduced with daily flights beginning June 19. The flights will last until September 13. From May 30, Montenegro Airlines will begin 2 weekly flights to Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport which will accompany its already successful Podgorica – Paris service. Frequencies will be increased significantly to Belgrade to 22 weekly flights while the Moscow service will operate 3 times per week. The airline will also maintain its 3 weekly flights to London Gatwick.

There will be many charter carriers operating this summer to Tivat. The newest addition will be Sun d’Or International Airlines, an El-Al subsidiary which will operate from Tel Aviv. Its success will indicate weather the El Al itself will introduce flights to Podgorica.

Avoiding the crisis - Croatia Airlines

The three leading airlines from the EX-YU region - Croatia Airlines, Jat Airways and Adria Airways have all been heavily hit by the global financial crisis and the current economic gloom in the Balkans. The latest passenger figures available, for the month of March, have finally been published for Croatia Airlines and Adria, while Jat’s passenger figures were made public weeks ago. A major problem this March, when compared to last was the absence of Easter which sees high scale travel, especially in Croatia. With Easter falling into April, Croatian airports suffered greatly but Croatia Airlines managed to have relatively good results. The airline only saw a decrease of 9% in passenger figures when compared to last March. Having in mind the current economic crisis and the absence of Easter this is a good result. The carrier’s domestic destinations are now more popular than its international services. Therefore the airline is managing to compensate its passenger loss on international lines with domestic routes. It had 190.700 passengers during the month with an average cabin load factor of 51%. Some economists believe that Croatia’s tourism industry could profit from the current recession which would be good news for Croatia Airlines. Despite widespread public anger at the government’s actions in fighting the crisis, European economists believe that this year’s tourism season in Croatia will be better than the one last year. This can already be seen by the large number of charter and low cost carriers starting up services to Croatian seaside resort town. Analysts believe that because of the recession Europeans are choosing to travel shorter distances and Croatia is their perfect solution.

Slovenia’s Adria saw a bigger decrease in passenger figures. Its numbers declined by 14.3%, carrying a total of 68.800 passengers this March. The average load factor on its flights were slightly better than Croatia’s with 55.7%.

Overall European carriers saw their international demand fall by 11.6% where confidence has been dented by unemployment in key markets such as Germany and Spain increased to 8.6% and 17.4% respectively. The newest challenge carriers in Europe must face is the outbreak of the Mexican swine flu. Eastern Europe has been untouched by the virus however there have been confirmed cases in the Netherlands, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, within Europe. However, the good news seems to be that the spread of the virus has slowed.

Spotted at Timaru today was this Bushby Midget Mustang 1A ZK-MFE , c/n M-1-2036 , as built up by Mark Elworthy (Initials as registration). This O-320 powered aircraft cruises at 170kts. This was a prize winner at the recent Sport Aviation fly i at Ashburton.

A visitor from down south noted at Timaru on Saturday at completion of maintenance was this Airtractor AT-502B ZK-MAA , c/n 502B-2579 , of Mackenzie Aviation. Just taxying out for test circuits.

A recent arrival at Timaru is this Rotax 582 powered Denny Kitfox IV ZK-EWC2 , c/n 1640 , built by Ernest Colling of Wanaka. It is now with Ron Roberts.

The main attraction at Oamaru these days is the resident Fletcher FU24-550GT Crusader ZK-DDX , c/n 160 . It started life as a FU24-950 working with Cookson Airspread. It was withdrawn from use in December 1986 and cancelled in December of 1990. Flight Care at Napier rebuilt and registered it on 21-12-2005 with an extended fuselage, fin fillet and P&W PT6A-15AG engine. It first flew in this configuration on 07-06-2006 and was registered to Wanganui Aero Work (2004) Ltd on 02-01-07. It has been Oamaru based for some months now (first spied there mid October) and was listed to Aerial Sowing Ltd on 02-02-09.

Taylor Monoplane ZK-DQG, registered just over 34 years ago, was out having engine runs at Ardmore lunchtime today. I've not seen this ole girl for a long time!

Soon in Niš

The charter wars between Serbia’s Jat Airways and Turkish and Egyptian charter carriers continue. After the media discovered that the Serbian Directorate for Civil Aviation is unwilling to grant seasonal summer charter licenses to carriers from Turkey (Atlasjet, Sky Airlines and Pegasus) and Egypt (Lotus Air, KoralBlue Airlines, Air Cairo and Air Memphis), because it wants to protect the Serbian national carrier, a true war between the Serbian and foreign carriers has developed. However will Niš, Serbia’s second international airport which is struggling to attract airlines, be the one with most to smile about? It seems so. The Serbian Directorate has granted licenses to Atlasjet and Pegasus Airlines from Turkey to begin services from Antalya to Niš, as they requested, however, their applications for flights to continue to Belgrade have been rejected. The Turkish charter carrier Sky Airlines which applied for flights to Belgrade only has also been rejected.

Egyptian carriers Air Cairo and Lotus Air which have applied for summer charters from Cairo, Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh to Belgrade have also been rejected while airlines KoralBlue and Air Memphis’ licenses have just entered the procedure for receiving a license although they are likely not to be given them.

The director at the Serbian Directorate of Civil Aviation said that passengers should not confuse low cost airlines with charter airlines. He commented that the low cost Austrian based Nikki Airways was not allowed to fly to Belgrade because Austria and Serbia only have an agreement for the national carriers from each country to operate flights to the others. Similarly he said that currently Germanwings and Norwegian Air Shuttle are the only low cost carriers operating to Serbia while Nordic Airways also received a license although the carrier from Sweden ceased all operations earlier this year. The Directorate also mentions that the Hungarian Malev has not received a license for Budapest – Belgrade flights because it owes over 700.000 Euros to Jat Airways. Turkish authorities have said that they might respond in the same manner as Serbian authorities and revoke Jat’s summer charter license. It is not sure if Atlasjet and Pegasus Airlines will go ahead with their Niš service. Meanwhile Egyptian authorities don’t seem to be that worried. Jat’s flight to Sharm el-Sheikh via Hurghada will go ahead as scheduled tomorrow evening.

Airlines from Macedonia now allowed above Greece

Greek authorities have partially lifted a ban which bans Macedonian airlines from entering Greek airspace and therefore landing at any Greek airport. Air control representatives from the two countries met in Athens two days ago where an agreement was signed between them. Under the new agreement carriers from Macedonia will be allowed to fly over Greek airspace while Greek registered air companies will also be able to fly over Macedonian airspace. However, Greece will still not allow any airline registered in Macedonia to land at any of its airports. The radical move, introduced last year, had a great impact on MAT Macedonian Airlines which was unable to operate lucrative summer charters to the country, just before the summer season began.

The director of Macedonia’s Civil Aviation Agency, Zoran Kristevski, said that this is the first agreement between the two countries in regards to aviation collaboration in the last 5 years. It is also Macedonia’s first step in integrating itself into the new European Union single sky policy. Macedonian carriers have been banned from Greece due to a long running dispute between the two countries due to the name of the Republic of Macedonia, internationally known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of. The new move will have little impact for Macedonian carriers as there is currently no one performing civilian air service.