The information on this page will continue to grow as we follow the history of this Pilatus Porter PC6 with 18800 hours of flying and 8980 Landings

• F-OCQV Air Corail New Caledonia 1974 to 1978
• During this period the PC6 was utilised as a communting aircraft within a nickel mining business in New Caledonia.

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ZK-PTP - Air Safaris 1978 to 1987

This aircraft ( PC6/B1-H2 Turbo Porter ) arrived in New Zealand from New Caledonia in November 1978. F-OCQV was used as a eight seater aircraft to provide additional capacity for a tourist oriented air taxi and scenic flight operator.

We operated ZK-PTP from our Lake Tekapo base from about 1978 thru to1987. Lake Tekapo is in the middle of the South Island New Zealand near Mount Cook. It was used in a number of different roles. The Pilatus spent the winters here on ski's transferring skiers up into some of our remoter areas ski touring as well as a variety of other jobs (e.g. transport to local skifield, photography etc). It also did a lot of scenic flying around the Mount Cook and Westland National Parks during both our summers and winters. It was also used to transfer hunters and climbers into our remoter bush strips. It proved to be a very reliable and popular aircraft. As our market developed more into straight charter and scenic work the decision was made to sell it. Regards Tim Rayward

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This Porter PC6 N°656 F-GFDC is currently based on Pujaut near Avignon in France.

1989 The CERPLM bought the PC6 B2H1 N° 656 F-GFDC.

1990 The engine has been changed to a PT6 A27. It's better to climb with a performance of 13 minutes to 13000 ft with 9 skydivers.

1996 The propeller has been changed for a four blades, best solution to reduct the noise.

1998 At the general inspection of 14 years, the porter has been restarted at new with a new cabin, new paint, new windchield, new color.

2000 General inspection of the engine PT6 A27. The engine are always the same noise, now we want to give a new life with a new turbin: PT6 A34.

Today ( Dec 2006) has 18800 hours of flying with 8980 landings.

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September 2002.

The severe flooding of the airfield at Avignon-Pujaut in the south east of France during September 2002 caused the rescue of VH-SMA ( now F-GFDC ) to a nearby road where it was then taken for a inspection that revealed that no major damage had occurred. We are all proud of this particular PC6-Porter with a on going flight history of 39 years.

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The severe flooding of the airfield at Avignon-Pujaut in the south east of France during September 2002 caused the rescue of VH-SMA ( now F-GFDC ) to a nearby road where it was then taken for a inspection that revealed that no major damage had occurred. We are all proud of this particular PC6-Porter with a on going flight history of 41 years.

	Pilatus Porter PC-6 Serial No. 656 History
Registration	Operator / Owner	From	To
HB-FDC	Pilatus Flugzeugwerke	28/9/67	21/11/67
VH-SMA	Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority	30/10/67	19/1/73
VH-SMA	Stillwell B.S.	19/1/73	25/10/73
F-OCQV	Air Corail	15/5/74	27/11/75
F-OCQV	Gaillot Roger	27/11/75	16/3/77
F-OCQV	Ohlen Yvan	16/3/77	7/12/78
ZK-PTP	Air Safaris & Services (NZ) Ltd	19/12/78	18/3/87
F-GFDC	Air Savoie	16/3/87	14/3/88
F-GFDC	CERP du Languedoc-Mediterranee	14/3/88	Current

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