I was contacted a few weeks ago by Tony Roberts, an Australian with a passion for Pilatus aircrafts.
Many years ago he had created a website on the subject, unfortunately his site was hacked several times and he preferred to close it.
Not wishing to lose all the work he had done, Tony asked me to include through my blog "Pilatus...History...and News" some pages of his site.
Pilatus Porter VH-SMA
The information on this page will continue to grow as we follow the history of this Pilatus Porter PC6 with 20221 hours of flying and 58000 Landing
VH-SMA -Snowy Mountains Authority 1968 to 1975
F-OCQV Air Corail New Caledonia 1974 to 1978
ZK-PTP Air Safaris 1978 to 1987
HB-FDC First rego when delivered to Austalia from Pilatus in 1968
F-GFDC Currently based on Pujaut near Avignon in France
HB-FDC First rego when delivered to Austalia from Pilatus in 1968
HB-FDC -Pilatus serial No. 656,
The first of two Porters puchased for $105,000 Aust. in 1968, as new by the Snowy Mountains Authority through the Australian distributor Forrester Stephen based at Essendon in Victoria. Delivery included the flying out to Australia in 1968 by a Pilatus pilot (Emil Wick) and then registered as VH-SMA.
Flight Schedule -for delivery, In date order. 29/9/68 Buochs -Agno. 30/9/68 Agno -Athen. 1/10/68 Athen -Damascus. 2/10/68 Damascus -Bahrain. 3/10/68 Bahrain -Karachi. 4/10/68 Karachi -New-Dehli. 5/10/68 New-Dehli -Calcutta. 6/10/68 Calcutta -Rangoon -Bangkok. 7/10/68 Bangkok -Medan. 8/10/68 Med -Djakarta. 9/10/68 Djakarta -(Ruhetag) 10/10/68 Djakarta (50h Kontrolle). 11/10/68 Djakarta (50h Kontrolle event. Rep). 12/10/68 Djakarta -Bali. 13/10/68 Bali -Kupang. 14/10/68 Kupang -Darwin. 15/10/68 Darwin -Alice Springs. 16/10/68 Alice Springs -Leigh Creek. 17/10/68 Leigh Creek -Melbourne.
This Shaft-Drive PC6 was involved with building the Australian Snowy Mountains Scheme during the early 1970's.
The Avaition section of the Australian Snowy Mountains Scheme included a total of 9 aircraft which included two Porters, SMA and SMB. SMB was involved in a fatal accident in 1976 where it remains buried at the accident site.
After several owners SMA is still flying today in France under a new registration number, F-GFDC.
VH-SMA -Snowy Mountains Authority 1968 to 1975
Towards the end of 1949 the construction of 'The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme' started. During 1950 's, the then Snowy Mountains Authority attracted two-thirds of the 1000 workforce from over 30 countries to the construction sites to join the Australians already working on the Scheme.
The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme is located within the Snowy Mountains Region suited at the south east corner of Australia that is part of the Great Dividing Range and is home to Mount Kosciuszko (2228 metres) Australia's highest mountain and Australia's major area for winter sking resorts.
The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme was completed after 25 years of construction which consisted of building 7 power stations and 16 dams connected by 140 kilometres of tunnels which provides 85% of the renewable energy supplied to the South East Australian electricity grid and then divert the snowy mountains water to a section of Australia's drought prone inland for rural production.
VH-SMA was used to transfer some of the many items and people required to assist in the construction of the now recognised major event of Australian's construction history.
F-OCQV Air Corail New Caledonia 1974 to 1978
During this period the PC6 was utilised as a commuting aircraft within a nickel mining business in New Caledonia.
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
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 ( July 2010) this Porter has 202221 hours of flying with 58000 landings.
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 44 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 3/3/2010
F-GFDC S.P.V. Sky Services 3/3/2010 Current
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