ZK-BCP  de Havilland D.H.89B Dragon Rapide                (c/n  6648)

                                  
                                        This Dominie had served with the RNZAF as NZ524 before being civilianized as a Dragon
                                        Rapide in 1953 for South Island Airways.  That company owned a modest fleet of them.
                                        On 16 September 1959 it was acquired by Air Charter Ltd and owned by Brian Chadwick
                                        of Christchurch.Charter Ltd .  Chadwick was a former Chief Pilot of Trans Island Airways
                                        and prior to that South Island Airways, both previous owners of BCP. After the demise of
                                        Trans Island Airways, Chadwick decided to establish his own air charter company appropriately
                                        named Air Charter Ltd    The first photograph below, by Brian Purcel (via the Richard Waugh
                                        collection) shows Chadwick with the aircraft at Christchurch in January 1962.  Shortly after
                                        this shot was taken Chadwick disappeared in his other aircraft, D.H. 90 Dragonfly. ZK-AFB,
                                        on a flight from Christchurch to Milford Sound.  The lower photograph was taken by Dave
                                        Freeman of ZK-BCP in 1970, by which time it was owned by Mt. Cook Airlines.  It comes
                                        courtesy of the Ken Tilley collection.   ZK-BCP was sold in Australia in 1975 becoming
                                        VH-BGP.  It was once part of the ill-fated Wangaratta Airworld Museum.    It is now owned
                                        by Bruce Ivers who is having it lovingly restored (as a long term project) at Croydon Aircraft
                                        Co at Mandeville, near Gore on New Zealand's South Island.     At the foot of the page is an
                                        interesting shot by Sandy Ferguson, taken just prior to its departure to Australia wherein the
                                        'C" had been changed to a 'G" but the VH- on the rudder still showed signs of 'ZK-" !