In the last few weeks three more Guimbal G2 Cabri helicopters have arrived in New Zealand.  This includes a new build serial 1057 from the factory in France, which will become the fifth helicopter in the country to fly with the registration ZK-HCS.  [The previous “HCS” was a Cabri now re-registered to ZK-ICS.  Ed] Meanwhile two of the very early production examples have been purchased on the pre-owned market from Europe.

Serial 1003, previously in the Netherlands with Helicon as PH-WTW will take up ZK-HTV

Serial 1004, previously in France with Heli Challenge (and Ixair before that) arrived as F-GXRV and will become ZK-IZR.

This takes the New Zealand fleet to seven.  We understand that a further five are on order for delivery in 2014 to take the number to twelve.  All of the recent arrivals have been imported via Pacific Aircraft Ltd at Christchurch International Airport, from where the photo below was taken showing five Cabris being worked on in a rather busy hangar – the above three arrivals along with the re-registerd ZK-ICS and serial 1044 ZK-IZD.  Photo (c) of NZ Civil Aircraft blog and used with prior written agreement

Jeremy Parkin – HeliHub.com