ZSITR Beech Sundowner

[justinvanas]

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Beech Sundowner

[GaryM]

Lovely aircraft - used to own her about 8-10 yrs ago... before having 3 kids...

[amkie]

ZSITU, ZSITR's suster. Nice to speak to you in the air this morning Justin!!

[Pete]

Matt Ford and I as partners bought ZS-ITU (was then Z-WIJ) from a Zim farmer Bruce Gemmil in the nineties and ferried it from Charles Prince to SA with Matts first night experience over the vlaktes of the northern Transvaal with the Bendix T12C ADF for guidance... good memories

ZS-ITR was owned by the late Dan Esterhuizen based at Krugersdorp in the eighties where he and his wife Berdine both flew and cared for it very well.
We had lots of flyaways in those days with me in my old Cessna 172 ZS-EAD joining in the fun

[amkie]

Thanks for the background information Pete!

[birdtrader]

Hi guys

I owned ZS-ITR from 1998 till 2000. Bought her from a guy in PE. Had lost of fun flying along the Overberg coast. Operated from Zeekoevlei near Bredasdorp where about 500m of gravel runway, barely the width of her track was usable at that time. A later rented a hanger at Andrew's Field at Struisbaai. Used to fly a lot between Struisbaai and Stilbaai carrying stock for our clothing shops in these towns. Was sad to see her go but as you know at that time interest rates were very high and just could not afford it anymore.

I later bought ZS-KCM (April 2004), a 1978 model while living in Knysna. Later moved to Oudtshoorn and sold her in 2009 to a guy in Oudtshoorn. He later sold her (almost timex) and she is apparently around Rand at the moment.

Very well built aircraft. A bit slow but a real pleasure to fly.

Safe flying!

[Bearcat]

Hi guys

I later bought ZS-KCM (April 2004), a 1978 model while living in Knysna. Later moved to Oudtshoorn and sold her in 2009 to a guy in Oudtshoorn. He later sold her (almost timex) and she is apparently around Rand at the moment.

KCM is not based at Rand but she has visited
August 2015

[Pete]

A pic of ZS-KCM on the apron at Lanseria 1981.
We even flew our model aircraft off the apron when it was not too busy.. great times

I did part of my PPL at NAC where KCM was on the fleet along with sister ships ZS-KCR and ZS-KCJ

[Beech Bum]

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[ddevos]

When I was in high school we had a doctor living next to us who bought ZS-ITR as a demo model in 1974 for R19500 (new price was R22000 at the time). Always liked these aircraft ever since then and happened to learn to fly on Sundowners at Tempe in the 80s, flown ZS-ITR as well when it was based at Tempe for a while. In the early years ZS-ITR had a 74" prop which sounded rather different (and nicer) than the later 76" props. It also took part in the PTAR in 2008 at Witbank. It also has a small bit of "war" history back in the mid 70s, but that's another story...

[Beech Bum]

Hi DDevos

Dont let us hang in suspense... please tel us the "little bit of war" history of ITR :D

BB

[ddevos]

Hi BB, this happened while I was still in high school in a small town. One afternoon I heard the Sundowner flying and the next moment I started hearing gun shots! I jumped on my bicycle and went to just outside of town to try and see what was going on. The shots came from the Sundowner, so when the owner arrived home later that afternoon I asked him what that was all about. There was a large group of baboons damaging a crop on the same farm where the airfield used to be in those days and they decided to fire some shots through the storm window to scare them away. It worked, that was the last time the baboons tried that! At least they couldn't shoot back...

[Beech Bum]

Hi DDeVos
Amazing, I would have liked to see that!
Best Regards
BB

[VortexRAP]

Hi guys

I later bought ZS-KCM (April 2004), a 1978 model while living in Knysna. Later moved to Oudtshoorn and sold her in 2009 to a guy in Oudtshoorn. He later sold her (almost timex) and she is apparently around Rand at the moment.

KCM is not based at Rand but she has visited
August 2015

You must have bought her off me! I had her at Grand Central 2003/2004 .... she had persistent magneto problems and broke some valve springs end of 2003. Always good landings - even at midday at Hotazel - the ground effect was fun!