Cessna 177 Cardinal VH-DZQ of Aeropelican Air Services in their later Orange/White scheme 10/5/1976. Photographer David Carter.
by Steve Mackenzie
Continuing with my look at local Twin Otter schemes, this Part 3 will look at the colours of the airframes used by Aeropelican when they were based at Pelican Field at Belmont (now renamed Lake Macquarie Airfield). Local entrepenaur Keith Hilder acquired the rights and a 25 yr lease on 27 acres of scrub & swampy land at Pelican (Belmont) in 1959, he drained, cleared and filled the land with fill from local coal mines in order to make it suitable to establish an Airfield there. Initially I believe that Aeropelican operated as a flying school (I have a listing of the light planes that operated from there in the 1960s).
But Keith Hilder had greater plans, a vision to provide a Newcastle - Sydney air service (operating from the Belmont hub) with passenger aircraft. He established Aeropelican Air Services in 1968, commencing operations in 1971, finally succeeding after a ten year battle to obtain the necessary licence. At the time of Keith's passing in 1976, his Newcastle based Hilder family owned Aeropelican Air Services.
Initially the service used 9 passenger seat Cessna 402 twins as per the photo above (I may cover these airframes another time, but unfortunately the only kit is a rare resin one from Gremlin Models (from I think Yugoslavia but info is very scarce - our friends at Talair also operated 402s, another reason I may consider it)). They had about six of them in several schemes including the Orange/White colours.
After Keith Hilder passed away, Aeropelican was sold in 1980 to Masling Airlines, who operated services for Ansett Australia (thus the Twin Otters in Ansett colours, see later). Ansett's collapse in September 2001, placed Aeropelican into administration to be acquired by International Air Parts in April 2002. The airline entered into a commercial agreement with Regional Express Airline in 2003 and commenced services from Sydney to Newcastle's other airport, Williamtown in 2004 (by that time the DHC-6s had been disposed of). The end of a long era came in March 2005 when the airline discontinued service. Some of the assets were acquired in a management buyout by a group of former employees including the British Aerospace Jetstream 32s by then in service, being reconstituted under the name of Fly Pelican.
Although quite a few of the overseas Twin Otters can be seen in very colourful overall paint schemes, the local machines (from Australia and our Pacific neighbours) appear to mostly be in Gloss White with coloured cheat lines etc added. Most companies have some sort of Gloss Black area around the engine nacelles and sometimes the horizontal tail surfaces also to hide the exhaust stain. This varies between operators and the drawings should be observed carefully. Some machines carry deicing boots on the leading edges of wings and tailplanes ( this can be either Black or a light buff colour).
Initially Aeropelican acquired three airframes second hand that had previously operated with other users. A short nosed model 100 DHC-6 VH-MMY and two longer nosed airframes VH-TGY and VH-TZL (these will be looked at individually later). They also at one stage acquired the wreck of VH-PAQ to use as spare parts that had been operated by a firm named Pan Air who managed to run out of fuel in mid air and had to crashland on King Island in Bass Straight (I now have the full story of the circumstances plus further images of the airframe, so this Pan Air airframe will be in a subsequent issue). One German source claimed that this airframe was 'leased' but that is incorrect.
Aeropelican purchased the ex-MMA 19-seat DHC-6 Series 100 Twin Otter VH-MMY on 1 April 1976, with assistance from Ansett (who owned MMA by that stage). It flew it's first service with Aeropelican on 16 April. Initially it operated in a modified MMA scheme of Red/Black/White with Aeropelican titles replacing the MMA ones. See 'http://twinotterarchive.com/DHC-6_80.html' for an overview of it's history with the reference photos. Later the scheme was changed to the then current Orange/ White Aeropelican colours.
In December, 1976, DHC-6 Series 200 Twin Otter VH-TGY was purchased 2nd hand from Islandair and operated initially in the basic Islandair colour scheme with Aeropelican titling. See 'https://www.twinotterworld.com/msn-124' for reference images of VH-TGY in this initial scheme and it's later replacement Orange/ White Aeropelican colours. Also a photo in the colours it carried when acquired by Aeropelican can be seen at 'https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/7504875'. In 1981 it was sold to Talair (PNG) (likely while still in the Orange/ White scheme) and later served with other PNG operators.
VH-TGY was seen in 1978-81 in the later Orange/ White scheme, similar to the scheme later carried on VH-MMY (above). Classic Aeropelican Overall Gloss White (FS 17875)/ Orange scheme. The Aeropelican logo on tail was Orange and Black. Exhaust areas on cowlings, anti-glare panel, lettering on forward fuselage and Regos, and tip of nose were Black. Spinners White. Fuselage striping (and small ones on engine cowlings), door outlines, and end plates of wings were Orange. See 'https://www.twinotterworld.com/msn-124' for an image of this scheme.
On 21 Apr 1978, DHC-6 Series 100 Twin Otter VH-TZL was the 3rd airframe purchased 2nd hand (from Syd-Aero in Sweden as SE-FTO). Conveniently the Syd-Aero colour scheme was already Orange/ White which meant less repainting required (likely why Aeropelican purchased this particular airframe). See 'https://www.twinotterworld.com/msn-43' for reference images of SE-FTO in it's initial Syd-Aero scheme and it's later Orange/ White Aeropelican colours. As you can see they did little to alter the scheme, just adding their own logos, the new regos VH-TZL and painting the nose cone Black. In 1981 it was sold by Aeropelican (likely while still in the Orange/ White scheme) and passed through several operators (Noosa Air, Sunstate Airlines, Flight West Airlines and Whittaker Air Charter). By 1991 it was with Whittaker and was illustrated as VH-TZL with them in issue 36/2. Later it was re-registered as VH-ZKF and passed to more owners.
