The Grumman Goose at Bora Bora.

[Herman]

Hav'nt taken a sea plane for a ride for quite some time....so I decided to take to the sky and do a flight around the most beautiful Island in the World (IMO) located
in French Polynesia.

All ground checks completed and ready to proceed to the sea plane ramp.



Starting the take off run towards the north west.



Airborne.



The Islands most prominent feature.....an extinct volcano forming Mount Pahia and Mount Otemanu rising to about 2,400ft.



Turning now to reach a southbound heading.



Flying south now parallel to the airport runway. A couple of aircraft visible on the tarmac.


Still heading south some Resort  accommodation huts can bee seen jutting out into the waters of the Lagoon.


Turning now to a south west direction.


Now on the western side of the Island with the largest town of Vaitape visible in the distance below Mount Pahia and Mt. Otemanu.


Now heading back to the NE side lagoon for an approach and water landing.








Bora Bora has always been on my Bucket List....but .....maybe someday??

Cheers....Herman

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

Bora Bora has always been on my Bucket List

Spent of lot of my time in Tahiti's/French Polynesia's Society Islands (that's Tahiti Nui/Tahiti Iti, Mo'orea, Ra'atea, Huahine, and Bora Bora) between 1989 and 2000.

Mo'orea and Bora Bora are both exceptionally nice ....


TAHITI, MO'OREA, and BORA BORA











ALL PHOTOS: Mark.R.CRANSTON


.... albeit French Polynesia's also "incredibly expensive" too. No income tax there so internal revenue's largely generated from taxes/commissions on all products and services which ultimately make French Polynesia one of the most expensive tourist destinations in the world, but, it "IS" well worth it .... I feel .... and from my own many pleasant experiences there.

It's a nice part of the world and one I miss .... a lot.

Spent many weekends between 1984 and 1989 flying on SEA BEE AIR's GRUMMAN GOOSE and WIDGEON amphibians here in AKL too ....


GRUMMAN G-44A SUPER WIDGEON ZK-AVM





GRUMMAN G-44A SUPER WIDGEON ZK-CFA







GRUMMAN G-21A GOOSE ZK-DFC

















GRUMMAN G-21A GOOSE ZK-ENY















GRUMMAN G-21A GOOSE ZK-ENY (ZK-ENY)







GRUMMAN G-21G TURBO-GOOSE ZK-ERX




ALL PHOTOS: Mark.R.CRANSTON


"GREAT " aircraft Can't ever beat the sensation and sound of a water TO and landing ....


GRUMMAN WIDGEON
youtu.be/9LfmKDm2THQ?t=134

GRUMMANN GOOSE
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJunmmcNBL0


Had "A VERY NASTY FRIGHT" once on the WIDGEON, but, if one's mentally strong, keen on aviation, and positive about life and situations too, then, one always comes back for more. Another past life (in a so far very interesting one for me) I similarly miss now as well


Mark C
AKL/NZ

[Herman]

Lucky Man....to have been able to spend so much time in that beautiful part of the World.

Thank you for all your great images\photo's of Tahiti....MO'OREA and Bora Bora. THe Grumman Widgeon and Goose.

The Goose registration.....DQ-FDQ looks interesting.?? 

Cheers....Herman

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

Lucky Man....to have been able to spend so much time in that beautiful part of the World.

OH .... it's just one of those things in life. You know. If one wants it to happen then ones gotta "make it happen" .... or ..... "If you don't go when you want to go, when you do go, you'll find you're gone"

The Goose registration.....DQ-FDQ looks interesting

"DQ-FDQ" was our ZK-ENY which was leased to SUN TOURS AIR in Fiji from October 1982 until October 1984 .... when it then returned to NZ and it's original ZK-ENY registration. It took up the Fijian civil registration in order to be able to operate there (DQ- being the Fijian national civil registration prefix/ID). If it's of interest you can read all about this within my following-linked 2-part feature dedicated to the history of NZ's GRUMMAN amphibians ....

ECHOE's OF AN ERA
tonymadgehjg.proboards.com/thread/5950/lifetime-interest-27-years-research


Mark C
AKL/NZ

[vondrinkoften]

Nice shots of the Goose Herman, its a fun aircraft to fly.
I was playing around with the Goose a couple weeks ago myself, as have been considering using it for a possible "leg" in the South Island of NZ. (if I ever get around to it) 

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

I should have mentioned Herman ....

During the early 1950's there was a GRUMMAN WIDGEON based at Tahiti .... in service with REGIE AERIEN INTERINSULAIRE (F-OAGX) .... a forerunner of what later became AIR TAHITI. From Pape'ete it flew out to all of the French Polynesian Society Islands group west of Tahiti (including to Bora Bora .... and which is a sizeable patch of water), as well as to the Tuamotu Archipelago (north of Tahiti). On occasions it was even charted to to fly from Tahiti to Aitutaki in the Cook Islands (to connect with TEAL flying boat services to NZ) and which is quite an impressive distance west of Tahiti .... for a WIDGEON to fly. The French experienced "a lot of (then) unexplainable performance problems" with this particular aircraft though. They withdrew it from service during 1954 and sold it to NZ TOURIST AIR TRAVEL (ZK-BGQ .... the first of NZTAT's 6X GRUMMAN WIDGEON's) and replaced it with a GRUMMAN MALLARD. The same "then unexplainable" difficulties persisted with this particular aircraft in NZTAT service too .... resulting in a number of minor incidents/accidents and repetitious expensive repairs. ZK-BGQ (and later ZK-BPX also) had a distressing tendency of water-looping upon landing upon flat calm sea conditions .... whereas by the the early 1960's the airlines 4 other GRUMMAN WIDGEON's (ZK-AVM, ZK-BAY, ZK-CFA, and ZK-CHG) demonstrated no such difficulties/habits at all. After nearly 10 years of service with NZTAT the cause was suddenly discovered. Both ZK-BGQ (the former Tahiti based aircraft), and ZK-BPX (acquired from Argentina), were both early production WIDGEON's .... which had "a problem" .... albeit unbeknown to the Pacific based operators. These aircraft featured the original WIDGEON keel/step design. All WIDGEON's in existence, beyond the mid 1940's, were supposed to have undergone keel modification to address their known water-looping tendencies which had resulted in a number of fatal accidents overseas. All later production WIDGEON's (produced beyond 1944) were built to the modified standard and were never subject to this particular problem. Somehow ZK-BGQ, and ZK-BPX, had missed their essential upgrades .... and the NZCAA was similarly unaware of the air worthiness directive forcing these modifications too. Post modification both aircraft then performed faultlessly .... although ZK-BPX was W/O as the result of a non-fatal gear down water landing at Port Pegasus, Stewart Island, on January 1st 1964 whilst in service with NZTAT, and ZK-BGQ was W/O of by SEA BEE AIR at Kelly's Bay, Kaipara Harbour, Auckland, on January 21st 1980 as the result of a fatal water landing accident the circumstances of which have never been fully explained to this day.

If you're aware of the 1980's TV series "TALES OF THE GOLDEN MONKEY" (featuring a fixed-wing-tip floats configured GRUMMAN GOOSE and Jake the little one-eyed dog), Bora Bora is mentioned repeatedly throughout that particular series .... although in reality i think the series was actually filed around either Catalina Island (off the LAX coast) or in the Hawaiian islands, but so far as I'm aware, there was never a GOOSE based anywhere within French Polynesia.

You may be "the first" to have (virtually) done so

Mark C
AKL/NZ