This past weekend I was delighted to receive a detailed message and some nice photos of ZK-FRD (note the registration) from Evan Belworthy of Cust, North Canterbury, New Zealand.  I’ll let Evan tell the story:

“Our Fred was started in 1977 as a father and son project, Dad (Alan Belworthy) had built a Woody Pusher and the teenager helped on the project, the next step was learning to fly and having something to fly, the Fred appealed as it was something different and designed as a stepping stone from glider pilots to powered flight so ideal for the student pilot.

“With Eric’s assistance Fred was modified during construction and has a one piece wing, spring steel undercarriage, stringers on the turtle deck and down the side of the fuse plus the trailing edge of the wing is scalloped.

“Fred flew on the 19 October 1979, weight 547 lbs, the first four flights were with the local topdressing pilot before he departed New Zealand for good. Dad took over the test flying and on the 16 December 1979 Fred climbed to 10,500 ft in one hour ten minutes, and on the 22 December 1979 I was set solo in my own aeroplane.

“Fred was then seen in all of New Zealand and in 1992 had clocked up 400 hours, the engine was a 1600 cc VW and this was enlarged to 1830 cc in the early stages to improve the rate of climb. Fred has now done 600 hours and this has slowed because of other aeroplanes being built and flown, it is fun to fly and has nil vices.”

If you note those dates, that means that the Belworthy FRED has been flying for over 30 years!  In a further message Evan had this to say about his FRED’s landing gear and other modifications:

“We do have drawings for all the changes we did, with some searching could locate them or take photos to assist builders.  The U/C was an adaptation from the Woody Pusher drawings scaled down, it is heavier than the built up U/C but nil moving parts, nil wear, nil maintenance and such a smooth ride.”

You can see more pics of ZK-FRD in the FRED worldwide photo gallery on Flickr.

Thanks Evan and family for sharing your FRED story!

Photo:  ZK-FRD beats up the Belworthy family airstrip (boy, am I jealous!) on February 19, 2010 in a photo by Penny Belworthy.  Courtesy of Evan Belworthy.