On a New Year's Day 2011, this exVietnam Cessna Bird Dog in US Army colors, dropped in to the Tokoroa airfield on its way through the district.

Apparently, the pilot of this plane, rescued it from a slow death at the hands of the elements in Vietnamese countryside back in 1990 and has restored it to its former glory.

The wing had to be completely reskinned as it had 54 holes, mainly due to smallarms fire sustained while "on patrol".

The fuselage still carries a number of patches where bulletholes would otherwise perforate its skin.

This is an extremely well restored example of a very interesting aircraft that also has incredibly good STOL capabilities. The pilot tells me that with a 10 knot headwind, he can take off in just 40 feet.

Let me know if you'd like to see more of these kind of fullsized aircraft videos, we quite often get unusual and interesting aircraft landing at the field.