Puerto Rico International Airlines de
Havilland D.H.114 Heron 2 N13663 (c/n 14077)
There were two Prinair Herons registered N13663. The other
was a fixed undercarriage
Mk 1
formerly G-ANLN, which had then been sold as BWIA's 6Y-JCZ before
being
acquired by Prinair in 1968 for, it would appear, spares parts
only* .
The functioning
N13363, a Mk 2 seen above in
this Jose Alfonso
collection photo
(via William W.
Sierra), was originally built new for West African Airways in 1955
as
VR-NAW. Five years later it went briefly to Itavia as
I-AOGO and shortly there-
after repatriated back to the U.K. as G-AROS. It had a couple of
leases to Germany
as D-CASA and
Israel as 4X-ARJ before finally being sold to Prinair in March 1967
. It was later converted to 'Prinair Heron' standard with 300 hp
Continental IO-520 engines
and re-registered N557PR. As such it was still extant when
Prinair collapsed in 1985 and
was placed in
storage at Opa Locka, FL and subsequently broken up.
* Now
here's the thing: The Mk I was purchased after the Mk II seen here but
given, if my
records are
correct, the same N13663 registration. FAA records only specify
this rego as
a Mk 2 so
there may have some sort of error in Prinair's record keeping.
In the event,
the Mk 1 was not
used in the service fleet.