by Steve Mackenzie
Background
I covered the activities of Air Caledonia and it's sister company Aircalin (Air Caledonia International) in issue 22/1. New Caledonia is split into three provinces (see map), the outlying Loyalty Islands being served by the regional airline Air Loyaute, specializing in domestic flights within the Loyalty Islands and surrounding regions. Established in 2003, the airline offered medical evacuation (medivac), and charter services.
They were originally Aviazur operating initially a Britten Norman Islander F-ODYF damaged at Magenta Airport, Noumea New Caledonia in Nov 2003 and Rheims F406 Caravan 11 F-ODYZ. After financial difficulties it was acquired by SODIL, a semi-public company in the Loyalty Islands Province, becoming Air Loyaute and signing a partnership contract with Air Caledonie to serve short-haul routes inaccessible by their ATRs or routes with low passenger numbers. Full scheduled services to various destinations in the Loyalty Islands began in 2015.
The airline operated a fleet of five aircraft for those flights, three DHC-6 Twin Otters and two Beechcraft B200 Raisbeck models acquired in 2011 for medical evacuation duties. The Twin Otters are well-suited for short regional flights. The Beechcraft B200 Raisbeck aircraft (regos F-HEAL and F-HLON), with a capacity of eight passengers, were utilised for specific routes and medical evacuation services. Note in 2015 ch-aviation stated there were three B200s.
Air Loyaute's primary hub is Noumea Magenta Airport, located in the capital city of New Caledonia. From this central point, the airline flys to destinations in the Loyalty Islands, including Koumac, Belep, Touho, Mare, Tiga, Lifou, and Ouvea. Additionally they extend the services to Wallis and Futuna from Jan 01 2024 taking over from Air Carlin using two Twin Otters, further enhancing regional connectivity.
Colours
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).
The Air Loyaute scheme was quite standardised across their airframes with small variations in the Black treatment of the engine cowlings, the position of the Black serials, the trim around the doors, spinners and the details of the Butterfly markings (which are Orange although some images can make them look more reddish). The different one was the special scheme on F-ONCA when it was transporting Covid medicine during the period of the epidemic. Regular passenger flights were shut down for sometime in 2022 due to the quarantine put into place.
One area to closely look at in photos of these aircraft and the accompanying drawings is the aerial fit which varies enormously between different operators and in some cases individual machines in the same company. Another thing to watch for is that their machines have an additional window in the airstair door on the port side. So you will have to cut and glaze a window to match.
F-OIAY
This was the first Twin Otter delivered on 6 Mar 2003. It was previously P2-KSR of Regional Air, Madang PNG. There are 2 images at 'https://twinotterarchive.com/DHC-6_507.html' of it with 'Air Loyaute' titles added to the full Regional Air scheme (the 2nd with the original airline logos removed). Note the date differs slightly which is a problem often run into with this series in different sources. Earlier in late 2002 VH-FNU had been leased from Regional Pacific Airlines QLD. It had been intended to re-register it as F-OIAY but it was not taken up and the airframe returned to Regional Pacific.
Starboard and Port rear fuselage views showing detail.
Nose and upper mainplane views showing detail.
Detail of the nose and fuselage Butterfly logos on this airframe.
Profile of F-OIAY in the simple scheme of Gloss White overall with Black areas on the engine cowls, wings (partial) and horizontal tail planes. Black rego on fuselage. Company logos on nose, fuselage and tail are Blue and Orange. Gray trim around the doors. Spinners are Silver here but Black or White can be seen in some images.
WFU and stored at GEA 11 Oct 2023 - 28 Aug 2024, then to Zimex Aviation as HB-LAL and used in 2025 on the Wallis-Futuna Island run on lease to Air Loyaute.
Before I move on from F-OIAY I will mention the 'Blue Butterfly' scheme shown in several adverts on the Company's Facebook page. One of them is below. Note the aircraft image is no more than a photoshopped version of the photo of F-OIAY climbing out shown above. Three other adverts of it in flight were no doubt also photoshopped. There is no proof I could find that this scheme actually existed rather than something possibly planned to be implemented.
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