07/10/2026
✈️ A VERY SPECIAL NEW MEMBER HAS JOINED OUR FLEET… WELCOME N243SA! ✈️
This one is a little different.
Not every exciting addition to a fleet has to be new. Sometimes an aircraft arrives carrying 65 years of history, character and stories within its wings.
We are very proud to welcome N243SA, a beautiful 1961 Piper PA-22-108 C**t, to Easy Aircraft Rental / North Weald Flying Group at North Weald Airfield (EGSX). 💙
And this is not just any vintage Piper.
🇬🇧 Many years ago, this very aircraft was G-ARKR.
The old black-and-white photograph included with this post shows the same aircraft in an earlier chapter of her life, wearing the British registration G-ARKR and OXFORD AVIATION titles.
Same aircraft.
Same airframe.
A completely different era of aviation.
📖 FROM G-ARKR TO N243SA
Our C**t, construction number 22-8376, was manufactured by Piper in 1961 at Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.
Remarkably, she was already in Britain during the year she was built.
Historical aviation archives document G-ARKR at Oxford (Kidlington) on 2 July 1961, meaning her connection with British general aviation stretches back almost to the very beginning of her life.
In March 1962, she was documented at Fairoaks, and from there her story continued through decades of British flying.
She wasn’t hidden away in a hangar either.
Over the years G-ARKR appeared at some wonderful aviation gatherings, including the PFA Rally at Cranfield in July 1990 and the Air-Britain Fly-In at Wellesbourne in June 1996.
Then came a major change.
🇺🇸 In May 2001, the British registration G-ARKR was cancelled, and the aircraft became the N-registered N243SA that we know today.
But although the letters on her fuselage changed, she didn’t disappear from British skies.
N243SA continued to be photographed and documented around the UK, including:
📍 Leicester, 2005
📍 Bournemouth / Yeovilton, 2007
📍 Henstridge, 2008
📍 Watchford Farm, 2009
📍 Henstridge again in 2011 and 2018
📍 Vintage Piper Aircraft Club Fly-In at Sleap, April 2025
There is even a fantastic little detail from a photograph taken at Watchford Farm in 2009. The photographer noted that the aircraft’s former G-ARKR markings could still be seen underneath the wing.
A small reminder of the identity she had carried for around 40 years.
And now, in 2026, another chapter begins.
📍 NORTH WEALD AIRFIELD, EGSX
N243SA has arrived to join our fleet. ❤️
🛩️ AND SHE IS PROPER OLD-SCHOOL PIPER
The PA-22-108 C**t is a wonderfully simple two-seat member of Piper’s famous short-wing family.
No unnecessary sophistication.
No pretending to be something it isn’t.
Just a lightweight, characterful aeroplane from an era when flying was wonderfully mechanical and direct.
A 108 hp Lycoming O-235, fixed-pitch propeller, fixed tricycle undercarriage, fabric-covered construction and, rather unusually for pilots accustomed to Cessnas and PA-28s, no flaps.
Step inside and the history continues.
Those unmistakable vintage Piper control wheels, traditional analogue instruments, simple cabin and fantastic visibility make it feel very different from the modern training aircraft most of us are accustomed to.
And that is exactly why we wanted her.
Our fleet isn’t simply about having more aeroplanes.
It is about giving our members different aeroplanes, different experiences and more reasons to go flying.
You can learn a lot flying modern, familiar types.
But there is something rather special about sitting inside an aeroplane built in 1961, looking through the same basic structure pilots looked through more than six decades ago, pushing the throttle forward and realising…
she is still flying.
From G-ARKR and Oxford Aviation…
through Fairoaks, Cranfield, Wellesbourne, Leicester, Henstridge, Sleap and countless flights and adventures that were never captured by a camera…
to N243SA at North Weald.
65 years old and nowhere near finished. ❤️✈️
Welcome to the family, N243SA.
We’re incredibly pleased to become the custodians of the next chapter of your story.
And now it’s time to make some new memories. 💙
📸 WE WOULD LOVE TO FIND MORE OF HER HISTORY!
If you ever flew G-ARKR or N243SA, trained in her, maintained her, owned her, photographed her, or simply remember seeing her at an airfield, please comment or get in touch.
If you’ve got an old photograph hiding in a drawer or G-ARKR written somewhere in an old logbook, we’d absolutely love to see it.
Let’s see how much of this aircraft’s 65-year story we can put back together.
Easy Aircraft Rental
North Weald Flying Group
📍 North Weald Airfield, EGSX
**t ✈️
