TWENTY YEARS OF FLYING

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14640, 8 April 1948, Page 4

TWENTY YEARS OF FLYING

WELLINGTON AERO CLUB Costs Should Be - Lower, Officials Claim Struggle In Depression Years In a little under 12 months since the Wellington Aero Club recommenced hying operations, over 65 members, including 16 Air Training Corps cadets, have been trained as pilots by the club instructors. In that period of time over 2:000 hours have been flown by members in the 10 club aircraft. Club officials are dogmatic in their belief that at least twice that number of hours would be flown if the cost were lower. Flying charges have not increased from the pre-war rate. The club’s strength today stands at. 275 trained pilots, many ex-ser-vice members, and 10 aircraft six Tiger Moths, a Miles Magister, a Chipmunk, a Vega Gull and a Miles Gemini. During the past year the club has been instrumental in saving life. On two different occasions patients in the Palmerston North Hospital had to be flown to Dunedin for urgent brain operations. No other transport was available, but the operations were carried out as scheduled and the patients recovered. Apart from charter flights, made in some cases of emergency, aircraft have carried out “mortuary” flighfs carrying corpses from point to point. Trans-Tasman Crossing Such was the interest in flying in 1928, following the late Sir Charles Kingsford Smith’s transTasman crossing, that' a public meeting, over which the - Mayor presided, was called in the Town Hall on September 18 to discuss the formation of an aero club. The club was formed. Rongotm was chosen as the site and work was started on clearing a strip 150 yards wide through the sandhills in a north-to-south direction. The first aircraft purchased was a Simmonds Spartan, bought with £859 donated by the proprietors of The Evening Post to the club for that purpose. On February 3, 1930, it arrived at Rongatai, and immediately went into service training pilots. The club had a shaky financial start. In February, 1930, the club opened an art union offering prizes worth £4OOO. Tickets were drawn in May, and the Club made a profit of £12,000. In the same year an air pageant was held. The sum of £9OO was made to be put towards “training members in the art of flight” as a Press report of the day expressed it. The original club members, impatient to learn to fly, had received their preliminary training from the late Captain MacGregor and Mr G. B. Bolt. With the arrival of the Spartan they were trained by Captain G. L. Stedman, who was the first instructor to be appointed. in wawer sfm Micmake Bv February 4, 1932, 31 pilots, including two women, had been trained. There were then 300 members. At this time the club was being called on increasingly to make emergency cross-country flights, and Mr G. B. Bolt was appointed as in-structor-cum-engineer. The club played a large part in the rescue work of the Napier earthquake, carrying doctors, nurses, and medical supplies. In 1933 the Waco, an American cabin type biplane, which became familiar in the skies over Wellington, was added to the clubs strength. In the same year a further air pageant was held. As the years of the depression fed away, the club began to expand, and bigger and better air pageants were staged. Other aircraft weye added, until when war broke out in 1939, the club was able to hand over to the Government nine aircraft — three Tiger Moths, two Miles Hawks, a Vega Gull, the Waco, a Whitney Straight, and a Miles Magister—for training and communication purposes. Membership increased, until inSeptember, 1939, the club was able to provide, with the other New Zeai;>ua Hubs, the nucleus of the wartime R.N.Z.A.F. Many had already joined the Civil Reserve, and the great majority of those who had not rushed to enlist.

Many who were past the age for active service spent patient years as instructors; many were decorated; as the first into battle, many did not return.