AEROPLANES IN STORAGE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24985, 20 September 1946, Page 5

AEROPLANES IN STORAGE

1000 IN TWO UNITS SMALL RELEASE FOR CIVILIAN USE The storage at Rukuhia of metaltype aircraft and at Woodbourne of composite type aircraft is reported by the Air Department in its annual report to Parliament. “Some 1000 aircraft are now stored at these units, consisting of Ventures, Corsairs, Kitty he wks. Avengers, Hudsons, Harvards, Oxfords, and Tiger Moths,” says 'the department’s repo# for the year ended Last March, a period in which “ended the responsibility for the logistic support of an active fighting service and ushered in a period in which the primary responsibility changed to the custody and the salvage of equipment and stores."

Much radio and radar equipment formerly used as part of Air Force combat equipment had been transferred to the civil aviation branch. Since V-J Day 203 Corsair aircraft were ferried back from the Pacific to New Zealand, before which a major modification to the engines of 130 of the aircraft was necessary. The dispatch of the No. 14 Fighter Squadron to Japan required the taking from storage of 24 of the latest type Corsair aircraft, and the preparing of them for service. 4 In recognition of the value of aero clubs as a national asset, the Government agreed, the civil aviation branch reports, to recondition a number *of surplus Tiger Moth aircraft for sale to those clubs at the price of £450 each, as well as to provide aircraft to discharge the Government’s obligation to replace 15 gift aircraft .token over from dubs.

By the end of March, 23 aircraft were disposed of, 15 sales of Tiger Moths being made to aero clubs, which were also supplied with six in replacement of gift aircraft. One Rearwin and one Whitney Straight aircraft were sold to private clubs: “It is expected that more than 100 aircraft, mostly Tiger Moths, will be released by the R.N.Z.A.F. for sale through the War Assets Realisation Board to aero clubs and private purchasers,” says the report.