More Than 60 Aircraft In City During Week-End

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29010, 26 September 1959, Page 15

More Than 60 Aircraft In City During Week-End

Christchurch will this week-end fe e its most cosmopolitan and diverse group of aircraft. More than 60 civilian and military planes representing 26 types and six nationalities will be at two airports in a 24-hour period ending this afternoon. Canada, the United States, Australia. Germany, and Britain arq the foreign flag representatives. Aircraft range in size from an airline social club Auster to an 80-ton Antarctic transport. Scheduled and chartered overteas airliners will share field and air space with trainers, topdressers, and an electronic mapper. There will be a submarine hunter, two rescue planes and a helicopter. -The United States Air Force will have seven Globemasters and two planes from the Pacific Air Rescue Command at Christchurch International Airport. Two more Globemasters are due to arrive tomorrow. The United States Navy has parked at Wigram a Super Constellation. a Skymaster, a longrange Neptune reconnaissance bomber and two Skytrains. Another Neptune is due from Canton Island. R.N.Z.A.F. Planes At Wigram are more than 20' aircraft of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. These include Harvard trainers, Devon passenger aircraft, artillery spotters and the Antarctic flight’s two light planes. A Bristol Freighter will also be at Wigram. The Czechoslovakian Philharmonic Orchestra’s British charter Argonaut is due from Auckland today and already at Harewood is the German DC-4 freighter carrying the orchestra’s instruments and baggage. This freighter has been filling in spare time on

N.A C. charters while it has been in New Zealand.

A Tasman Empire Airways DC-6 flight left Christchurch last evening for Sydney and a Royal Canadian Air Force Argus maritime aircraft is due from Ohakea this morning.

National Airways plan 46 Viscount and Douglas airliqey movements today, including an airlift of five special flights bringing Czech orchestra members from Dunedin.

Inside the huge National Airways engineering base hangar will be a Viscount turbo-prop airliner, five Douglas passeqger planes, a DC-3 freighter and the corporation's social club Auster. Smaller Planes In another hangar are the Beechcraft and Electra of the defunct Trans Island Airways. A Dominie belonging to T.I.A. and bought by the former chief pilot for charter flying is there and another Dominie is in the Airwork hangar being overhauled for N.A.C.

In addition to Airwork’s Piper Super Cub topdresser, Cub 90 horsepower passenger plane, passenger Cesna and helicopter is a Piper undergoing an experimental conversion for three-seat flying instruction.

Other Harewood planes include a Proctor used on aerial mapping missions and three Austers, two Piper Cubs and two Tripacers owned by the Canterbury Aero Club.

Private machines are also expected today.