Flying In The Southern Alps

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31047, 30 April 1966, Page 4

Flying In The Southern Alps

Ski-Plane Adventure: Flying in the New Zealand Alps. By Henry Wigley. A. H. and A. W. Reed. With illustration and Maps. Lauded through it has been by world-wide travellers, there must still be thousands of New Zealanders, particularly North Islanders, who know not that, “other world” which is the New Zealand Alps. They will of course, have learned of them at school, read of them in a newspaper in which the enthusiasm of a tourist is briefly chronicled, and heard their praises inadequately sung by some friend who has been to some part of them on a visit. But, unless their imagination could fill in the deflciences, they would have no comprehensive picture of the magnificent sights the Alps contain. As much as any book can, this book paints the full picture—and it is stereoscopic. The style of its writing is matter-of-fact, there are no literary flights; and yet long before the final pages the reader who has not been there in person will surely have had his eyes opened to the splendid panoramas of ice and snow, glaciers and stupendous mountains, that form a distinctive land of their own within the land we live in—a sort of cold Shangri-la shrouded in white and ornamented with gigantic peaks gashed by brown and ochre precipices.

How does the author, Harry Wigley, achieve this result? By a simple recital of his struggles to bring to reality the alpine air service first dreamt of by his father as a development of the family’s road transport service: by his human qualities, sense of humour, refusal to be daunted by difficulties, talent for improvisation, and readiness always to acknowledge the help and loyalty he has received from his employees and others. Harry Wigley is a friendly chap. He and his wife and family are skiers and climbers and lovers of the alpine country; and he has never allowed the professional responsibilities of business, its trials and successes, to blot out his personal passion for the mountains and flying for flying’s sake. So this book, with its many illustrations, is much more than an autobiography—it is the history of the slow but eventually spectacular development of the alpine country as a tourist resort; of The Hermitage and Mount Cook, of the Tasman and other glaciers; of Queenstown and Mount Aspiring; of

ordeals and conquests, rescues and mishaps. When the Second World War came the purpose born in the ’twenties by Wigley senior was interrupted by Harry Wigley’s enlistment — in the Air Force, of course—and his service first as an instructor and later in fighting planes in the Bougainville area. There were flights and frights and hair-raising adventures, improvisations, dare-deviling and outlets for Wigley humour that did not always meet with official approval. The war over, the determined struggle towards an alpine air service went on. Tiger Moths gave way to Austers, Austers to Cessnas and DC3s. In the interim the company, finding no interest among commercial plane manufacturers, began developing skis for attachment to its planes so that they could land on glaciers and snowfields. It was a slow business, dependent for progress on trial and error, but the battle was won, and “for many climbers the ski-plane opened up a completely new

era,” including the technique of “snow-caving.” A landmark in the development of Mr Wigley's company occurred in 1957 after risks and adaptations undergone in providing aerial transport for the filming of Carl Dudley’s “Cinerama South Seas Adventure." Within a fortnight of the film’s release in New York “people were arriving at The Hermitage and asking to be flown round the ‘Cinerama route,’ and the col between the Anzac Peaks, and the eastern arete of Mount Cook through which we flew has been known as the Cinerama Gap ever since.” In 1964, after very humble beginnings, the company carried 8000 passengers to one or other of the great snowfields in the Mount Cook and Westland National Parks. Today there are three six-seater Cessna 185 s and three four-seater Cessna 180 s transporting people to the snow. Other planes are doing rabbit poisoning and other agricultural work, and two DC3s are kept busy in regular service and on charters.