ANNIVERSARY OF FLIGHT

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31547, 8 December 1967, Page 1

ANNIVERSARY OF FLIGHT

A New Zealander who commanded the first flyingboat to visit Lyttelton 30 years ago will return to Christchurch on Wednesday to mark the anniversary of a .flight that led to the establishment of New Zealand’s international airline. Captain J. W. Burgess, who was later the first chief pilot of Tasman Empire Airways, Ltd, will pre-

sent a large coloured photograph of the flyingboat—lmperial Airways’ Centaurus—to the Lyttelton Harbour Board. Captain Burgess flew the Centaurus from Sydney to Auckland in nine hours 15 minutes to prove the feasibility of a transTasman route with flyingboats. The Centaurus was then flown to Wellington, Lyttelton, and Dunedin, and landed

on Lyttelton Harbour on January 3, 1938, after a flight of one hour 34 minutes from Wellington. Harbour Board members and officials, and a crowd estimated at 40,000 welcomed the flying-boat. Captain Burgess returned in 1939 in command of the Aotearoa, the first of T.E.A.L.’s (now Air New Zealand) flying-boats and commanded it on T.E.A.L.’s- first commer-

cial flight from Auckland to Sydney on April 30,

1940. Photographs of the Centaurus and the Christchurch welcome to its crew will be shown at the presentation function next Wednesday and later in Air New Zealand’s Christchurch office.

The photograph shows the Centaurus taxi-ing to an anchorage in the inner harbour at Lyttelton on January 3, X 938.