CRASHED PLANE SALVAGED

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31865, 18 December 1968, Page 20

CRASHED PLANE SALVAGED

A Tiger Moth aircraft, which will be used for towing gliders at Queenstown this Christmas, nine months ago was a pile of wreckage in the Landsborough Valley, South Westland.

Mr B. L. Drake, of St Albans, a 23-year-old aircraft engineer, salvaged the machine from the valley, by knocking it down, and with the assistance of a Cessna aircraft and a helicopter getting it all out to Clarke’s Bluff on the Haast Pass Road from where it was taken by trailer to Queenstown. The Tiger Moth crashed in the Landsborough last February when a landing on the valley strip was being attempted. The pilot, Peter Shand, aged 18, of Gloucester Street, Christchurch, and his passenger, Marvin Loughrey, of 5 Wray Street, Dunedin, were not injured. The two men had flown from Haast and it was the first time they had flown in the area. They were to ferry deer carcases. For six months Mr Drake worked on the reconstruction of the aircraft in the workshops of Tourist Air Travel at Queenstown. In October he brought the aircraft to Christchurch on a glider trailer and in the last two months he has been assisted in the reconstruction by a friend, Mr E. Van Ede. Mr Drake said yesterday that he got spares for the machine, which was originally built in Britain in 1940, from throughout the Dominion.

“It has been completely rebuilt, using new materials where possible,” he said. The aircraft was test -flown

at Christchurch and checked : by the Civil Aviation Division of the Ministry of Trans- . port on December 2. i Mr Drake said it had cost • him about 81600 to get the Tiger Moth airborne again. ; The week-end before last , he flew the black, yellow and ! white aircraft to Timaru after getting the certificate of air- I worthiness revalidated for 18 months. i