Last Airtrainer ends era of N.Z. aviation

Press, 29 June 1982, Page 22

Last Airtrainer ends era of N.Z. aviation

PA Hamilton Another era of New- Zealand aviation history ended on Friday when Mr Cliff Tait flew off in the last CT4 Airtrainer from a rainswept Hamilton Airport.-

The CT4 was the final aircraft of a batch of 14 made by New Zealand Aerospace Industries for the Royal Australian Air Force, as a stopgap measure until Australia again makes its own military version. Aerospace has made 96 Airtrainers for the Australian, Thai, and New Zealand air forces. A batch of 14 was previously stopped from being exported because the Government believed they were bound for Rhodesia. All but a handfull of the production engineers who have worked on the CT4 and Aerospace’s Fletcher agricultural aircraft will be laid off

on June 30. the day before Aerospace is taken over by James Aviation and its parent company, the Agricultural Corporation of New Zealand.

Mr Tait, who has ferried 44 of the CT4s to Australia as well as a good many to Thailand, said he felt “acutely disappointed" to be taking out the last aircraft. He recalled the CT4 project. starting with Aerospace employees full of enthusiasm and “working for peanuts.” Asked whether he thought New Zealand would ever produce another Airtrainer, he said: “I would prefer to put it another way. I believe there is still a future for the Airtrainer, the same as there is a future for the CrescoFletcher, but whether it will ever be realised is another point." The highly-respected pilot.

who is now James Aviation's sales manager, flew to Norfolk Island, then on to the R.A.A.F. base at Point Cook,, via Lord Howe Island and Melbourne.

Some previous CT4 deliveries have not been joyrides. He has had seven forced landings and engine failures, but he has delivered them all undamaged to their destinations.

Aerospace staff and the Australian High Commission representative, Captain John' Drinkwater, were among those who saw Mr Tait off from Hamilton.