AERO CLUB ’PLANE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 110, 3 February 1930, Page 12

AERO CLUB ’PLANE

ARRIVAL AND CHRISTENING UNEVENTFUL TRIP FROM SOCKBURN A speck appeared in the blue sky over the hills at the end of Lyall Bay on Saturday, and a little later a manmade bird alighted on Rongotai Airport—the Wellington Aero Club’s first machine to come home. Leaving Wigram Aerodrome at Sockburn at 11.45 a.m., Captain G. L. Stedman followed the coast to Blenheim, and, without stopping there, crossed Cook Strait to arrive in Wellington about 2.20 p.m. A member of the club’s committee, Mr. G. Wallace, was the passenger, and a parcel of Aero Club art union butts from the South Island was the main item in the luggage compartment. “We have had a fine trip,” the pilot told a “Dominion” representative. He said that it was a good machine, with an excellent engine. Christening Ceremony. After landing, the aeroplane was christened. Mr. T, C. A. Hislop, the president of the Wellington Aero Club, after congratulating the pilot, said that the event marked the beginning of the active work of the club. He thanked Messrs. Blundell for their gift of the machine, and hoped that although it was to be christened as the “Evening Post Gift Plane,” some member of the Blundell family would be able to think of a shorter name which could also be painted upon it. Mr. Hislop then presented Mrs. W. Blundell with a bouquet made in the club’s colours, and she performed the christening ceremony. The Mayor (Mr. G. A. Troup) declared that the gift of the machine to the Wellington Aero Club was one of the many sigils of the striking progress which the city had made in recent years in that it marked the commencement of the city’s aero club. He complimented Captain Stedman, the club’s pilot instructor, upon his effort, and expressed the opinion that it would not be long before New Zealand could hold her own in the aviation world. Already Mr. Chichester, a citizen of Wellington, had by his flight from England to Australia shown that we had the material for a race of excellent pilots. Mr. Walter Blundell, in replying, said he hoped the aeroplane would be_ the forerunner of a large fleet of machines. The idea behind the donation was to give the young men and women of the city an opportunity to learn the science of aviation.