THIRD AEROPLANE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 221, 14 June 1930, Page 13

THIRD AEROPLANE

Wellington Club’s Fleet ALL-METAL MOTH The Wellington Aero Club’s third aeroplane arrived in Wellington from Sockburn yesterday morning. It is an all-metal De Haviland Moth, with a Gipsy engine. The latest addition to the club’s fleet carries the registration letters ZK—ABT, which proclaims that it is the 46th civil aircraft to be registered in New Zealand. It is a Government subsidy machine, and was to have gone to the Auckland club, but that body agreed to change It for the Wellington club’s aeroplane which is due in about a month’s time. The new machine is not a coupe, like the other Moth which the Wellington club possesses, but is a metal machine, and one of the earliest, if not the first, metal Moth to reach the Dominion. The fuselage is made of welded steel, and the whole model has been painted silver, though the gold finishing which is on the coupe has not yet been applied to ZK —ABT. Fast Trip From Christchurch. Flight-Lieutenant G. L. Stedman, the club's pilot-instructor, went to Christchurch to take delivery of the craft, and left Wlgram at 9.45 yesterday morning, arriving at Rongotai at 11.40, so that the non-stop trip from Christchurch to Wellington was accomplished in an hour and 55 minutes, which is 10 minutes slower than when he did the trip In the Spartan last,February. With the southerly wind behind it, the machine experienced some rough weather on parts of the journey, though the passenger, Mr. L. S. Drake (Chief Traffic Inspector) described it as an enjoyable trip. As soon as weather permits, the new Moth will be used for training purposes, and as the Simmonds Spartan has a cracked cylinder, and the damage the coupe-Moth received in Its recent crash has not been repaired, the arrival of this machine is timely.