END OF VETERAN FLYING-BOAT OF TASMAN SERVICE

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 October 1950, Page 10

END OF VETERAN FLYING-BOAT OF TASMAN SERVICE

AUCKLAND, This Day. (0.C.).— The Aotearoa, veteran aircraft of the Tasman service, is to be scrapped this week. Breakers’ torches will end its career, which began in August, 1939, and included many miles of varied flying during tfie war before it became, in 1948. an attraction for visitors to Mission Bay.

Mr H. L. Carter, one of its owners, said that the aircraft would have to be broken up on the site as it would be too difficult to move it. All the fittings would be sold and the hull and aluminium melted. . , The Aotearoa was the original flagship of Tasman Empire Airways and pioneered the service on April 30 1940. Before she made her last flight in November, 1947, she crossed the Tasman 442 times and covered 1 230,000 air miles. In that time the plane carried nearly 7000 passengers. During the war the Aotearoa and its sister aircraft, Awarua, travelled all over the Pacific and visited nearly every island in Allied hands. Both planes had a name for reliability. Although they were old, they had their turn of speed. Assisted. by a tail wind, the Awarua made a record crossing of the Tasman, in 5 hours 15 minutes in 1946 which set the standard for years. The name of Aotearoa has not left the Tasman. A new and faster plane, Aotearoa 11, makes the crossing now. Sometime next week, as it roars over Mission Bay, gathering height for the long flight to Sydney, Aotearoa 11, will farewell the original Aotearoa, the aircraft which helped bring Australia and New Zealand closer together.