FIRST FLIGHT AT 95

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19125, 21 September 1936, Page 13

FIRST FLIGHT AT 95

GABRIEL GULLY VETERAN NEVER FELT NERVOUS BY AIR FOR CENTENARY Alert and active despite his years, Mr. William Ayson, of Waikaka, Southland, is also progressive. He is , and he travel by air. He Ims ahead} flown from Dunedin to Pahnaston North with Union Airways, and y.osL'Vday laft Wellington by Cook b trait- Airways for Blenheim, transferring there to the* Union Airways machine for Christchurch. After spending some days m Christchurch he will fly to Dunedin Mr. Ayson arrived m Otago how Scotland hv the Royal Albert in 1800, five years after the Philip Lamg lmd landed the first settlers. He walked toe 64 miles to Kaitangata carrying a snag when barely into■ Ill's 'teens, and lie vmin the gold rush to Gabriels Gull}. Since then lie lias travelled on horseback, in bullock wagons, in trams, m motor-cars, and in steamers. In June be wanted to go to lauranga, but did not fancy the long tram journey to Lyttelton. He endeavoured to arrange to travel by sea from Dunedin to Wellington. It could not bo managed. He was almost resigned to the disliked prospect of the train ride to Lyttelton. MIGHT CHARTER PLANE A friend suggested, more or less jocularly, that he might fly. to Wellington. “I went along and inquue about it,” lie confided when explaining how he came to make his first flight- “ They got a great shock at home when they beard going to fly to Palmerston North.” On June 18 he was a passenger on the service machine, having breakfast In Dunedin and lunch in Palmerston North and becoming the oldest passenger by far to fly with Union Airways. “It was all right,” he said in reply to the inevitable question. There was no discomfort and lie did* not feel nervous. “I had_ never been alongside nn aeroplane before,” he confessed. “But you can tell what my opinions are about 'flying—l’m flying (rack to Dunedin.” Mr. Ayson went, on from Palmerston North to Tauranga by train and returned by train to "Wellington. W hen lie reaches Dunedin an overland journey faces him as far as Waikaka. Did he not think he might) charter an aeroplane to fly from Dunedin, to Gore.? “Well, I want to call at a few places on the way,” he explained. “Still, it will come to that no doubt. A man will have his own private aeroplane and go where he likes. Some day we will be able to leave Dunedin after breakfast and have forenoon tea in Wellington.”

Mr. Ayson will be. 96 in December. He hopes to he in Wellington for the centenary in 1940. He will then be 100. And if he has his way he will fly to Wellington.