ZK AZL

[agman]

I have seen a few photos of zk-azl with yellow wings. Was this part of the airland tie up or did james buy them from fieldair?

[kiwibeavers]

I've never seen photos of AZL with yellow wings. The only Airland colours I have seen it in were the early blue/white/red scheme before it went back to James. Both AZA and AZL were never owned by Fieldair and the other James DC3, AOI, was part of Southern Air Super, a Fieldair subsidiary. I'd be interested in seeing any photos of AZL with yellow wings.

[agman]

Was watching country calender last night on sky channel 17 and it was a story about Ossie James and his empire that he built up. Must have been filmed in about 1974 because he talked alot about the last 25 years since he started. The last few minutes showed a flyover of tiger AJO Fletcher CKA??? Turbine Fletcher CTZ and DC3 AZL with her yellow wings looking like they were straight off a Fieldair DC3

[kiwibeavers]

Did you press "Record" for me???

[kiwibeavers]

Dave Starr sent me this e-mail:

Hi Graeme
Near the end of its topdressing career AZL did have Fieldair wings on it. As far as I know, AZL's wings required a lot of work on them, and as Fieldair was doing all the maintenance on the two James DC3s, they fitted their own wings. I do not know if the wings taken off were repaired, but guess that if they were they were probably put into Fieldairs stock. I don't think I have any photos of AZL at that stage, but will have a look.

Regards
Dave

[oj]

I remember the JAL 25 year anniversary, though it was 5 years before I joined them. I was at NZAIL at the time and there was a vast amount of flying done at JAL that week.
The air-to-air and air-to-ground filming was done by a cameraman sitting on a specially-constructed seat mounted on the side of a Hiller UH12E (not in the bubble).
To film the streaming take-off of the JAL fleet, the Hiller buddied each aircraft taking off, then sped back down to the next in line, performing a series of long elipses.
Alas, I missed the programme and a chance to see the film again.

In later years when I was at JAL, they had a considerable film library and the RAeS used the JAL cafeteria for many years for meetings. We had the use of the JAL 16mm projector, and I was one of the projectionists for some years along with Albert Randall.
When JAL was finally wound down and purchased by PAC, I tried to find out what happened to the JAL projector and the film library to no avail.

At one stage, all that sort of stuff went up to the former JAL subsidiary, Avcorp at Ardmore and I don't think it ever came back to Hamilton. I have strong reasons to believe that the gear was "taken into care" by one of the Avcorp directors or a senior manager, as everyone went quiet and I could not get any traction on enquiries.

There is a possibility that since that since that time in the mid-eighties, someone may have passed the archive on to someone who cares .........
Does any ex JAL member know any more about this topic?

[The Red Baron]

When JAL was finally wound down and purchased by PAC, I tried to find out what happened to the JAL projector and the film library to no avail.

I know PAC binned a lot of old photos.I've seen some salvagable ones that were retrieved...

[kiwibeavers]

The Country Calendar team have the episode available on DVD for $120. E-mail Saffron if interested [e-mail]