Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 8, 2007 10:52:14 GMT 12
The P-40M NZ3110 features in chapter 11 of Air Force Memories by Trevor Pearce.
He was flying it as leader in a four-ship formation when his No's 3 and 4 collided and Sergeant John Tirikatene was killed when his aircraft spun into the ground at Papakura military camp.
This aircraft, NZ3110, was the personal aircraft of the CO of No. 17 Squadron, and it was notable because it was all-over bare metal.
Apparently it later went to No. 4 OTU at Ohakea, where it was lost after a mid-air collision with NZ3141 during another formation sortie, at 09.20 hours on the 21st of March 1945
According to the adf.serials records, it was crash landed into a riverbed and the pilot, Sgt Frank Rout, was killed. The aircraft was written off the books at Ohakea on the 29th.
The curious thing is, Trevor tells me he found that aircraft intact, sitting in the Rukuhia graveyard many years later, and he has a photo of himself sitting in it which appeared in the Waikato Times with an article about the Ardmore incident in which he was flying that plane.
How would a plane that had crashed and been written off made it intact into the graveyard? I thought all the planes there were flown in. Was NZ3110 repaired, perhaps as a composite with another airframe? This is most odd.
I'm also keen to find photos of that particular aircraft, especially in the bare metal scheme.
He was flying it as leader in a four-ship formation when his No's 3 and 4 collided and Sergeant John Tirikatene was killed when his aircraft spun into the ground at Papakura military camp.
This aircraft, NZ3110, was the personal aircraft of the CO of No. 17 Squadron, and it was notable because it was all-over bare metal.
Apparently it later went to No. 4 OTU at Ohakea, where it was lost after a mid-air collision with NZ3141 during another formation sortie, at 09.20 hours on the 21st of March 1945
According to the adf.serials records, it was crash landed into a riverbed and the pilot, Sgt Frank Rout, was killed. The aircraft was written off the books at Ohakea on the 29th.
The curious thing is, Trevor tells me he found that aircraft intact, sitting in the Rukuhia graveyard many years later, and he has a photo of himself sitting in it which appeared in the Waikato Times with an article about the Ardmore incident in which he was flying that plane.
How would a plane that had crashed and been written off made it intact into the graveyard? I thought all the planes there were flown in. Was NZ3110 repaired, perhaps as a composite with another airframe? This is most odd.
I'm also keen to find photos of that particular aircraft, especially in the bare metal scheme.
