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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 15, 2013 14:39:23 GMT 12
Coming up at The New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington on Friday, 21st June at 6:00pm....a special free screening of the digitally-restored film footage of the Fisher Monoplane's flights at Hurunui-O-Rangi Flat near Gladstone, east of Carterton in Wairarapa. This is timed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first succesful flight of the Fisher Monoplane on 21st June 1913.
Percy Fisher's great grandson, Paul Maxim will be giving a talk during the presentation, and also the man who digitally restored the film footage will be talking about it.• Experimental Flights of the Fisher Monoplane (special presentation)Back in January, while he was down here for Wings Over Wairarapa, I took Dave out to the site where the Fisher Monoplane flights were undertaken near Gladstone. There is a half-sized replica of the aeroplane up on a pole as well as a plaque commemorating what occurred at that site in June 1913. Here are some photographs I took on an earlier occasion....    
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 16, 2013 13:57:38 GMT 12
The Fisher Monoplane and the topic of restorating of the film of it flying featured on Radio NZ National's Arts on Sunday programme at 12:43pm today, although unfortunately they don't appear to have posted the audio on their website. Percy Fisher's great-grandson, Paul Maxim, talked about his inventive ancestor, and NZFA film conservator Reiner Schoenbrunn talked about digitally restoring the film. You can view the unrestored film (or save it to your hard-drive) from the NZ Film Archive's website, HERE. |
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 16, 2013 15:41:10 GMT 12
Radio NZ have now posted the audio from today's Arts on Sunday programme on their website. To listen to the discussion about the Fisher Monoplane and restoring the film of it flying on 21st June 1913, CLICK HERE. To save it to your hard-drive as a MP3 audio file (5.27MB), RIGHT-CLICK HERE, then left-click on Save target as... and select the location to save it to. |
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Post by suthg on Jun 16, 2013 19:05:00 GMT 12
Fabulous bit of old footage - of the Kiwi Can-Do spirit - some new piloting skills to learn - the elevator controls left a lot to be desired!! Watched it three times - enthralling bit of Wairarapa aviation history  |
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Post by Peter Lewis on Jun 16, 2013 20:05:23 GMT 12
Bit of overcontrolling there, as my instructor used to say.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 16, 2013 21:52:06 GMT 12
Bit of overcontrolling there, as my instructor used to say. Mind you, they didn't have any flying instructors back then. It was very much a case of "do it yourself" and if you got to talk about it (and hadn't smashed yourself up too much), then I guess you had got it right. As a matter of interest, the Wairarapa Archive puhlished a book in 2003, “ Taking Flight: the Fisher Monoplane and Early Aviation in the Wellington Region” by Paul Maxim, and it is still available. It covers not only the Fisher Monoplane, but also other early attempts at flight and aviation at the bottom of the North Island. The book is available directly from the Wairarapa Archive, although unfortunately they don't have an online presence, but if you really wanted a copy, you could go to the Headleys Bookshop website and request them to sell you a copy (I have seen the book in stock in there recently, and if they are out of stock, the Wairarapa archive is just down the road). |
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 21, 2013 16:58:17 GMT 12
I drove out to the Hurunui-O-Rangi Flat earlier this afternoon and found quite a few people gathered there reflecting on what occurred 100 years ago today.
I was only there for about ten minutes, but cars were coming and going during the entire time I was there.
The weather was atrocious and bitterly cold, so it was great to see people at the monument commemorating the first successful powered flights at the bottom of the North Island 100 years ago. What those chaps did back then was probably what you'd expect from mad buggers, but they were brave buggers taking to the air with no training.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Sept 27, 2017 19:30:39 GMT 12
I was looking for something else on YouTube earlier today and stumbled across this....
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Oct 30, 2017 10:48:27 GMT 12
The film footage of the Fisher Monoplane flights has disappeared from the websites where the links earlier in this thread take you to. However, I managed to locate an unrestored copy of the entire film footage, so have uploaded it to YouTube (I have checked and there is no copyright involved). Film footage of the Fisher Monoplane flights at the Hurunui-o-rangi flats near Gladstone, east of Carterton Wairarapa, New Zealand during 21-23 June 1913… There are also some photographs online from the Wairarapa Archive (click on the images to reveal info about them)…    The following article from the Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 148, 24 June 1913 is online at the National Library of NZ (Papers Past)…  |
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