Special Mount Cook Airlines Auster Flight

[Dave Homewood]

Special mail flight

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, October 12.

Mount Cook Airlines is planning a special mail cachet flight to mark the twentieth anniversary of the first landing of a ski-plane on the Tasman Glacier. The mail will be carried in the Auster Aiglet aircraft that made the historic flight. The Auster has been restored by Mount Cook Airlines engineers in Queenstown, and fitted with retractable skis.

It is planned to fly from the Mount Cook airfield to the head of the Tasman Glacier and return, retracing the first flight. The pilot will be Mr Harry Wigley — who also made the first flight. The flight is planned for the end of October, depending on the weather. Letters carried in the Auster will be marked with an appropriate cachet on the bottom left-hand comer, and posted at the Mount Cook Post Office in the usual way on completion of the flight.

THE PRESS, 13 OCTOBER 1975

[Dave Homewood]

The Press, 12 November 1976:

1955 glacier flight re-enacted

The man who made the first landing on a snowfield in the Southern Hemisphere on September 22, 1955, re-enacted the landing yesterday in perfect conditions high on the Tasman Glacier — and said it was just as much fun 20 years ago.

Using the original Auster aircraft, the chairman of Mount Cook Airlines (Mr H. R. Wigley) made a perfect touchdown on the glacier to show that he had not lost his skill as a pilot, though he had not flown an Auster for 15 years.

The re-enactment flight, on which Mr Wigley was accompanied by his sole passenger on the 1955 flight, Mr A. McWhirter, now the company’s commercial manager, was watched by 16 representatives of the news media, as well as several guests.

Among the latter were Mr Harry Ayres, chief guide at Mount Cook at the time of the first flight, and who forecast success for ski-plane flying in the mountains; and Mr F. Brooks, regional surveyor in the Civil Aviation Division, who was responsible for the certification of the ski-equipped Auster on its initial glacier flight.

Six planes
To get yesterday’s visitors to the glacier, the Mount Cook company mustered five ski-equipped Cessnas and its ski-equipped Britten-Norman Islander. To mark the re-enactment, Mr Wigley was presented with a commemorative certificate honouring his pioneering foresight, and congratulatory toasts were drunk in champagne.

Mr Wigley said he was surprised how the old plane had handled. Although he had made many ski-landings with Cessnas, it was his first landing on the Tasman Glacier for 15 years in an Auster aircraft. 

The Auster used yesterday was originally bought by the company in 1954, but after six years — during which time it was used to give Royal New Zealand Air Force pilots instruction before their own ski-plane operations in the Antarctic — it was sold. After changing hands twice it was repurchased by the company earlier this year. Although not in commercial use, the Auster is used for executive and social flying by the company.

Mr Wigley said yesterday that it was likely to end up in the Transport Museum at Auckland. Had the company not bought it, he said, it was likely to have "gone on the scrap heap.” but as it had some significance in aviation in New Zealand, it was better that it eventually found, a place alongside other historic aircraft.

The Mount Cook Post Office will frank 4500 postal covers which were taken on yesterday’s flight. The covers were sent by philatelists, and a special stamp will be used! to commemorate the reenactment flight.

[Dave Homewood]

Where is this Auster now?

[The Red Baron]

www.hermitage.co.nz/experience/the-sir-edmund-hillary-alpine-centre/

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks.

[Peter Lewis]

At the Hermitage, October 2015