Sir Robert Muldoon's models

[beagle]

I am pretty sure Sir Robert was an avid collector of air craft models. Not sure if he him self made them or was given them or bought them already made up.
I think he had little time to do this sort of thing with his life.
What happened to his models. Did they go to a musuem like motat, or wigram or has Lady Thea got them.

[Bruce]

MoTat had them for a while - displayed by the main gate into the Western Springs area - not sure if they are still there as I havent been to this bit of Motat for a while.

[Dave Homewood]

Yes, that's right, he often used to be interviewed in his office or study with them behind him. He had a great collection. I think he made some but a lot were presented to him by airlines and aircraft manufacturers and the likes from memory, I know he talked about them once on a TV interview. Can't really remember though.

I think they might still be at Motat.

[Damon]

I thought that the model collection ended up at the NZ Fighter Pilots Museum at Wanaka.

[corsair67]

Did "Piggy" only have civil airliners models, or military ones too?

I seem to recall there was always an Air NZ DC-10 on/near the desk in his office in photos taken there.

[mumbles]

They were at MOTAT as recently as January 2004 which was the last time I was there.

[Bruce]

Certainly the collection seemed to have a lot given to him by potential sellers of hardware - I recall an F4 Phantom, F20 Tigershark and even an F111 in RNZAF schemes, some presumably dating back to Canberra replacement times. I have an old Wings Magazine (March 78) with a picture of Mr Muldoon (Not"Sir" at that stage) being presented with a model of a Qantas 747 at a Qantas charity cricket match (with Ian Chappell!).

[phil82]

I believe you're correct Bruce. Muldoon had no interest in model aircraft other than he happened to be in office when a lot of visiting salemen were presenting calling cards for the various products they were flogging at the time.All the models you mentione were mooted as contenders at some stage.I suspect that once a visitor had been to his office and seen a model of an opposition product, arrangements were made to ensure their's got on the shelf too.

[Dave Homewood]

Did he have the proposed NZAI airships in model then?

Or the CT-4? Fletcher or Cresco?

[beagle]

I have an old Wings Magazine (March 78) with a picture of Mr Muldoon (Not"Sir" at that stage) being presented with a model of a Qantas 747 at a Qantas charity cricket match (with Ian Chappell!).

was it presented to him upside down and in slow motion

[Peter Lewis]

Looking at this thread has stirred a few old brain cells - I can recall that around the same time as Muldoon's models, there was a New Zealand chap who had quite a large cottage industry making wooden models of aircraft for most of the airlines in the world. Very large and quite detailed, in whatever colours your airline wanted for promotional purposes. The airlines were his customers, as the prices were, deservedly, high.
The reason why this stuck in my mind is that he operated from some rural country town like Levin or Darfield - real back country stuff in the non-internet pre-fax machine 1970s.
Presumably this sort of work is now done in China for a fraction of the price.

[Bruce]

When I was at CityJet the local Embraer agent arranged for a small batch of Bandeirante models to be made for us (at a price) by Embraer's official model supplier in Brasil. I sent off the bandit colour scheme drawings and the logo artwork etc and we got back a very limited batch of 15 wooden models on stands. Although not highly detailed, they looked the part and we started distributing them amongst our main clients / supporters. Very few actually were sent out before we went broke, and I think most of the remainder were snaffled by the directors as they departed. I still have one on my desk at work, which would make it pretty rare in the world of airline models....