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Post by chrisnpl on Nov 7, 2006 8:12:48 GMT 12
I'm working on a project on Whenuapai during this era. So far, I've been working my way through the reference area at Puke Ariki (New Plymouth Library), and several kind gentlemen have given me some other sources to chase up (a trip to Auckland will be in order early next year). But I need more info! I'm trying to concentrate on the civil side, but of course, the military side is important too. So - any books you can recommend or people's memories of how it was in those days would be very welcome. And photographs taken during that period would also be great - willing to pay for prints. From a cartoon of the NZ Herald at the time it looked like the Terminal was in Hangar Four (!); but I think it was more toward the hangar at the south end of the apron? Thanks in advance!  |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 7, 2006 14:17:41 GMT 12
Great project, and welcome Chris.
I had always assumed that the Terminal building was the same one used by the RNZAF as a terminal for Air Movements when I was living there in the 1990's?
Did it continue as an airport after Mangere opened for a while? Mangere opened as international in 1964 didn't it?
I'm sure Motat and their Walsh Memorial Library will be a great place to staert, especially if you go on a restoration day (Saturdays and Wednesdays I believe) as there are many old guys who volunteer there who're ex-Air New Zealand and TEAL and will no doubt recall Whenuapai in those days. Also try Wigram's RNZAF Museum too I guess. Perhaps the Airline Museum thing at Palmerston North can help, I think it's run by Airways.
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Post by chrisnpl on Nov 8, 2006 3:04:11 GMT 12
Thank you David.
There was a gigantic "house move" overnight November 23rd, 1965 from Whenuapai to Mangere. There was a huge lot of delays during the time Whenuapai operated; it was opened for civil traffic (temporarily) in May 1945; NAC moved in in 1947; a site was selected for the present airport at Mangere in 1955, and construction finally began October 1960.
You could well be right about the terminal building.
I will have to make the trip to Auckland and go through the Walsh Memorial Library - MOTAT 2 have a NAC DC-3 as well, don't they?
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Post by flyjoe180 on Nov 8, 2006 9:46:25 GMT 12
If you want any information or photos regarding the very early days at the 'new' Mangere airport, and possibly the move there by the civilian operators from Whenuapai, you can contact Auckland Aero Club, who were resident at the Mangere airfield. The Auckland Aero Club archives are kept in the Auckland Library I believe. Just send the club president an email explaining what you want and they will point you in the right direction. The contact email is: mblake@aac.org.nz
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Post by Peter Lewis on Nov 8, 2006 19:55:53 GMT 12
I knew Whenuapai well in those days, as I used to lurk there as a kid. Access was through the station gate which was, as now, manned by security. This was not such an issue as in those days most passengers checked in at the NAC Aircentre in the city and then took the Johnstones bus to the airport. This bus trip was included in the fare that you had paid, so your trip was literally from town centre to town centre rather than airport to airport as it is now. There was a seperate bus dedicated for each scheduled flight. Starting from the western (entry) end of Whenuapai, the first hangar was the TEAL one - that's the reddish one, now the Seasprite hangar. As well as servicing their DC6 and L.188C Electra aircraft there, TEAL also assembled some light aircraft on this site including several Fletchers and the new Morane-Saulnier Rallyes imported by the agents Seabrook Fowlds Ltd. Next down the line was the passenger terminal, used for both domestic and international flights. There were not many international flights, as apart from the TEAL/Qantas/BOAC cartel I think the only other scheduled international operators at the time were PanAm and Canadian Pacific. This is now the Air Movements building. Then came the two concrete wartime RNZAF hangars, used by 40 and 41 transport squadrons (5 squadron were still in Sunderlands). Aircraft operated and maintained in this area were the Hastings, Bristol Freighters, C-47, a couple of Devons and the Base Commanders's Harvard. The final hangar was a postwar construction used by NAC to overnight their DC3s and the two Dominie used on the northland run. This is now used by the RNZAF safety equipment guys. At the far end, behind where the WASC clubrooms now are, is the gully where the burnt out remains of Electra ZK-TEC lay for some months after its crash in 1965. Looking at the following photo taken at Whenuapai, you can see the TEAL logo on the front of their hangar and the airline movements area behind with the passenger terminal on the left and a NAC Viscount just beyond it. What is now the 40 squadron hangar is in the background. Chris, if you are coming up to Auckland early next year let me know. I can arrange access into Whenuapai for you at that time. (I took this photograph with a poor quality camera 7th March 1965, just after the first flight of the Rallye CDA. On the 27th March, this aircraft stalled at low level and spun in during a demonstration at Matamata killing both the pilot, Lloyd Seabrook, and the Seabrook families 40-year enthusiasim for aviation). |
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Post by phil82 on Nov 9, 2006 3:23:56 GMT 12
Flyer, I arrived at Whenuapai, ex-RAF, on an RNZAF DC6 in February 1963 after a three week flight from RAF Midenhall in the UK. Yes.....three weeks! While the DC6 was sheer luxury to the back of a Beverley or a Hastings, being in precisely the same fit as received from TEAL, it suffered from short range due to its trans-Tasman heritage. We left from Mildenhall, presumably because it was a USAF Base in England and could provide some service of the type if required, and flew to the USAF Base in the Azores, then Bermuda, Charleston South Carolina, Oklahoma City, Las Vegas, then Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco where we were stuck for ten days! The landing at Las Vegas was unplanned it seemed, but due to strong headwinds and fuel requirements. Those same headwinds held us at Travis because we needed a tailwind to ensure an arrival at Hickham in Hawaii, our next stop! It was then Hickham-Fiji-Whenuapai.
I was struck by just how primitive Whenuapai was as a MIL/Civil Airport, with just a picket fence between the onlookers and the aircraft. I think British Airways, or BOAC as it was at that time, also operated from Whenuapai, and I distinctly recall seeing a Comet their one day.There were also both TEAL and Qantas Electras.
Incidentally, for some years after the type had disappeared world-wide. Qantas operated a single DC4 from Whenuapai/Mangere to Norfolk Island. My wife and I went on it in 1970!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 9, 2006 16:10:14 GMT 12
Chris, yes Motat has a DC-3 on display. It was restored about 18 months ago and looks quite nice. Ask to go inside, it's all original to its NAC days. Originally it served as a C-47 in the RNZAF.
Peter, that hangar that you refer to as postwar (where S&S are now) isn't postwar. In fact I think it was the first built, before the two concrete ones. Early in the war No. 1 Squadron operated from there. However, those hangars are - amazingly - portable. In 1942 when Rukuhia was upgraded to become an RNZAF station that hangar was dismantled, transported down to Rukuhia and reassembled there. After the war at some point it returned to Whenuapai, which probably made some people think it was new.
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Post by Peter Lewis on Nov 9, 2006 16:45:20 GMT 12
The impetus for the shift from Whanuapai to Mangere was, of course, the arrival of Air New Zealand's new DC-8s which were delivered from July 1965.
Towards the end, BOAC were operating Comets (I clearly remember being up in the control tower one night as a Comet departed, quite an eerie space-age experience for a country lad) and CPA flew Britannias. As most ordinary people still travelled by sea, as far as I know there were only a couple of international flights each day.
The picket fence actually worked - no terrorist ever hijacked a flight from Whenuapai while it was there! No razor wire or security guards. It was all pretty laid back, there was a cat that inhabited one of the prefabs at the end of the terminal (could have been the kitchens in there?) that used to lie around sunning itself. It used to wander out and sit on the tarmac near the aircraft, quite friendly to all and apparently impervious to the noise. Everyone just steered around it and as far as I know it survived to a ripe old age.
Thanks for that info about the 'new' hangar Dave.
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Post by chrisnpl on Nov 10, 2006 0:29:21 GMT 12
That would be more than kind of you Flyer.
Thank you everyone for the information so far...
I have read many times that sadly ZK-TEC Akaroa caught on fire at Whenuapai - but I haven't yet come across how it actually happened.
Interesting to have the bus confirmed - I suspected this from reading the timetables where it had "bus leaves at..."
For Rotorua, 15 minutes, for Auckland 55 minutes I think, Wellington was 85 minutes (!) - but that was for Paraparaumu!
I am pretty sure the only international operators from Whenuapai were, as FlyerNZL says, BOAC, TEAL, QANTAS, Canadian Pacific, and Pan American.
Thanks heaps everyone for all the other information about hangars, and MOTAT, and marathon DC-6 flights and all.
I got hold of 27 photos from the Auckland War Memorial Museum; three of note; the terminal, which looks more like a railway station than anything else, customs and immigration where everyone is clutching what looks like a pile of papers rather than a passport, and a shot of a Comet 4 taking off that looks sometime in the future, rather than way back in 1956!
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Post by Bruce on Nov 10, 2006 7:24:27 GMT 12
There is a good description of TECs accident in John Kings Book "NZ Aviation tradgedies and disasters" (I think thats what it is called).
The aircraft was doing training circuits early one morning with 5 or 6 crew on board, part of the TEAL training syllabus included an exercise similar to the tactical approaches flown by the RNZAF C130s! (Goodness knows why, but somehow it got in there) The props are set to Beta (neutral pitch) and the nose is pointed hard down - however the airspeed must be at an absolutely exact figure, any slower and there isnt enough momentum to flare for landing. It appears that the aircraft got too slow and the inevitable heavy landing occurred, breaking off the wings and such as a slid down the runway. The crew (which included the company emergency procedures manager) evacuated smartly with only one minor injury (a burnt hand) as a result. The particular landing exercise was removed from the training manual shortly thereafter!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 14, 2006 22:26:12 GMT 12
Chris, an invaluable source of information over those decades would be the two periodicals, New Zealand Wings magazine and Whites Aviation magazine.
Whites seemed to be almost wholly devoted to the airline world from the 1949 issue I have. I must look it out and see if there's much Whenuapai info in there. Apparently Motat's Wals Mem. lib. has the full collection of Whites Magazine and I guess they may have the old Wings's too.
There's a good photo of the terminal at Whenuapai in the 1960's on the page 110 of Matthew Wright's book Wings Over New Zealand: A Social History of New Zealand Aviation.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 14, 2006 22:34:23 GMT 12
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Post by Peter Lewis on Nov 16, 2006 20:02:42 GMT 12
There is a good description of TECs accident in John Kings Book "NZ Aviation tradgedies and disasters" (I think thats what it is called). TEC prior to its accident (July 1963):  The fire that broke out must have been pretty fierce, as you can see from the following pics (it was the first such accident that I had seen, so I got a bit camera happy at the time). Note that you can see the Whenuapai NAC hangar in the background in some of these shots.      |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 16, 2006 21:13:24 GMT 12
Good grief. I had never heard of this fire. Was anyone hurt? What's the circumstances? And why is it in that odd place, nowhere near taxiways?
Was there ever an opportunity for a TEAL Electra to be photographed next to an RNZAF Orion, its military cousin?
What became of the surviving TEAL Electras? Are any still flying anywhere?
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Post by Bruce on Nov 16, 2006 22:09:45 GMT 12
The wreckage in the photos has been moved from the actual crash site out in the middle of the field - the pictures in John Kings book show the actual site, which is a lot less tidy!. It looks like TEAL engineers are salvaging what they can from the RH inboard nacelle.
there were no major injuries, 1 crew member received a minor burn on his hand. See the earlier posting for the circumstances.
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Post by Bruce on Nov 16, 2006 22:17:38 GMT 12
A quick scan out of John King's " NZ Tragedies - Aviation accidents and disasters" (ISBN 1 86934 042 6)  |
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Post by Peter Lewis on Nov 17, 2006 7:00:37 GMT 12
Been dragged clear of the runway of course, and hidden well away from the paying public. What became of the surviving TEAL Electras? Are any still flying anywhere? There were four others: ZK-TEA - to N31231 then LN-FOI, stored Coventry, UK, 2000, last seen as an engine testbed at Coventry ZK-TEB - S.Abd USA as N33506. travelled to Canada then eventually N2RK Atlantic Airlines, Coventry - possibly still active? ZK-TED - S.Abd USA as N836E, to PK-RLG 1981 Mandala Airlines, Indonesia, Cr & DBF Medan 30Nov85 ZK-CLX - S.Abd USA as N357AC, N1968R, later C-GHZI 2001 AirSpray 1967, Edmonton, Alberta - still active? The last of the Electras went in 1972 and the first five Orions arrived in 1966, so I would guess that the oportunity for photographs was there (but of course they were based at different airfileds by then). |
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Post by Kereru on Nov 17, 2006 10:19:13 GMT 12
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Post by Peter Lewis on Nov 17, 2006 15:19:52 GMT 12
I've never actually seen a photo of ZK-TED. There are pics around of the aircraft 'before' and 'after', but never 'during'.
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Post by chrisnpl on Nov 19, 2006 12:34:32 GMT 12
That's an impressive search Colin - thank you.
I can never seem to get Airliners net searches to work very well (!)
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