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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 15, 2008 21:47:56 GMT 12
In the NZ Wings magazine article from December 1978-January 1979 that lists where all the Harvards in NZ were, it says that NZ1057 had been "resold to SR & VT museum in the Hutt Valley. To be repainted in th scheme worn when with No. 30 Torpedo Bomber Squadron at Gisborne in 1943" to go alongside their Avenger.
Did this paint job get applied? If so, does anyone happen to have photos of it in it's No. 30 Squadron scheme please?
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Post by Bruce on Jun 16, 2008 19:34:32 GMT 12
The Hut Valley Outfit was the Silverstream Museum (Which also had the DC3 and Avenger that are now in various other museums around the place. The Museum went broke and the collection was dispersed. an Auckland syndicate purchased 57 and ended up at Gulf Aeronautics at Ardmore where I helped on its rebuild. The rebuild was not completed when Gulf went broke, So Wal Denholm and his Father Colin completed at Avspecs, at that time at Rotorua.
When Gulf got it the aircraft was missing outer wings and firewall forward, and was in poor condition having been outside under Tarpaulins for some time. It was in the silver and Dayglo late 1960s scheme it now wears, although the Dayglo was largely white by then. It definitely had never been repainted since it left RNZAF service.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 16, 2008 20:54:09 GMT 12
Thanks Bruce. It's sad that its wartime colours were not restored, I was keen to see what the colours were. I guess they were camouflaged like the OTU Harvards.
As for the Dakota and Avenger, they're both at GAPS in Gisborne now, though the Avenger is owned by the RNZAF Museum.
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Post by shorty on Jun 16, 2008 20:57:15 GMT 12
I remember the Avenger when it was Opunake in a spurious USN colour scheme
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 17, 2008 3:53:36 GMT 12
By the time the Avenger got to Wigram it wore RNZAF scheme with Fred Ladd's Ploky nose art. The paint was really badly worn and US roundels could be seen underneath. Some of the museum guys said it was the original factory paint, but of course they were stripped to bare metal in the 1950's weren't they. So now it makes sense that it was paited with US stars by someone. Thanks.
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Post by shorty on Jun 17, 2008 10:22:38 GMT 12
I just went and looked for my photo of it at Opunake but it seems that it is another of the ones I lost in a marriage break up. I have the neg somewhere (with another 5000 odd) and I think it was published in Wings many, many years ago. If I come across it there I will post it. Otherwise it's a matter of waiting till I buy another house and set up a darkroom and can afford the chemicals and paper (in other words, don't hold your breath!)
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 17, 2008 12:36:32 GMT 12
Shorty, some scanners can scan negatives and then you make it positive in photoshop, saving all the hassles of darkrooms and chemicals.
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Post by tbf25o4 on Jun 17, 2008 12:37:29 GMT 12
The post war avengers were not paint stripped post war years..
When we rebuilt NZ2504 at wigram in the late 1970s it still have every coat of paint on it
since it left the factory in 1943!! So the presence of US stars and Bars would hark back to its delivery days for NZ2527
Paul
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Post by shorty on Jun 17, 2008 12:43:08 GMT 12
Not necessarily so Paul, when it was on the beachfront at Opunake it had been repainted in USN colours and markings. I'll go through my old wings soon and see if the photo is there.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 17, 2008 12:52:48 GMT 12
Thanks Paul. So perhaps it was genuine paint but more likely what I was seeing was the Opunake paint whih was on top of genuine stuff.
A good candidate for the preservation back to original that the FAA Musuem's Corsair has had perhaps - unless GAPS has now stripped it?
I had thought they flew bare metal postwar for a bit but they must have been painted silver.
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Post by baz62 on Sept 1, 2008 21:43:35 GMT 12
By the time the Avenger got to Wigram it wore RNZAF scheme with Fred Ladd's Ploky nose art. The paint was really badly worn and US roundels could be seen underneath. Some of the museum guys said it was the original factory paint, but of course they were stripped to bare metal in the 1950's weren't they. So now it makes sense that it was paited with US stars by someone. Thanks. I was involved in paintstripping NZ 2504 at Wigram '78/'79 and believe me she wasn't paintstripped in the 50's as we found layers of paint back down to the original WW2 paint scheme. I think there was 8 layers of paint. and the other Avenger (NZ 2505) had a lot of corrosion and was pretty much a shell so it will take a lot of effort to preserve her. Be worth it though as New Zealand seems to have cornered the market in the rare TBF model Avengers!! |
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Post by SEAN on Sept 2, 2008 6:56:24 GMT 12
I posted this on this site somewhere sometime ago. NZ1057 is in the background. This was taken at Silverstream in the early 80's.  |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 2, 2008 11:31:26 GMT 12
The Avenger was missing a few bits at that stage. When i later worked alongside it at Wigram it had wings, canopy and door back on. The paintwork looked the same though.
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Post by baz62 on Sept 2, 2008 17:19:40 GMT 12
What did you do at Wigram Dave? I wasn't in the service but was a volunteer at the museum from 78 to 88. I recall looking in the rear door of 2505 and seeing a lot of internal structure was missing up near the cockpit area. The prop looks like the correct one unlike the pointy Lodestar/Hudson prop that 2527 has (or had).
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 2, 2008 18:07:48 GMT 12
I was a Safety Equipment Worker in the Safety and Surface trade. I worked in the Fabric Bay and Parachute/Liferaft Bay in No. 6 Hangar for two and a half years (1991-93) and used to pass the Avenger, Corsair, Bristol Freighter, Devon and other artifacts often.
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