Hawker Tomtit in Dunedin

[Dave Homewood]

It's amazing the snippets of info packed away in the social notes of old newspapers. It seems that in 1940 as well as having a Blackburn Baffin, the RNZAF Training Depot at Hillside in Dunedin also had a Hawker Tomtit. I'd never realised one went down there. See in the article on this column, near the bottom, called 'Dunedin's First Air Force Ball"

paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=EP19400627.2.182.1&srpos=10&e=-01-1939--12-1945--10--1-byDA---0rnzaf+nelson--

[shorty]

That was NZ 52, it later went to the TTS at Rongotai in September 1940 before ending up in the Wairarapa. Why and where there I don't know

[oggie2620]

Apologies for the other aircraft on this thread but they are all NZ ones-eventually (except the Aussie one!) but I thought you might be interested in these. I bought them on ebay and am donating them to the Air Force Museum hence the scan:
postimage.org/image/357kws2jo/ postimage.org/image/30idhgrc4/
Hope this works! I have won some more including a pic of a Tomtit with people on it so will scan and add those too!
Dee

[Dave Homewood]

Great photos there Dee, well done for finding them. That one of Hind L7225 (later NZ1512) must be inside the Hobsonville hangar that became the gymnasium. It's very rare to see three Tomtits in formation like that and the camera ship may possibly have been the fourth one too I guess.