Some Photos From My Stash

[alexcrawford]

Hi,

Very nice Hind photos. I've always liked the Hart family of aircraft.

Dave, the Hind you mentioned with the possible blue fuselage also has dark, possibly black, port undersurfaces.

Trials aircraft maybe?

Alex

[Dave Homewood]

I wonder if they were training painters there, but I have always thought this was always done at Hobsonville. I know the Technical Training School moved form hobsonville to Rongotai where this is taken, but I thought the painters learned to paint at Hobby still. May be wrong of course.

[shorty]

I would say the "blue" fuselage is in fact trainer yellow as seen by orthochromatic film

Three more from the miscellaneous pile.
Starting with a C-141 at Harewood in the early/mid 90s
scan0064 by Neville Mines, on Flickr
Then two helicopters (for which I don't have an identity) on board the icebreaker USS Eastwind (I think, otherwise it would be the USS Glacier)
scan0039 by Neville Mines, on Flickr
scan0045 by Neville Mines, on Flickr
And for something quite different a Saab Draken at Vantaa in Finland on 27-9-96.
scan0038 by Neville Mines, on Flickr

[shorty]

Some shots of another of Mr de Havillands lovely aeroplanes (an ugly DH aircraft is a rare thing!!)
Starting with NZ 1814 captured in 42's Hangar at Ohakea in May 1965 (note the NAC DC 3 stairs in the background)
NZ 1814 May 65 by Neville Mines, on Flickr
Further in the corner is it's shiny sister NZ 1802
NZ 1814 and 1802 by Neville Mines, on Flickr
and proving she was no hangar queen we have NZ 1802 about to commit aviation.
NZ 1802 Ohakea by Neville Mines, on Flickr

[shorty]

Some more Devons
Starting with NZ 1816 in the silver and dayglo scheme, taken in 1965 (I think it was at Ardmore)This aircraft later crashed in Lindis Pass 6-4-70 killing all 3 crew members.
NZ 1816 by Neville Mines, on Flickr
Next is the aircraft that had to retract it's gear at Wellington whilst taxying.A large perspex panel was inserted in the fuselage for display purposes at 4 TTS on behalf of the RNZAF Museum. It is reportedly now at Dairy Flat. What's the story with the museum disposing of their assets? Good reason not to ever give anything to a Museum.
NZ 1820 by Neville Mines, on Flickr
NZ 1821 in the earlier silver scheme with yellow training bands
NZ 1821 by Neville Mines, on Flickr
and to finish this group we have NZ 1822 outside ASF at Woodbourne in the late 70s
NZ 1822 by Neville Mines, on Flickr

[Dave Homewood]

Perhaps the Devon is on loan from the RNZAF Musuem? They do loan out their spare aircraft. Also numerous airframes are held by them as swap items so perhaps they swapped it for something. As they have a Devon on display already I see no problem with disposing of a spare anyway if it brings in cash or a swap item.

That Devon with the clear perspex skin was at No. 4TTS as an instructional airframe when I was there in 1989 if I recall right.

[Bruce]

1802 is currently mounted on the wall of classic Flyers in Tauranga - looks really nice! 1821 of course became ZK-UDO which had the oops (wheels through the wings) at Ohakea a few years ago.

[Dave Homewood]

I have a copy of the RNZAF Safety magazine Insight that gives a full account of the wheels up incident at Rongotai of NZ1820. However that magazine is classified as restricted so I cannot post the article here.

[shorty]

As mentioned somewhere else in the forum I was part of the team (along with F/S Terry Rae) who went across from Woodbourne to dismantle 20 to return it to Woodbourne.

[shorty]

And now to the end of the devons, in more ways than one.
This is the mortal remains of NZ 1830 which was on the fire dump at Wigram in April 1967 (Never let firemen near anything mechanical unless it need to be washed and polished!)
In the foreground the rubbish dump and in the background the gliding club buildings.
NZ 1830a by Neville Mines, on Flickr
NZ 1830 crashed on landing approach at Wigram on 9 Jan 63. In the background is a burnt out Harvard forward fuselage frame.NZ 1830c by Neville Mines, on Flickr

NZ 1830b by Neville Mines, on Flickr
A final shot with another Harvard fuselage, in this case NZ 1014/INST 191, at the rear.

[Dave Homewood]

Blimey that poor Devon looks more like one of the P-39 wrecks of your earlier photos. Very sad demise.

In my time at Wigram in 1991-93 there was no rubbish dump, no gliding club and no fie dump wreck (despite the fire school being there) that I recall.

[shorty]

I thought the gliding club buildings were there after that Dave? They were off either Vickerys Road or Hayton Road.
I think that Harvard frame is NZ 1097 which had crashed in the Eyrewell Forest.
Found some more Devon stuff. The first photo is the TTS display at a Woodbourne open day.
4 TTS open day by Neville Mines, on Flickr
The second is a newspaper clipping from the first oil shock days.
Yes it was posed, no we didn't refuel them out of 4 gallon cans and no we didn't pour petrol into the oil tanks! That was all at the request of the photographer.(and Jed Bisphan was a supply sergeant)
Me and Jed by Neville Mines, on Flickr

[Dave Homewood]

Maybe the buildings were there but I have no memory of a base gliding club, and while i lived on base for two and a half years I never once saw any gliding taking place, nor any gliding trailers or gliders that I can recall (except for the RNZAF Museum's Rhonlerche glider which of course did not fly by then). Perhaps the interest had wained?

I would imagine that they wouldn't have done gliding from Wigram itself, the airspace was too congested even on weekends. Where did they take off from in the 1960's?

[alanw]

This afternoon Dave wrote

would imagine that they wouldn't have done gliding from Wigram itself, the airspace was too congested even on weekends. Where did they take off from in the 1960's

Dave I went gliding at Wigram Mid 70's then, they used a
tow plane, gliding happened there many a weekend.

From memory it was near the firing range,(again from memory)
I recall a building of sorts as a gliding clubroom

[Dave Homewood]

Interesting. My statement was referring to the 1990's, I never saw any towplanes or gliders on the base. I used to take a keen interest in any weekend aviation too, if I ever heard anything going on I usually went for a look, whether it was aeroplanes (usually warbirds, sometimes Caribous that seemed to pop in at weekends sometimes) or models or even motorbike races.

[alanw]

Tonight Dave wrote

Interesting. My statement was referring to the 1990's, I never saw any towplanes or gliders on the base. I used to take a keen interest in any weekend aviation too, if I ever heard anything going on I usually went for a look, whether it was aeroplanes (usually warbirds, sometimes Caribous that seemed to pop in at weekends sometimes) or models or even motorbike races.

Apologies Dave, if I quoted out of context, slightly off topic
did the Lady Wigram races still run when you were at Wigram?

[Dave Homewood]

Yes, they certainly held the Lady Wigram races there, right up till 1995 in fact. We had many other races too on Sundays, cars, bikes, bucket racing, sidecars. I recall seeing the Britton Superbike racing there just before it went to Daytona when it won there, just amazing. Even I with no interest in motorbikes at all found that machine fascinating. It was almost a lap ahead of everything else in the field in its races. That day I recall a bike hit one of the hangar doors, quite a bang but the rider and door came off ok. I think the bike was buggered though.

[shamus]

Sept 14, 2008 19:53:16 GMT 12 shorty said:

Finally as well as taking the two Sqdn Ldrs to see John Chambers i was also tasked with taking them to look at MOTATS Mossie and right now I can't for the life of me remember the name of the other guy in the photo. Taken about 1982

Hi Shorty. The ones you dont recognise are, Jim Mungall and Peter Dingwall (The Mosquito project leader at the time).

[shorty]

Yes, of course, Jim Mungall, lived over St Heliers way at the time. I don't see Peter there though?

[shorty]

Just a couple of shots at Wigram
NZ 7629 Wigram by Neville Mines, on Flickr
NZ 7629 at Wigram by Neville Mines, on Flickr