Trans-Tasman 50th Anniversary Airshow RNZAF Wigram. 1978

[Dave Homewood]

Does anyone here remember attending the Trans-Tasman 50th Anniversary Airshow at RNZAF Base Wigram, on the 9th and 10th of September 1978?

Have you any memories and photos of that event?

It sounds like it was very significant.

I know that there were four Strikemasters, an Andover, at least two Iroquois, and an RNZAF Airtrainer in the RNZAF display. Also the USAF provided McDonnell Douglas F-4D Phantom from the "Wolfhounds" Squadron, led by Major C. Faulkner USAF, and there was a RAAF F-111 too.

An Air New Zealand McDonnell Douglas DC10 was flown across the Tasman by a Captain McWilliams and the Flight Engineer was also McWilliams, the captain's brother. They were the sons of Kiwi Tom McWilliams. As passengers onboard they had the son of Charles Ulm, and special guests Harold Litchfield and his wife. The DC10 flew over Wigram, then landed at Harewood, where the Litchfields boarded a DHA Drover trimotor and flew to Wigram, touching down 50 years after he'd landed with Smithy, Ulm and McWilliams in the Fokker Trimotor.

Also, Cliff Tait flew from New Zealand to Australia on the 9th in Fletcher ZK-USU, and back to Wigram on the 10th.

Air New Zealand also provided flypasts of a Boeing 737 and a Fokker F-27 Friendship, and SAFE Air flew over an Argosy apparently. And Gavin Bain taxied a Flying Flew he had recently discovered in a shed.

Who was there? What do you remember? And have you any photos?

[tbf2504]

Hi Dave,
I was one of the organisers of that airshow, as the liaison officer for the RNZAF and the local community that were arranging it. Somewhere I think in my collection is a programme for the day. What started out to be a small
key event marking Kingsford Smiths crossing turned into a big affair!! I have photos of the day so will copy some for you.

[tbf2504]

Looking through my slide index here are the registrations of some of the aircraft at Wigram on that day that I have pics of:
ZK-USU,ZK-AFF,ZK-BDX,ZK-BMV,ZK-SET,ZK-BFS,ZK-BFP,ZK-AKU,ZK-ABZ,ZK-EES,ZK-BLI

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Paul.

The airshow did not even start out as meaning to commemorate the Southern Cross's Tasman flight. It was originally intended to be part of the local celebrations to mark 100 years of Hornby, and during planning someone realised the crossing's 50th Anniversary would fall just weeks after the airshow so it was re-focused to make that a major theme, according to The Press at the time.

I'd love to see those slides, and the programme.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks to info sent to me by Paul Harrison, Alan Thoreson, Frank Parker, Buck Harrison, and best of all the AHSNZ Journal report sent to me by Peter Layne, I have now done a major upgrade to the Airshow Archive entry on this airshow. It is the second airshow down when you click here:

www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Airshow_History_1970s.html#78

Now I just need the serial numbers or registrations for:
- The other three Strikemasters
- The VIP Andover that brought the GG down
- The RNZAF Airtrainer the displayed
- The F-4D Phantoms
- The Argosy - was it SAE or SAF?
- The Air New Zealand Boeing 737
- The Flying Flea

And all the missing pilot/crew names, and a programme of which ones actually flew in the display as opposed to static.

Also Paul Harrison kindly sent me these photos with permission to post them here (they are his copyright):

[ZacYates]

What a fantastic series of photos! Thank you Paul and Dave!

[chrisr]

Being interested by the thought of an F-4D over Wigram I did some googling, no F-4 but I did find this picture of 2x F-111s in formation.

www.flickr.com/photos/southspeed/6509819569/in/photostream/

[Dave Homewood]

Interesting, here is an article on the celebration from the 30th Anniversary, reported in The Press on 12 September 1958:

Flight Commemorates First Tasman Crossing

Two men, greying now, stepped out on to the grass at the R.N.Z.A.F. station, Wigram, yesterday within a few feet of where their aircraft touched down after the first flight across the Tasman sea — and within a few minutes of the time of the landing 30 years ago.

Mr H. A. Litchfield, navigator of the Southern Cross, and Mr T. H. McWilliams, of Wanganui, the radio operator, who flew with Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Mr Charles Ulm on that pioneering flight, found Christchurch changed.

The airfield, which they knew as the Sockburn aerodrome, has so expanded since it became the leading New Zealand Air Force training station, that Mr Litchfield could not say yesterday whether the R.N.Z.A.F. Dakota in which they landed made the same approach as “Smithy” did after swooping over the huge crowd.

Later, while standing on the hotel balcony — from which they then received the ovation of all Christchurch — and glancing over yesterday’s small lunch-time gathering, Mr McWilliams remarked: “Things have changed. Thirty years ago we could hardly get out of the door — they mobbed the place for days.”

Christchurch took yesterday’s commemorative flight more quietly. The most enthusiastic spectators at Wigram were a large crowd of schoolchildren who, when they were let on to the field with instructions to walk quietly, could hardly refrain from bursting into a sprint to reach the official party after the Dakota landed.

They crowded around the two pioneer flyers, and Mr Rollo Kingsford Smith, nephew of the pilot of 30 years ago, and Mr John Ulm, son of the co-pilot, as they stood by the plaque let into the grass of the field to mark the landing spot.

Followed Route
The Tasman Empire Airways DC-6 which followed the route of the Southern Cross, left Sydney at 3.30 a.m., New Zealand time, circled Wellington before breakfast and touched down at Christchurch airport, four miles from Wigram, at 9.41 am. Most of the official party, led by Sir Hudson Fysh, chairman of Qantas, and a director of T.E.A.L., then transferred to the R.N.Z.A.F. Dakota for the short hop to Wigram, where they were met by the Mayor (Mr G. Manning), the Dominion president of the New Zealand Air League (Sir Matthew Oram), and the acting-commanding officer (Wing-Commander R. K. Walker).

From there the party, which included the New Zealand Post-master-General (Mr Moohan), and Mr L. J. Failes, Member of the Australian House of Representatives, representing the Australian Postmaster-General, drove to the officers’ mess.

Later they left for the city, a mayoral reception and the civic reception from the balcony of the United Service Hotel.

“New Zealand Waited”
“New Zealand waited expectantly, but a little fearfully,” for the Southern Cross 30 years ago, said Sir Matthew Oram, during the balcony reception. They remembered the tragic loss of Hood and Moncrieff in a similar attempt not long before.

Kingsford Smith, Ulm, Litchfield, and McWilliams were “pathfinders undaunted,” said Sir Matthew Oram. Earlier the small crowd heard the Mayor say, above the roar of the lunch time traffic, that the commemoration of such a flight should “lead our young men of today to emulate the exploits of the young men of those days.”

“Today’s flight is a tribute to a great man and his crew,” said Mr Moohan. “Kingsford Smith was a great man, a great aviator and a great son of Australia.”

Mr McWilliams, who replied for the men who flew with “Smithy,” contrasted the 14 hours and a half flight in the “Old Bus” in the spring of 1928 with the comfortable six-hour crossing of the Tasman Sea yesterday in the DC-6. “Smithy” had a tail-wind, but struck the worst storm he ever experienced; the DC-6 was slowed up by head winds.