Wellington Aero Club's Waco ZK-ACV

[Dave Homewood]

NEW TYPE OF AEROPLANE ACQUIRED BY THE WELLINGTON AERO CLUB.
A four-seater Waco aeroplane of the cabin type photographed outside the hangar at the Rongotai aerodrome after arriving from Wigram, Christchurch, where it was assembled. It is the first machine of its type to be used in the Dominion.
NEW ZEALAND HERALD, 22 APRIL 1932

[Antonio]

What amazes me was how ANY American aircraft weres allowed to be imported into this jewel of the Empire....

[Dave Homewood]

That is kind of a good point. Especially in 1932, when lots of nations had stopped importing goods from New Zealand and as a result the Prime Minister was encouraging Kiwis to buy British goods, including cars, because they'd remained as a solid trading partner in tough times. I always used to think that the Buy British thing in NZ in those days was just out of loyalty to Home (Britain), but it was actually based more on sound economics it seems.

[madmax]

There was a substantial amount of backlash to the clubs decision to purchase the American aircraft with one letter to the Evening Post condemning the Clubs choice but it was considered by club CFI George Bolt to be the most suitable cabin aircraft available at that time for charter work

[davidd]

Same thing happened when Union Airways ordered the first three Lockheed 10A's (Electras) in about 1936, and also when British Airways in the UK ordered Lockheed 10A's about the same time, and later compounded the crime by ordering Lockheed 14s a couple of years later (both types used by Neville Chamberlain on his trips to visit Mr Hitler of course). When Kingsford Smith ordered a Lockheed Altair for the (1934) McRoberston Air Race UK to Australia, a storm of protests by the "Buy British" crowd failed to get the Aussie Hero (and the Commonwealth Government) to interfere in the purchase. It was becoming obvious that the British manufacturers were failing to impress the people who actually seriously considered the types of civilian aircraft they were ordering at the time, and the Americans were the beneficiaries of these contests. When the Australian Govt was looking for new bombers in late 1930s, and having already ordered 48 British Avro Ansons, decided to also order American and placed orders for (I think) 50 Hudsons with P&W engines as Britian was too busy re-equipping the RAF with brand new types to be able to supply other countries, including Australia. The latter Govt was furious when, in 1937/39 period, it was announced that Britain was taking orders from European as well as other foreign countries throughout the World for the latest British types (Spitfire, Hurricane, Gladiator, Blenheim, and others) while simultaneously pushing back priority orders from her own Dominions, such as Australia. This rather soured Australia, although it continued to obtain British types as well as American and also gave consideration to building military aircraft of her own (mostly under license).

[Dave Homewood]

This is interesting stuff. I had not considered the fact that buying from the USA was a political hot potato at the time when I posted the photo, thanks for mentioning it Antonio.

[Peter Lewis]

That Waco QDC (165hp Continental radial) did not stay very long at Wellington.
Just over a year later, in late 1933, it moved down to Dunedin with the Otago Aero Club and was replaced at Wellington by Waco UIC ZK-ADE (210hp Continental).

[madmax]

Replaced as it was considered to be underpowered

[Deleted]

For anyone else curious about ZK-ACV's fate, NZDF-Serials has this to say:

Arrived in Wellington on 11 April 1932 and shipped to Wigram for assembly.
First flight in New Zealand was from Wigram on 18 April 1932.
Delivered to the Wellington Aero Club the following day.
Entered the New Zealand Civil Aircraft Register as ZK-ACV.
Sold to Otago Aero Club in November 1933 and delivered to Taieri on the 11th of that month.
To Queenstown and Mount Cook Airways in June 1938.
Impressed into RNZAF on 19 April 1940 as NZ570 with the Communications Flight at Rongotai.
Converted to INST31 with TTS at Rongotai during September 1940.
Broken up at Rongotai during 1941 with most of the parts being dumped into the sea.

[machina]

Can I ask about the political element with Buy British against American goods? Did America stop imports because of the depression and was there a backlash to this?

[davidd]

machina
Probably better to Google something like free trade in the 1930s or some such - apparently America was opening up trade (after having been a bit of a protectionist itself), while the British Empire was going in the opposite direction, with "Empire Preference" being the catch-cry. Am currently part-way through reading a book on this general subject, titled "The last Thousand Days of the British Empire - the Demise of a Superpower, 1944-47", by Peter Clarke (2008), well worth a read, but basically British Empire was practically bankrupt in 1939, with no hope of surviving on its own much longer, but introduction of Lend-lease in 1941 managed to keep it staggering along for a few more years. Roosevelt was astonished to learn the awful truth in 1942/43 but there was really nothing he could have done about it at the time. By the 1960s Britain was more or less back on its feet, but I won't bore you with more recent history!

Incidentally, one class of "goods" banned by the Americans in the early 1920s which caused much grief in Britan was alcohol (Prohibition), which brought about a massive slump in that particular industry (which was a pretty big industry, I think USA took more than 50% of British output, probably more), but of course from 1929/38 there was the World-Wide depression which upset pretty well everybody's apple-carts in all directions.

[tbf2504]

If the apple-cart was upset, I hope they made cider out of the spillage!!

[Peter Lewis]

The concept on which the British Empire was structured was that the Colonies and Dominions suppled food and raw materials to the UK.
The UK then used these resources to produce manufactured goods which were then shipped back to the Empire.
Thus there was guaranteed two-way trade, and the Royal Navy was established at vital points across the globe (Singapore, Malta, Gibraltar etc.) to protect these shipping routes.
Hence at that time NZ had open and unfettered access for export of wool, meat and butter to the UK market and in return we bought most (all?) our manufactured goods from them.
This only really started to change in the early 1970s - think of the uproar when NAC bought Friendships instead of HS7848s

[machina]

Thank you all. davidd, appreciate the tip on the book, will look into it. For an insight into the period leading up to the thirties I can recommend “The Deluge” by Adam Tooze, which provides detail on the impact of WWI financially, politically and militarily on Britain, especially as a waning power against the rise of America.

[Mustang51]

Sorry, off topic again but much consternation in the camp when Lawrence Wackett suggested that the best buy for the nascent CAC was the NA-16 rather than "British"