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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 7, 2008 18:31:59 GMT 12
Are you guys still discussing where this aircraft is in the photo? It was confirmed by its owner as being Takapau in the photo, and it is now in storage at Tauranga from memory.
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Post by Bruce on Dec 4, 2008 21:28:11 GMT 12
Hi guys, Just reviving this thread with the introduction of google streetview. I have just been "exploring" Takapau and I have found the Green lodge building. Go to google mapsand search on "37 Walter St Takapau", then select streetview. if you pan around you will find a pile of abandoned cars including a woderful looking green Toyota Starlet - this is outside the Lodge. rotate 180 deg you will see an open space - this is the playground area in the photo - there is still a playground at the other end of this open space (You cant really call it a park...) so it has probably changed and, it seem, deteriorated over the years. gotta try the new technology....
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 4, 2008 23:59:28 GMT 12
Okay....just to throw another mystery into the pot.
When I was a kid growing up in Hastings in the late 1950s and 1960s, there was an aeroplane fuselage in the playground at Mahora Kindergarten. I never attended that kindergarten, but while at primary school, a group of us used to play war games in the kindergarten grounds, including in the old aeroplane. It was a biplane (but with the wings removed apart from the centre-section) and it had three separate cockpits. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a modified Tiger Moth (I seem to recall it was longer than a DH.82a), but apart from that I wouldn't have a clue what it was.
Any ideas what it could have been?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 5, 2008 0:09:41 GMT 12
Three cockpits, not the Avro 626 which lived at Hastings, now in the RNZAF Museum was it?
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Post by shorty on Dec 5, 2008 7:49:53 GMT 12
During that period the 626 was still being operated by Jim Frogley, when I took the photo (in my stash thread) in the late 60s it didn't show any sign of having been a kids plaything. We all know in what condition a fabric aeroplane played on/in by small boys ends up in fairly quickly. As to what it may have been I really can't come up with anything at this stage.
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Post by Bruce on Dec 5, 2008 8:59:51 GMT 12
there arent too many options for 3- cockpit piplanes, Vildebeeste or vincent maybe, but those are hardly suitable for Kindergarten installation! I suspect it could be a "scratch built" machine or a "lop and chop" of some other ex-military machine. Fairey Battle perhaps? certainly there were several examples of this type used as instructional airframes. very perplaxing (and just when we had solved the Harvard mystery too!)
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 5, 2008 10:44:19 GMT 12
Well, I have read an old reference somewhere which reckoned two Avro 626's were sold privately, not just NZ203/ZK-APC. Perhaps Frogley had a second airframe that he took spare parts off and then donated the rest to a kindergarten?
I asked about this second one here some time ago but got no response. I'll try to find the thread.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 5, 2008 10:47:07 GMT 12
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Post by shorty on Dec 5, 2008 11:37:59 GMT 12
Fairey Battle is most unlikely, as only two were thought to have come here (probably P6673 and K9177) and also it was stated that it was a biplane.
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Post by Bruce on Dec 5, 2008 12:04:27 GMT 12
Its not inconceivable that a monoplane was rigged up to look like a biplane with oddball bits. I was thinking that most Biplane types being fabric covered, wouldnt have been suitable.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 5, 2008 12:24:05 GMT 12
I'm sticking with the Avro 626, it will be a second airframe purchased at the same time from RNZAF stocks which they held as a spares source, as NZ201, 202 and 204 were all reduced to spares. As NZ203 was servicable, or near to it when sold, the second airframe probably went as part of the deal as the RNZAF would have known there were no other spares out there for it. That explains why it ended up in Hastings, and why it went to a kindergarten (non flyer, probably just a hulk after being stripped.) Did it look like this? www.warbirds.co.nz/images/avro-626.jpg
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Post by John L on Dec 5, 2008 16:44:19 GMT 12
Not when the kids had finished with it........... ;D
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Post by lumpy on Dec 5, 2008 19:42:54 GMT 12
As a 10 year old in the early 70's , I still reconised the mess the "plane " in the local playground was becoming with people ( like me ) playing on her . Bits seemed to be missing each time we went there . I agree with Jon L , god only knows what what sort of mess kids could have made of a fabric coverd airframe . Ours was a relativly robust Vampire . Still , I trust they would have enjoyed it as much as I did ;D ;D
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 5, 2008 20:49:25 GMT 12
I wish we'd had an aeroplane to play on in our playground. The closest we got round here was a dead steam roller and a dead tractor. How boring.
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Post by shorty on Dec 5, 2008 21:40:24 GMT 12
I still doubt that it could have been a Battle as all my reading says that they were used as target practice for the Vildebeeste crews and the eventually dumped in Cook Strait sometime between mid 42 and mid 43 all of which makes the chances of one being in Hastings in the 50s or 60s fairly unlikely.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 5, 2008 22:29:00 GMT 12
Shorty, are you able to provide a reference to the Vildebeest crews using the Fairey Battles as targets please? I've never heard that.
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Post by shorty on Dec 5, 2008 22:39:27 GMT 12
AHSNZ Journal No 133 Vol 12 No 4 5th May 1969 Page 69. "When Ron Killick was on leave in Christchurch he mentioned in conversation with a friend he had learned that the battle was used for target practice at Rongotai by Vildebeeste gunners. After each practice shoot the airframe was patched up by the trainee riggers, and the whole process went on over again."
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 6, 2008 0:49:35 GMT 12
I'm sticking with the Avro 626, it will be a second airframe purchased at the same time from RNZAF stocks which they held as a spares source, as NZ201, 202 and 204 were all reduced to spares. As NZ203 was servicable, or near to it when sold, the second airframe probably went as part of the deal as the RNZAF would have known there were no other spares out there for it. That explains why it ended up in Hastings, and why it went to a kindergarten (non flyer, probably just a hulk after being stripped.) Did it look like this? www.warbirds.co.nz/images/avro-626.jpgI have wondered a couple of times if the hulk was an Avro 626. I had forgotten all about it until about three years ago when I ran into an old schoolfriend from Mahora School and we were reminising about what we used to get up to as kids and he brought up the subject of the old aeroplane in the kindergarten grounds. It was just over the fence from Mahora School playgrounds and although it was officially out of bounds, with us kids being kids, boundary fences meant nothing to us and we used to get into the kindergarten grounds by climbing over the fence from the school during weekends and school holidays, mostly to play war games of which the old aeroplane became part of it (an imaginary bomber). One thing I do distinctly recall was that centre-section fuel tank above the fuselage as part of the upper wing (as in a Tiger Moth), but I'm positive the aeroplane wasn't a Tiger Moth and it definitely had three cockpits. I can vaguely recall the rear cockpit being raised slightly (as with the Avro 626) and I can also vaguely recall that the fuselage wasn't fabric-covered any more but had been re-covered with a hard sheathing (plywood, perhaps?). The last time I can actually recall seeing the hulk in the kindergarten grounds would have been in the mid-1970s when I was about 20 years of age. BTW....I don't have any recall of Jim Frogley's 626 actually flying (apart from when it was restored by the RNZAF and was flown briefly, including to Bridge Pa), but I did see it in Jim's shed when it was stored in there. Jim was one of the REAL old characters at the Hawke's Bay & East Coast Aero Club bar (in the old original wooden two-story clubrooms) when I was skydiving at Bridge Pa in the mid-to-late 1970s. Next time I'm in Hastings (possibly next February) I'll go and take a look at the Mahora Kindergarten just on the very remote possibility the aircraft hulk is still there, although it is probably wishful thinking all these decades later, but you never know.
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Post by shorty on Dec 6, 2008 7:04:10 GMT 12
I've been reading AHSNZ Journals where it mentions the 626 recovery. It mentions it went to Bridge Pa for a while before being returned to Jim's place. They took of Jim's useage of it and the general history of the type but no mention of another hulk. When I visited and took the two photo I posted he didn't mention a second one either. I was at Ohakea whilst the restoration was underway and heard nothing there . A good move might be for a Palmerston North based forum member to go to Galtech Models and talk to Rene Redmond as he was working on the project when he had his accident and got confined to a wheelchair. Did a Wise Owl to Hastings about 83 and members of the public spoke to us about Jim's one but no others were mentioned. Any chance the kindergarten has photos where it shows in the background? Or the local paper?One of the local history/archive groups? It's certainly an intriguing question!
Just a quick thought it wasn't a Hind was it. Shamus, any thoughts? After all Don Subritzky's one came from over there.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 6, 2008 14:17:48 GMT 12
If any member of this group lives anywhere near Hastings and wishes to do a bit of digging, Mahora Kindergarten is in Rangiora Street and is a large back-section with the rear boundary fence bordering Mahora School (which is in Frederick Street).
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