Why were the Electras not impressed?

[Dave Homewood]

I have been considering this and cannot fathom it. In the early years of the war when German raider ships were sinking our shipping, the RNZAF was usuing Blackburn Baffins to try to seek them out. They eventually realised that the Baffin's range was too small and they relaced them with Vincents. The RNZAF was begging the Governemnt for better aircrfat, and the Government were begging Britain for Hudsons to replace the Vincents.

But why on earth were they using Baffins and Vincents when NZ had a small fleet of modern Lockheed Electras with a range of 950 miles (1520km)?

The de Havilland airliners of Union Airways and Cook Strait Airways had been impressed into RNZAF service and were being used as gunnery and navigation trainers in 1940. Why didn't they release some of the Vincents and Baffins to the gunnery and nav school at Ohakea, freeing up the airliners to go back to Union Airways, and impress the Lockheeds as reconnaissance bombers?

Does anyone know why the most modern aircraft in the country were being used for transporting rich civvies about while the RNZAF desperately tried to defend NZ's shores? The Lockheed 10 Electras would surely have been an excellent stop-gap till the Hudsons arrived.

[beagle]

Probably beacuse there was a Labour Govt in power here at the time