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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Aug 9, 2009 5:51:58 GMT 12
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Post by shamus on Aug 9, 2009 12:23:12 GMT 12
Great to see the photos in these three Airshow Programmes. Thanks for posting them. I thought anyone with an interest in Gisborne aviation could be interested in the following early aviation news the results of which has been inconclusive. The news item is from the 1910 Weekly News and the letter of reply I got from the letter I wrote to get anything further on it. Someone out there may know more about it.   |
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Aug 9, 2009 13:18:24 GMT 12
The [young] chap with the lawnmower in one of the advertisments is Granville Jones, long-time owner of Beechcraft V35 Bonanza ZK-DDG. Claires Mower Centre was his business until he sold it and retired a few years ago. For many years, DDG was registered to Claires Mower Centre, but since Granville's retirement it has been registered to him personally. I imagine that photograph of him had been taken many years previously. His twin sister has been a personal friend of mine for more than thirty years.
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Post by Peter Lewis on Aug 10, 2009 21:51:11 GMT 12
Jim, interesting that your correspondent talks of a Wright seaplane. Nowhere in the weekly News item is a seaplane actually mentioned. Who is the letter writer, by the way? Harry Barker? can't decipher the signature.
He displays a little confusion about the Desoutters:
- ZK-ACA (c/n D.36) was the Dominion Airlines Ltd. Desoutter, it arrived in NZ in November 1930 and stalled at low level & crashed at Wairoa 8Feb31. Pilot Ivan L Kight.
- ZK-ABY (c/n D.17) was G A Nicholl's Desoutter, arriving in July 1930 and passing to Gisborne Air Transport Co. in March 1931. When they folded, the Desoutter became part of the HB&EC AC fleet until the CofA expired April 1937 when it was broken up at Hastings.
Also, no mention of the Ormond/Gisborne-based returned soldier Stan Hatten who bought the DH6 back with him in 1920. His family ran the Ormond to Gisborne bus service, perhaps he was going to add an air service to that as well? The Walsh Brothers flew the DH6 eventually, of course.
As far as I know the only 'Wright' ever flown in NZ was the British 1910 Howard Wright biplane built up by Leo & Vivian Walsh & others and flown in 1911. This was only ever operated as a land-based aircraft.
The Bishop did most of his flying with NZFS in the Supermarine Channel G-NZAI, and Brake's Le Rhone Avro would most likely have been the ex-NZFS H5240/G-NZAB as this was based on the coast from December 1921.
Good to see George Nicholls get a healthy mention in the airshow programs. He was, in my view, an underrated pioneer, involved with Gisborne Air Transport, East Coast Airways, Union Airways and eventually served on the Board of NAC. Being based on the East Coast, he seems to have been largely overshadowed by Lawson Field.
I had an interesting chat with Granville Jones at Gisborne airfield in January. His Bonanza ZK-DDG, even though it is kept in it's own hangar, has to be tied down so it does not move about inside during the frequent local earthquakes! He has a beach house alongside the Pauanui strip, and the Bonanza is often in residence there.
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Post by shamus on Aug 10, 2009 22:40:05 GMT 12
Yes Peter I believe it was Harry Barker. It is quite a few years back and I found an article somewhere that he had written and thought he would be best to answer the question. However
as it turned out nobody seems to know anything about it.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 11, 2009 1:42:40 GMT 12
I decided to search Papers Past to see if it turned up anything about the two men with an aeroplane in Gisborne. So far I have found these reports: Poverty Bay Herald, 3 Jan 1910 Messers George and Harry Stevenson, staircase builders, of Auckland, brothers of Mr. E. Stevenson of Hastings, have an aeroplane practically completed. The plane will have a surface of 200 feet and will be driven by a 50 h-p engine. Progress, 1 Feb 1910 - Patent Applications: Patent 26996 - C. Chapman of St Kilda and R. Wilson of Dunedin had applied to patent an aeroplane The Critic, 5 March 1910 "Several residents of Alexandra (Otago) assured the local "Herald" that they saw a calf lifted six feet in the air by a whirlwind which visited the town. But then they saw the aeroplane down that way more frequently than anywhere else." I wonder if that statement was alluding to Richard Pearce??Progress, 2 May 1910 - Patent Applications: Patent 27267 - J.C. Cains of Havelock North had applied to patent an aeroplane steadier and balancer Progress, 1 Sept 1910 - Patent Applications: Patent 28191 - P.C. Loasby and H.D. Bell, both of Christchurch, had applied to patent an aeroplane Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LX, Issue LX, 21 September 1910, Page 4 This link shows the exact same report as in the AWN in Jim's post:paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=HNS19100921.2.13&srpos=28&e=-01-1910--12-1932--10--21-DA---0gisborne+aeroplane-allProgress, Volume V, Issue 12, 1 October 1910 Patent 28233 - A.D. Kerr of Wellingotn had applied to patent an aeroplane Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 12270, 6 October 1910 An interesting advertisement reads: " The new Aeroplane and Motor fish delivery firm can supply you with smoked fish, fresh fish and cutlets, rabbits, etc. before breakfast. - Douglas Brothers, Gladstone Road, Phone 69."paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=PBH19101006.2.2.5&srpos=31&e=-01-1910--12-1932--10--31-DA---0gisborne+aeroplane-allThat advert repeats in later editions of the Poverty Bay Herald too. Could this be the mystery plane? Gladstone Road is in Gisborne. |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 11, 2009 1:59:25 GMT 12
Well here's an aeroplane or perhaps a glider being tested at Gisborne in 1910 Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 12314, 26 November 1910, Page 4 "A locally manufactured aeroplane was given a flight at Kaita yesterday. The airship was taken onto the hillside, down which it was allowed to run in order to raise the necessary momentum to lift the machine off the ground. In the absence of a motor to maintain speed and balance, the unlucky invention necessarily came a "cropper," injuring one of its wings. The builder of the machine, who was not aboard when the tial took place, was carried shoulder high on his aeroplane by an enthusiastic band of onlookers." paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=PBH19101126.2.15&srpos=55&e=-01-1910--12-1932--10--51-DA---0gisborne+aeroplane-all |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 11, 2009 2:22:59 GMT 12
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Post by shamus on Aug 11, 2009 9:41:10 GMT 12
Thanks for that Dave. Off today so will look at them more fully when I get back.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 11, 2009 9:58:50 GMT 12
I never realised that New Zealanders had aeroplane fever as early as these dates, but it seems so. Lots of people were attempting to build them, and others were talking about them, such as (according to the Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 12591, 23 October 1911) Mrs Harrison Lee-Cowie who held an open air meeting at the Sievwright Monument that night and at 8.00pm gave a lecture in Whinray's Hall entitled "A Trip Round the World in an Aeroplane". She was probbaly branded as a witch...  By the way, sorry Bruce that some of the content I'm posting takes the thread off-track, being non-Gisborne aviation, but I felt that seeing as I was finding these amazing snippets whilst looking for early Gisborne aviaition, someone here might appreciate seeing them. |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 11, 2009 10:51:33 GMT 12
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 11, 2009 11:36:05 GMT 12
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Aug 11, 2009 15:22:34 GMT 12
The ‘Wairarapa Archive’ have published some books about early aviation at the bottom of the North Island, or involving Wairarapa aviators and one particularly interesting book of theirs is “Taking Flight — The Fisher Monoplane and early aviation in the Wellington region” by Paul Maxim, published in 2003, ISBN 0-9582053-5-3. All books published by the Wairarapa Archive are currently available, either through local Wairarapa bookshops (I've also seen their books in Wellington bookshops), or directly from the Archive itself:
Wairarapa Archive
79 Queen Street
Masterton
Ph 06 370 6300
The book about the Fisher Monoplane (and other early aviation in the Wellington area) contains a huge amount of information, numerous photographs, graphs, tables and newspaper clippings.
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