The Satcher's New Zealand Adventure: Wings Over Wairarapa

2015-01-17

A few months ago, I watched a Nova about an outfit in Masterton building (re-manufacturing) flying copies of World War I aircraft from original blueprints. It was really interesting and later I learned that Peter Jackson (director of Lord of the Rings) owned the company and was funding the operation. I saw a flyer for an airshow at Masterton one day when I was flying at the Hawera airfield and I jumped at the opportunity to go. The airshow was called Wings over Wairarapa and it was held at Hood Aerodrome. I've been to a lot of airshows over the years and they've gotten to be old hat, but we really had fun seeing the unique airplanes and watching them fly.

Number 5 is waaay out

Newest addition to the RNZAF fleet

The business end

Avenger

de Havilland Vampire

de Havillland Venom

BAC Strikemaster

F4U Corsair, a favorite of mine

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Curtis P-40

Two-seat Spitfire

These are some shots of Peter Jackson's outfit. It was a different kind of airshow when these guys were flying. They put up five or six different aircraft at the same time and had a mock dogfight. I don't think they every got outside the airfield boundary during the fight! It really scaled these aircraft for me in terms of how slow they flew and how maneuverable they were.

I chatted with a RNZAF pilot about their new T-6s and we ran into a couple of Beech company pilots who are here from Wichita for a few months doing initial checkouts.

The new RNZAF primary trainer

Another fun aspect of the show was the vintage military vehicles and the WWI re-enactors in period uniforms. The boys liked watching the re-enactors fire their old guns.