In lookng out my old travel diary just now for a Duxford visit date, I discovered that I’d also made notes on my visit to Wanaka in 1993 when we flew down in Plonky (see here http://forum.airforces.info/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23376&highlight=plonky)
I thought I’d share a few details as they clarify what my memory had missed or confused slightly:
9th of April 1993 (Good Friday)
“Flew down in TBM Plonky this afternoon from Wigram with Phil marray (pilot) and Paul Jones (Alpine Fighter Collection). At Luggate there were many people come to see Plonky arrive. The Warbirds Vampire was flying around Luggate. The Kittyhawk flew down with us in close formation. Awesome.
Peopel at Luggate were so friendly. I met Toby Wallis (Tim’s son), Ray Mulqueen again, John lamont and Pete somone.”
11th of April 1993 (Easter Sunday)
“Went out to Luggate with some hostellers for the airshow. The new museum is very good. Watched flying displays by Corsair, Avenger, Zeke, Mustang, Vampire and various others. Unfortunately Kittyhawk had a problem and didn’t fly.
Was invited to private function from 5.00pm onwards in the museum. All the famous fighter pilots were there. Saw Johnny Checketts, met Colin Grey, Bob Spurdle, Desmond Scott and various others (Max Collett too). Unfortunately Geoff Fisken had gone before I met him. Shame. Tim Wallis interviewed me for his private video of the function, embarrassing!”
On the 13th I spent the day with AFC Chief Engineer, Ray Mulqueen, who is a smashing bloke. He’d been around a lot while we painted Plonky so we’d become good mates by now. I went for lunch at his house with his family and I have noted:
:I was entertained with stories of Alpine Fighters’ next projects. Not only are they getting a Yak 3, but 2 other Russian a/c are being restored, and AFC and OFMC are having 3 exact replica FW190’s built, one for each of them and one to sell to cover costs. Also AFC are thinking of getting ex-Russian airframes to bring back for restoration. Ray told me on Sunday that they are looking at gettign a real World War One fighter for the museum and also they are looking at a Mustang overseas to possibly combine with their Kiwi Mustang parts to get it flying.”
That’s all the interesting bits… I want to know, what became of the FW190’s?
So this week marks exactly 11 years since we were painting Plonky, wow. And Friday is the anniversary of that wonderful flight.
By: Aileron Roll - 7th April 2004 at 08:16
Good to hear John Smith is still around, but really I don’t think anyone knows to much about this guy. When I visited he told me he had learnt to fly in Tiger Moths.
Have a friend who once visited when the Mossi was being run, runnup complete all of John chickens stuck in the fence !
By: Dave Homewood - 6th April 2004 at 22:29
I think that Pete Coleman had collected a lot of the parts himself with a view of getting the P51D back into the air but never did, and all those parts went as a package to the AFC from memory. I will try to look into this.
Yes, John’s Mossie is still there, the most complete example in NZ. The paintwork is tatty, but otherwise in superb condition. He’s restored the interior to beautiful condition (apparently everything was ripped out of it when he bought it). He also has the Mustang, a Tiger Moth, two or three Harvards, three Vampires, two P40’s a Hudson and variuos other pieces of junk all crammed into that shed. Sadly no photos because it was so dark and crammed in the shed I’d doubt much would have come out. Plus he’s a kind of odd chap and I felt awkward about asking him if I could take photos. Nice bloke, very knowledgable, but not your normal run of the mill bloke.
Sadly a lot of his stuff is outside, including all the P40 wings and the Hudson wings. The Mossie is the only thing with its wings on. But at least he saved all that stuff and it has the makings of a great collection. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to them in the future.
By: Yak 11 Fan - 6th April 2004 at 22:12
Yes this is the ex Pete Coleman NZ2427 which as you rightly say was stored under a house for some years. I’m interested by story of other P51’s being in the areaat the same time as this would explain why there are some parts from a number of other NZ Mustangs which came as part of the package.
Glad to hear that John Smith’s P51 is still about, was the Mosquito still there as well? Did you happen to get any photographs?
By: Dave Homewood - 6th April 2004 at 22:03
Nice. So is that the ex-RNZAF Territorial Air Force P51D that Sir Tim had in bits? It had been stored dismantled under a house in Blenheim for decades by Peter (somebody?) who had flown them in the TAF.
My Dad worked in the Nelson region in the early 1960’s, on an apple orchard at Upper Moutere. He said that many of teh orchards round the region had bouight up the P51D’s as they were sold off. They used the wheels to make trailers, on which they mounted the Merlins, and they towed them round between the trees in the early morning with the Merlins going, and propsturning, to blow any frost off the trees. He said the area used to echo with the sounds of Merlins. A pity so many ended up that way. I wonder what they all did with the rest of the aircraft.
One such ex-TAF P51D does still exist at nearby Mapua, in the John Smith collection, complete but with wings gas axed off. I saw it in February.
By: Yak 11 Fan - 6th April 2004 at 21:38
Re: Interesting AFC and OMFC notations
Originally posted by Dave Homewood
looking at a Mustang overseas to possibly combine with their Kiwi Mustang parts to get it flying.”
As it turned out there were rather a lot of Kiwi Mustang parts with AFC including this dismantled but substantially complete aircraft now fully restored and loving looked after in the UK. Interestingly enough parts from the AFC Mustang cache are still turning up from other sources throughout the world.
By: Aileron Roll - 6th April 2004 at 12:34
Dave,
I don’t think anyone ever got any money back !
Is a shame there are to many stories (well afew) about this of thing floating around
By: DaveM2 - 6th April 2004 at 11:20
Thanks Mike for tracking that down . Dave , I went to the auction and there was a stairway from the ground floor up to a second tier , but it didn’t cover the whole hangar..it may well have been put up by Ahrens company as a temporary structure
Dave
By: Dave Homewood - 6th April 2004 at 11:17
Thanks guys, especially Dave M2 for this post and the one on the link. I vaguely remember this now, I had forgotten all about that. A nasty business,
However, having spent nearly three years at Wigram, I am puzzled to hear that one of their hangars had a second storey, I never saw anything like that. No 1 Hangar has a mezzanine floor but that is the Museum hangar, so it won’t be in their. Did the civvies renovate one of the old hangars post-RNZAF?
I wonder if the poor AFC and OFMC managed to get any money back from that guy. I hope the FBI managed to convict him.
By: DaveM2 - 6th April 2004 at 10:36
Actually the guy ( Ahrens ) was deported to the U.S. where the FBI were waiting for him..I wrote a detailed reply to a similar query on the AFC 190 some time last year . Ahrens was building his own aircraft in the top tier of the hangar which was discovered by Police.
The 190 fuselage was not built to the right specifications and I don’t know what became of it , but it may well have been scrapped.
Dave
By: Aileron Roll - 6th April 2004 at 06:39
Dave,
From what I understand the FW190 project went quite bad, and it seems was basically a set up.
The guy who came to Wigram to run the project was brought out to NZ by Sir Tim, after a mysterious fire had destroyed his work shop in the US.
At Wigram little progress was made with this guy demanding more and more money all the time. The last I heard he was arrested at Auckland airport trying to leave NZ whilst dressed as a United Airlines pilot, he was I beleave charged with fraud, but later allowed to leave NZ.
This was as told to me by a AFC guy afew years back.
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April 6, 2004 at 4:22 am