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What?? Motat owned part of a Zero??

This comes from a March 1978 report in New Zealand Wings magazine about the then short history of the Museum of Transport and Technology (Motat) in Auckland, NZ:

“The battleground of the South West Pacific has proved a fruitful source of aircraft and components – Catalina VH-SBV, parts for the museum’s Ventura and Avenger restorations, two Willys jeeps, and even the tail section for a Zero are among items recently acquired.”

What happened to this Zero tail section?? I’ve never heard of Motat owning that.

The same article says the aviation curator then was a Malcolm Frazer, who’d previously been with the Shuttleworth Collection, and it was hoped under his management that some of the aircraft may be made to fly. Only one Motat aircraft has ever flown since passing into their care, the Ryan STM. Was he involved with that drawn out project? A pity a few others never got flying. (mind you a few passed on from Motat back to private hands have done so, P40, and Corsair, and soon the P47. Also the P39 that was loaned to them.).

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By: turbo_NZ - 28th February 2005 at 20:54

Perhaps it was “redirected” to someone else’s private collection…

TNZ

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By: Smith - 28th February 2005 at 20:11

No idea Dave – an interesting bit of info.

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By: Dave Homewood - 28th February 2005 at 12:52

So Itake it no-one else knew about the Zero either? I wonder if it was on loan from Charles Darby or someone like that?

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