To continue the story….
Also at Miek Subritzky’s we’d caught up with Marcus Bridle, who is a forum member on WIX (Hairy). He’d already tried to catch us at Motat as planned but since the guys had already gone the day before the plans had changed, Marcus had missed us. He’d gone to the Subritzky’s without even knowing we were going to turn up, so another fortuitous turn.
After the jaunt to Dairy Flat we made our return south to Auckland and into towen for a knees up. Marcus joiend us and we proceeded to the London Bar as planned. We stayed a little while but the band got loud and also I was disappointed that the place had slipped a little since I’d last been there (it used to have loads of world beers from Britian, Europe, USA, India, etc. now is was just dull same old same old).
So we moved on to track down dinner and we ended up in a Japanese restaurant where we enjoyed a good meal and a chef at the table throwing food at us. I’d only seen this on tele before so to experience it first hand was a novelty.
After a hearty meal and a few beers we decided to go to the Sky Tower, the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, but when we arrived we found the bar at the top was closing so we didn’t bother going up. Well, not worth the effort if there’s no beer, eh?
That was Saturday shot, onto Sunday.
We set off south for Ardmore Airport, heart of the NZ Warbirds and many restoration facilities. We actually found the place fairly easily despite me giving a few wrong turns in the navigation. There we had breakfast in the cafe at the Aero Club building. Highly recommended if you go there, very good food.
At 11am we were off to Pioneer Aero where we again met Marcus, and we met Paul McSweeney, one of the managers there. He kindly gave us some history of the business and the aircraft they’ve restored, and this included a lot of facts even us Kiwis were unaware of. Then Paul showed us through the hangar, where currently resident are two P40’s being restored, a Yak 3 and a P51D. Wow, what a smashing place, just wonderful. And Paul was a very hospitable host making us most welcome and answering many questions. They’re a very dedicated team, that is for sure.
Soon a funny turbo noise outside heralded the arrival of a bright red Pilatus PC6 Turbo Porter, which has just returned to the air thanks to the Ardmore technicians. We adjourned to take a look and meet the pilot. Soon another arrival was Mr Garth Hogan himself, owner of Pioneer, who’d come to meet and welcome us. What a great bunch of guys.
Eventually we reluctantly left this wonderful facility to venture to the other side of the airfield and take a look at the NZ Warbirds Hangar’s stablemates. We spent several hours and all got considerably sunburnt from then on, looking, chatting, watching, living and breathing warbirds. Harvards, Mustang, Trojan, Catalina, CT4B’s… and we were treated to several Harvards in the air, several flights from the Trojan to watch, the Catalina doing a club flight, and much more buzzing around. But the highlight for Steve, and for us, was the sudden arrival of an L39. A new one, up from New Plymouth, piloted by none other than Peter Voss who was old buddies with Steve as they’d trained on the L39 together in the USA. Peter’s new-to-NZ L39 looked great to me, and it was really impressive to see take off, man they’re quiet compared with other military jets that I’m more used to.
Eventually we dragged ourselves away from Ardmore and did finally make it to Glyn Powell’s, where he kindly showed us through the Mossie factory. We were all impressed by his first Mossie fuselage which is still in his workshop, and not in Canada as previously reported. He’s a man with a lot of drive and vision, and we all hope he achieves his goals of putting a few Mossies back in the air.
That concluded another great day, and shortly afterwards I had to head for home.
I hope to add some photos to this tomorrow when I get them off the camrea, because the photos will speak a thousand more volumes than my mere words can.
In closing I want to thank all the collectors, restorers and enthusiats across the Auckland district who made this weekend such a joy for me and for our visiting friends. The terrible two head south to Christchurch and then Wanaka tomorrow, and I hope (and know) they have’ll have as much fun and as much welcomes as the past weekend.
Cheers.
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