Not that simple I’m afraid John. The project was taken on as a training programme by Air New Zealand for their apprentices, lead by their top class experienced engineers; and the estimate of investment that has been bandied about is probably just that, an estimate. The company put in loads of manhours but they gained from the experience. It provided a great range of skills for their trainees, some of whom have gone onto other old aircraft projects I believe. I am not certain what percentage of Air New Zealand was taxpayer owned back then, I know it used to be 100% originally, then they sold off most of it, but then the Government screwed major shareolder Singapore Airways over, and then they pulled out and the company was on the brink of collapse when the Govt stepped in and bailed them out by buying back majority stake. A big mess. The people of NZ had a stakeholding all the way through but at that time it was likely less than it is now.

The point is the restoration was done as a partnership between Hawker Restorations, which was a subsidiary company created by Tim Wallis for this project, and Air New Zealand to rebuild it for the Alpine Fighter Collection and an understanding was apparently come to that it would be retained here in perpetuity at Air New Zealand’s request. Hence the reason why Air New Zealand bosses were miffed.

This info is all based on reports from various sources from insiders at Air New Zealand, as seen on my forum in the long discussion over this proposed sale.

The word here is that it will stay in New Zealand because all other bidders backed out after Air New Zealand threatened action. I hope this is the case.

Wings Over New Zealand
http://rnzaf.proboards.com

I just saw Ricky Ponting on the news at some press conference, has someone smacked him on the mouth? Both lips looked cut. Or did he get hit by a ball during the game? (I didn’t watch the match)

41.) Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

So the average American eats 18 acres of pizza every day? Or the entire population eats that?;

I personally consider Planes, Trains and Automobiles a masterpiece, and is far better than most movies that have won Oscars.

Most of his other films that he wrote, produced and/or directed were great.

It is not the aircraft you’re linking to Airart.

The Corsair Bu # 124493 was gifted to the RNZAF Museum by the Disney Corporation who pulled it out of longterm storage and gave it as a thank you after the RNZAF assisted them in the making of the film The Rescue. The history of it is here:
http://webzoom.freewebs.com/cafcorsair/Australian_NZ%20Corsairs.html

A restoration began which intended to backdate it to an F4U-1 model as used by the RNZAF, but then the decision was made to halt and reverse this. It became a swap item and was swapped to Graham Hosking in Australia for the P-40F which is under restoration now as a P-40E at the museum. The Corsair is nearing flight in Australia.