April 1975
THE latest addition to the Mooney line of light aircraft in New Zealand, the M2OF Executive, is designed as a speedy executive transport; and very speedily is it getting itself around the country. It arrived here at the end of February, and within a couple of days we were afforded the opportunity to fly it. In fact the assignment was so speedily arranged that the first we knew of the aircraft's impending arrival at Palmerston North was when Larry Hannan, the American demonstration pilot for the local distributor, Airep Promotions, called Ohakea Approach requesting clearance into their airspace!
THERE can be few people in New Zealand who are not aware of the existence of the Iroquois helicopters of the RNZAF'S No 3 Squadron. Week after week they appear in newspapers and on television, rescuing people off mountains, trampers out of the bush and seamen off trawlers. But out of the headlines No 3 Squadron carries on its primary task of Army co-operation in a hundred and one different locations throughout New Zealand and in Singapore. WINGS correspondent Peter Burke Squadron while it was deployed to the Helwan Army camp at Waiouru, to see something of the squadron's operations from close quarter.
THE news item in the January WINGS of Mount Cook Airlines purchasing back the Auster aircraft its chairman, Mr Harry Wig-ley, used in 1955 to make the first ski landing in New Zealand brings to mind the activities of the RNZAF in operating aircraft on skis.
DUE to the rigours of New Zealand's import licensing system, aviation buffs were earlier this year denied the opportunity to see in action an example of the well-known Pitts Special aerobatic aircraft, which the Tauranga firm, Airep Promotions, wished to bring here for demonstrations throughout the country. But one man who has seen and done a lot of flying in the Pitts is Whangarei pilot Stefan Karwowski who recently returned to New Zealand after spending last year flying with the Carling aerobatic team in Canada, at the time the only professional civilian aerobatic team in North America.