November 1974
FEW general aviation pilots in New Zealand would be unfamiliar with Cessna's popular 150 hp 172 model aircraft. But new on the scene in this country is a 180 hp conversion of it. We had the opportunity of flying the only example of this conversion in New Zealand lastmonth, wwhen Harvie Beetham of Pongaroa in Southern Hawke's Bay made ZK-BYG available to us.
New Zealand agricultural aviation indusry is today facing one of the bleakest periods of its existence.
Faced with a reduction in their incomes as a result of lower meat and wool prices and with the associated squeeze on credit, farmers are cutting back on expenditure
THE use of large machinery on a farm has always been on the minds of most New Zealanders. For some reason a large and impressive looking piece of machinery is always better than a rather smaller unit designed to do the same job.
It is little wonder then that New Zealand farmers, brought up with the healthy "the bigger the better" attitude, advocated the use of large aircraft for aerial top-dressing.
By the first half of next year local sky watchers will have a new shape to identify, one wearing Royal Air Force markings of the 1930s. Currently taking shape in the hands of Auckland homebuidler Barry Thompson. It is an Isaacs Fury Mk II, a scal replica of the Hawker Fury.
In this article, especially written for WINGS, Mr Thompson tells something of his somewhat unique little aeroplane
The allocations this month are as often happens predominated by the productions of the US lightplane manufacturers and include our first examples of 1975 Cessna and Piper models