Vintage flight treat

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IN STYLE: Bill Crooks, 88, and Southern DC3 flight attendant Gill Hall.

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GRAND DAME: From left, pilots Chris Mehlhopt, Giles Goulden and Myles Coburn and a 66-year-old DC3 at Lowburn airstrip.

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An ex-serviceman beamed yesterday as he stepped down the flight stairs of a World War II-era DC3 at Lowburn airstrip near Cromwell.

Bill Crooks, 88, was last on a DC3 in September 1945 from Invercargill to Dunedin for a honeymoon trip with wife Joyce.

A retired Waipango farmer and originally from Riverton, Mr Crooks lives at Ripponburn Hospital and Home in Cromwell.

He and daughter Mary Stewart were among 150 passengers who booked scenic flights on the vintage airliner's Central Otago leg. Mr Crooks brought his original return ticket – 1 and 15 shillings – along for the ride.

He was not long demobbed from service with a coastal artillery unit when he and his wife flew from Invercargill airport, a grass strip in those days. Yesterday's flight was great, he said.

"It was beautiful, I couldn't have got a better day or better pilots."

Owned by the Southern DC3 charitable trust, which bought the plane for $500,000 in 2007 and aims to gift it to the Ashburton Aviation Museum, ZK-AMY is the only DC3 flying in the South Island.

Southern DC3 chairman David Horsburgh, a commercial pilot with more than 19,000 flying hours, said the trust was grateful for the support during the Heartlands tour of the South Island.

Money from scenic tours will be used to pay off debts incurred by the trust to refit the aircraft before it is gifted to the museum.

The Air New Zealand captain said flying a manual DC3 was a privilege and a departure from piloting a computerised Airbus A320. The aircraft was refitted with twin Pratt and Whitney 1200hp engines at a cost of $250,000, business class seats from a Boeing 737 and was "as new" for a 66-year-old bird, he said.

Passengers yesterday enjoyed half-hour flights in clear blue skies 304m above the Kawarau gorge, Nevis Valley and Lake Dunstan.

THE RUNDOWN: Southern DC3

• Built: Longbeach, California, 1944 as a C47A Skytrain
• Registration: ZK-AMY
• Wingspan: 29m
• Length: 19m
• Empty/max weight: 8641kg/12000kg
• Seating: 28 passengers
• Crew: four

- © Fairfax NZ News

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