Kiwi ingenuity's fatal flaw

Sections have gone on sale in the new Cecil Hill neighbourhood of Ngai Tahu's Wigram subdivision in Christchurch. Aviation writer NOEL GILLESPIE takes a look at Hill's tragic and very public death. 

Saturday, February, 1 1919, was a historic day for all the wrong reasons The day dawned dull with light drizzling showers most of the morning. In the afternoon, shocked racegoers at Riccarton saw New Zealand's first fatal air crash.

Cecil McKenzie Hill, the chief flying instructor for the Canterbury Aviation Company, was a man of great charm, very popular with flying pupils and staff.

He had taken off from Sockburn aerodrome at 4.11pm, setting a course for the racecourse. Just as the field for the Canterbury Jockey Club's summer meeting Lyttelton Plate had left the stalls, Hill circled twice to loud cheers from thousands of race patrons.

At the course that day was New Zealand's first Governor-General, Arthur William de Brito Savile Foljambe, the Earl of Liverpool.

The 34-year-old Hill waved, then circled again to gain more height. He made another wide sweep over the course at 2000 feet and disappeared above the low cloud.

Reappearing a few moments later, his biplane passed over the course in a loop, climbed again to gain altitude and carried out a switchback manoeuvre.

At this point he appeared to be in difficulty. He flew straight into another dive but the plane didn't come out of the loop well. He had to put the nose of the biplane down sharply.

Hill then dived directly towards the crowd, rising for another loop. There was a snap and one wing collapsed. Hill evidently tried to pull the machine horizontal, then it lurched over sideways.

Race patrons watched as the small aircraft climbed into its second loop. There was another sickening crack. The other wing collapsed.

The machine turned almost lazily. A round object, possibly a hat or helmet fell clear. There was silence as the aircraft disappeared from sight behind a belt of trees.

The tragedy was watched by thousands.

Cecil Hill was appointed flight inspector for Canterbury [NZ] Aviation Co Ltd in 1917 after a strong recommendation from New Zealand's High Commissioner in London, Sir Thomas McKenzie.

Hill had been chief flight instructor at the Hendon training facility on the outskirts of London, set up in a similar way to Wigram's Sockburn base.

The Canterbury club's new board, headed by Henry Wigram, had been busy building hangars, a repair shop, living quarters and ordering plant and machinery.

A big difficulty had been getting the aircraft they had ordered. This involved two governments (the engines came from France and the planes from England) as well as the consent of innumerable departments on both sides of the channel.

Hill and his young wife, Elsie, arrived in Christchurch on May 3, about a fortnight after the club's first machine had been delivered. Days later, he took Wigram and his wife, Agnes, for the first test flight in one of the two Caudron Anzani planes.

But the locals were also interested in building airplanes. During 1918, one of the first New Zealand designed and built biplanes -an aircraft similar to a Sopwith Tabloid aircraft - was designed and built in the Sockburn workshops. The engineer was JC Mackie, with Hill heavily involved.

Fullsize working drawings, which it's believed were still visible in 1938, were chalked on the hangar walls.

The project stayed under wraps until Boxing Day, 1918, when the first post-World War I open day was staged at Sockburn.

On January 17, 1919 the locally-built biplane was rolled out of its hangar. The press and public had gathered at Sockburn to see it and speculation had been rife over the finished design.

A returned RAF officer said it resembled an SR5 fighter. It was a two-seater, powered by one of the 80hp Anzani radial motors originally used to power one of the school's Caudron biplane trainers.

It had a wing span of 23ft 6in and it was 20ft long. Unlike the Caudron wings, which warped, the Mackie had ailerons fitted, giving the wings a slight dihedral appearance. This was the first time ailerons had been seen in Christchurch,.

Hill's first solo flight lasted 28 minutes and he reported an acceptable rate of climb and that it was light on the controls. He thought it would be suitable for aerobatics.

Praising Mackie, Hill told the waiting media that he had never tested an aircraft in which everything was so satisfactory. The only alteration he recommended was a small modification to the control circuits to allow the aeroplane to be flown "hands-off" in level flight.

But two weeks before the fatal accident, Hill told the Christchurch Star he was not too sure of the machine on some aspects, so would not let anyone else fly it. Nevertheless he took off on February 1 to Riccarton, as it was a custom for the company's aircraft to fly over Addington and Riccarton racecourses on racedays.

And then came the crash.

Those first to the scene found Hill dead.

His body was taken to his home at the Sockburn Aerodrome where an inquest was held at 7.30 that evening. The subsequent investigation found that a flying wire had broken, which in turn caused the other flying wires to break. Ordinary piano wire had been used instead of the more usual cable.

Hill was buried at the St Peters Church Corner Cemetery, in plot 453, and his old boss Sir Henry Wigram is in plot 68.

- © Fairfax NZ News