Hawke's Bay Aviation Heritage

About us and this website.

 

Hawkes Bay Aviation Association

Beginings

In the late 1990,s a group of aviation interested people formed in order to gather historic info, catergorsie, file, preserve and make it available to anyone interested via a website.

Our group consists of ex WW2 and Korea personnel, RNZAF, RAAF, RAF, Fleet Air Arm and US Airforce (trained) pilots and aircrew, ground crew, administration guys and gals, Aero Club trained pilots and the topdressing folk. These service personnel have served everywhere on the globe. Name any part of the world, and we have, amongst our group, someone who has been there, done a job, and tried out the local "hops".

We've been recording (Audio and Video) the experiences of local service personnel. There's also pictures from photo albums and details from diaries on this website.

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Some of our team during a recording session at one of our "get-togethers". Left To Right: Willis Dark from HB Museum of Technology (Audio), Michael Mullins from Napier Aero Club (Video), Ian Granger, President Vintage Aviation (HB) (Interviews), Cyril Whitaker, Chief Pilot (RTD) NZ Aerial Mapping (Interview)

AIRCRAFT FLOWN: Catalina, Tiger Moths, Harvards, Spitfires, Hurricanes, Stearman, Defiant, Boomerang, Kittyhawk, DH Vampire, Dakota, Fairey Swordfish, Gannet, Halifax, Typhoon, Tempest, Fury, Hunter, Mitchell, Oxford, Anson, Lancaster, Stirling, Vincent, Wellington, Corsair, Lysander, Liberator, Seafire, Wirraway, Wellington, Sunderland...to name a few.

Our collection and research work is ongoing, as is development of this site - we trust it is of value to our community and contiues to serve a useful purpose in ensuring the information contained herein is both preserved and available to anyone interested.

 

In the early days "at work" . . .

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Some of the group "at work"..... Left to Right: Matt Browne - ex Air Traffic Controller & RNZAF, Bill Prebenson - Aero Club Pilot Ralph Duley - ex-Aero Club Pilot and RNZAF

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Left to Right: Charlie Black - ex-RNZAF, Cyril Whitaker - ex-RNZAF & Aerial Mapping, Ian Granger - President of the HB Vintage Aviation Trust.

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Left to Right: Gordon Heiford, Neil Titter and Keith Spackman. All three sailed overseas on the same ship and were, by coincidence, on the same ship coming home.

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Scanning of photo albums and diaries. from left: Max McEwan, Barrie Crabbe, Arthur Birks, Michael Mullins, Norman Oliver, and Ted Nielson.

 

February 2004 gathering

 

Some of our members gather for afternoon tea and natter.

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Recording sessions

Late 2005, we did some recording at the Taradale RSA. Keith Allington had some great stories to tell, as did John Caulton. We have a large selection of interesting photos to post on this site, too. In the meantime, a few photos of the session . . .

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wings.net.nz

Launched 2001

We lanched the website in 2001, soon after the association was formed. The primary purpose of the site was to make the material we had gathered, the audio records we had created and the stories we had authored available to anyone via the WWW. This site won the Best Website Award in 2004.

Refreshed in 2022

The ongoing site refresh was started in 2022. All the information from the orginal site is still here. Some pages (Home, WW11 Memorials Rolls, etc) have been given a new look and made responsive to all screen formats. Other pages are still in the orginal fixed width format, primarily to honour those that spent many hours creating the 2004 award winning site.

Our collection and research work is ongoing, as is the development of this site - we trust it is of value to our community and contiues to serve a useful purpose in ensuring the information contained herein is both preserved and available to anyone interested.