New Zealand News

The announcement of the big profit was preceded by the airline’s decision to buy three Boeing 767 extended-range aircraft, and a sixth Boeing 747, costing a total of more than $600 million.

The man largely credited with the airline’s return to fortune is chief executive, Mr Norman Geary, who was appointed in early 1982. At the time, 43-year-old Geary had no previous airline experience. He was lured home from Europe where he had been co-ordinating British Petroleum’s marketing.

Geary found an airline in shambles, over-staffed, with a morale that bordered on the rebellious, and a Government that seriously wondered whether it was worth maintaining international services. The post-Erebus crash debate was at its height and many in senior management were accused of being involved in the cover-up over mistakes that resulted in the death of 256 people.

Geary moved swiftly, reducing by one in four of the nearly 9000 on the payroll, simplifying a cumbersome upper management structure to something resembling a pre-war family firm, calling staff in for night and weekend work and study sessions, and throwing special emphasis onto marketing.

The 1983-84 result comes largely from a 15% increase in revenue over both international and domestic services, and a cost increase of only 0. 7%. Domestic traffic was up 11. 5% and international by 9. 4%.

The arrival of the first Boeing 767 in September 1985, will alleviate what the airline considers to be the remaining drain on its revenue – international services out of Wellington. Since the airline cannot operate its Boeing 747-219B aircraft from Wellington’s short strip, trans-Tasman services have been flown solely by Qantas’ SP747 over the past two years, and rapport is strong between the capital city and the Australian airline. Unofficial Air New Zealand estimates put the cost of its absence from Wellington at $150 million to $200 million, and there are plans to put the 767 into the city as soon as possible.

The choice between the Boeing 767 and the European A310 Airbus was a cliff-hanger, and the airline’s claim that the Boeing machine had marked operational advantages over the European aircraft was less than convincing. The airline has not commented on a suggestion that Boeing offered a substantial cash credit on the sixth 747 if the airline bought the maker’s twin jets.

The airline’s resurgence has also brought embarrassment.

Over the past 18 months, the company has managed to shed 42 pilots, most of them accepting voluntary severance handshakes amounting to a total of $7. 1 million. The last 31 left only seven months before the airline began placing advertisements (in October) for more pilots. It needs 60 to make up numbers for the arrival of the new aircraft.

For some reason yet to be fully explained, a clause was written into most of the severance agreements guaranteeing these pilots first preference when the airline began hiring again, and the right to assume the same seniority as when they left. Most were senior pilots.

Now a number are asking for their jobs back. The airline is not happy – it wants ‘youngsters’ aged between 20 and 30; and neither is the New Zealand Airline Pilots’ Association, which was instrumental in gaining the clause. Many present members of NZALPA see themselves going down the seniority ladder if their old colleagues get back in. The dispute is being arbitrated on, but legal opinion suggests the clause is ‘watertight’.

New Zealand Airship Challenge

Renewed interest in air ships has touched a chord among aviation enthusiasts. At least four airship manufacturing enterprises are underway, with plans for commercial production.

High among these is a scheme announced in October by Hamilton aviation pioneer, Mr Ossie James, and aircraft designer, Mr Pat Monk.

They hope to begin building a 60-metre-long airship in early 1985, and say Swiss interests have already pledged $2 million, about a third of the capital needed to launch the project. Uses seen for the ship, to be known as NZ1, include economic zone surveillance, offshore supply and passenger transport.

NZ1 would weigh 3. 7 tonnes, have a top speed of 85 knots, and carry a 3500 kg payload, or 33 passengers. Two 400 hp Allison turbines would give it a duration of up to 60 hours.

Pat Monk is a world authority on airships. He played a leading part in the construction of the British Skyship 600, and is a director of Wren Skyships, on the Isle of Wight. To Australians, he is probably best known as the man who took Henry Millicer’s drawings and turned them into the CT-4 Skytrainer. British-born, he has lived for many years in New Zealand – commuting frequently to the Isle of Wight on airship business.

Airport Safety Report Raised Controversy

A certain brutal logic lies behind a report which sent shudders through airport rescue firemen and many pilots, in October. The report recommended that airport rescue fire services be drastically reduced at most airports, and done away with altogether at some.

It also recommended the withdrawal of flight services from ten non-air-traffic control provincial airports, and the winding down of harbour rescue services at Auckland and Wellington Airports.

The report is the first of a number commissioned by the Civil Aviation Division of the Ministry of Transport- others to come will include air traffic control and airport financing. Its author is Wellington aviation consultant, Mr Russell Smith, a former RNZAF pilot (a point many of his civilian critics noted).

Mr Smith argued that within New Zealand, the International Civil Aviation Organisation doctrine on airport safety had the opposite effect to that intended. Money spent on maintaining rescue fire services and many flight service offices to ICAO standards would be better spent on upgrading navigational aids, flight information services and airports.

Airport accidents were probably less life-threatening than being 40 or 50 years of age, he said. Using American statistics, he estimated the probability of a fatal crash by an international aircraft at a New Zealand airport would be one in 2600 years, and one fatal domestic airliner crash one in 209 years.

Predictably, firemen and aircrews charged that the report amounted to little more than a blatant attempt at cost-cutting by the division. Firemen pointed to five fatal crashes in the environs of Auckland Airport since it opened in the mid-1960s, and said Mr Smith’s point that no fare-paying passengers were involved was hardly a valid argument (two of the crashes were airliners, a DC-8 on a training flight, and an F27 which came down in the harbour, near the end of a positioning run).

The Government hastily countered by saying that while the Smith report would receive studied examination, it was at this stage little more than a ‘discussion paper’.

Nevertheless, with a lean economy and massive expenditure on aviation navigation aids scheduled for the next ten years, aircrews and firemen are wary. All but two VORs are being replaced. Urgent decisions are overdue on radar, pilots are pressing for ICAO-approved runway over-runs, while NAVSTAR is due to be introduced overseas next year, and time reference scanning beam microwave landing systems (TRSB MLS) is scheduled for worldwide use by the 1990s as a replacement for the current ILS.

Man-Powered Flight Competition Takes Off

What is believed to be Australasia’s prize for a man-powered flight was offered in September by an Auckland newspaper and a domestic airline. The $NZ10,000 prize and trophy for a man powered flight across six kilometres of the upper stretches of Auckland Harbour is open to nationals of New Zealand and Australia, and too those who build their machines in New Zealand.

The Star/Air Albatross Trophy is sponsored by the Auckland Star and Air Albatross, a vigorous airline with a growing Metroliner route network linking Auckland, Wellington, New Plymouth and Nelson.

The prize for the first successful flight is $5000 cash, and $5000 worth of free travel, donated by the airline, and a trophy from the newspaper. It is expected the cash prize will be increased as other commercial interests become involved.

In planning the competition, which remains open until won, the sponsors liaised with the Californian group led by Dr Paul MacCready which won the British Kremer Trophy and made the Gossamer Albatross Channel crossing in 1980.

Dr MacCready’s associate on the channel flight, Dr Peter Lissaman, and New Zealand expert, Dr Peter Jackson of Auckland University, are acting as special advisers, while the New Zealand Division of the Royal Aeronautical Society will survey the aircraft and monitor the attempts.

The six kilometre course is across mainly shallow water and can be flown in either direction. The launching and landing points are the airfield at the RNZAF’s Hobsonville Base, and a large harbourfront area about four kilometres out of central Auckland, called the Meola Reef Reserve.

Within a week of the announcement, more than 90 inquiries had been received, including one from West Germany. The ‘season’ will be from January 1 to mid-May, beginning in 1985. Australians tempted to launch a bid should write to ‘Manpowered Flight’, The Auckland Star, PO Box 1409, Auckland.

Emergency Locator Beacon Introduction to Be Speeded Up

Regulations to enforce the carriage of emergency locater transmitters (ELTs) on all aircraft fitted with two or more seats is being speeded up. Civil Aviation’s urgency follows an all-too frequent occurrence in New Zealand.

On October 16, a Grumman Cheetah owned by Wellington Aero Club took off from the small central North Island town of Turangi on a 90 minute flight to Palmerston North, and disappeared. Aboard were three people including the pilot and the local manager of Philips Electrical, Mr Hugo Schut.

It prompted one of the biggest air searches. the RNZAF had three aircraft out, including an Orion, and Civil Aviation put up ten machines. But to no avail. When the official search was abandoned, Philips hired 20 aircraft to continue. This too failed to find any trace of the missing machine in the rugged, bush-clad terrain.

More than a week later a private helicopter pilot noticed a small patch of seared bush, and on closer investigation found the remains of the Cheetah. The occupants were dead.

It turned out that the aircraft was normally fitted with an ELT, but it had been removed for servicing just before the flight, and not replaced. It was an all-too-familiar saga in a country, which though small, has an unusual ability for hiding all traces of missing aircraft.

Six months earlier, a Piper Cherokee with four aboard disappeared on a routine flight from Wanganui to Auckland. A similar search failed to find anything. Three months later, pig hunters discovered the remains of the aircraft and occupants in similar country. It was within ten minutes’ flying time from central Auckland.

The Cheetah wreckage was only a kilometre from a large hydroelectric power station, and five minutes drive from the main Auckland-Wellington highway.

Still baffling searchers is the disappearance of the Turner family last year on a 20 minute flight from Tekapo to Fox Glacier, in the South Island. Roy Turner was the pilot-owner of the Cessna 172. He had with him his wife and two children, and none of the route was over water. As with the Cherokee, no ELT was carried.

Oddly, the manufacturer of ELTs is considered a local growth industry, with a substantial export market. The new regulations are expected to come into force early in 1985.

Spitfire Replica’s Short Life

The full scale fibreglass Spitfire replica built by the RNZAF (see the September edition of Australian Aviation) had a short, fiery life. The model, completed to perfection, was finished and duly mounted on a plinth outside the Christchurch Brevet Club, replacing the real machine which went to the Air Force Museum. In late September, somebody sprayed it with an accelerant and set it alight. Much of the machine including the rear fuselage and tailplane survived, but the RNZAF estimates it will cost $30,000 to restore. A public appeal is well on the way towards raising the cash.

Efforts to find the culprit (and motive) failed. A group of anti-nuclear protesters camped nearby for the duration of the Anzus TRIAD Exercise vehemently denied any involvement.