West Coast Airways - Hokitika

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DescriptionWest Coast Airways.Map^[1]ContributorJohn Hurley

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Location (city or town)HokitikaOrganisation (eg business)West Coast Airways

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Category TagAviation

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Date Created19th March 2023CommentsPeter Spence
Used to fly from Hokitika by DC3 to Wellington - first stop Westport, then on to Karamea - finally the capital - fantastic views of the coast line, especially Punakaiki

Phil Olson
Peter Spence Im fairy certain a DC3 would not have landed at Karamea. Wouldnt think the runway would be long enough or wide enough.

Harvie Morrow
Phil Olson RNZAF Corsair NZ5517 went missing on the 11 November 1944 on a training flight out of Westport heading to Harewood. It is reported to have crashed on the West Coast. One of the leads followed in the mid 1980's was the report of a flash of sunlight off "perspex" purported to be from a pilot flying a Fokker Friendship "from Karamea to Westport". I reckon a history of the Karamea airstrip is well overdue! There is a really good book called Wings over Waipapakauri, it started out a a booklet on the history of the area, it was discovered that the RNZAF had a Station there. There is huge gaps in the history in some areas.

Peter Spence
Harvie Morrow - talking about Fokker Friendships - flew back to Hokitika from ChCh in 69' with Paddy Blanchfield - because of the bad weather - it was delayed at Harewood for several hours before they finally decided to fly - over the Alps we hit the most violent air currents and passengers were panicking, screaming, anything loose hit the roof or was flung around the cabin - pilot told us he had to fly 27 miles out into the Tasman to come back in under the cloud layers - should never have been permitted to leave Canterbury in the circumstances!

Phil Olson
Harvie Morrow How would one know the flash of light was off Perspex ??? Unless you actually found it.

Harvie Morrow
My worst "landing" was in a Boeing 727 RNZAF one. going into good ole Wellywood, the turbulence popped the overhead lockers!

Peter Spence
Harvie Morrow - you could write a book on hair raising flights - lived in PNG for 6 years in the 80's - work took me all over the country - to the main towns, F28 jets were progressively replacing the very old F27's - but the white knuckle flights were with Talair (Kill Air) to smaller remote areas - a multitude of different third level craft were used - pilots were often 20+ something bulletproof cowboys -- -

Les Bryce
Went up in that plane from that very spot in 1962

Mike Hutchison
Great pic, looks like Tom Harris's Auster in the foreground

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West Coast Airways - Hokitika

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