Hi there,
Merry Christmas. Some of you here might find this of interest. Back in May 2011, I hosted the annual gathering for the Wings Over New Zealand Aviation Forum here in Cambridge (NZ), and this year we added the interesting concept of inviting WWII veterans along to our foum meet, and asked some of them to speak to us.
In all, around 90 to 95 people packed into the almost too small venue, and we got about 35 or more veterans from locally and afar, many making the 2 hour drive down from Auckland. It was a huge success.
Jump forward to now, I have recently established a new feature for my website and forum, the "Wings Over New Zealand Show". This is audio recordings that can be listened to online or better still downloded and listened to on an MP3 player at your leisure as a podcast type thing.
I will be making regular recorded interviews with people from all parts of the NZ aviation spectrum, and to kick things off a couple of new shows went up in the past weeks. Also, because I had recorded the guest speakers at our 2011 Forum Meet and Veterans Day mentioned above, I am making these recordings available too for those who couldn't make it along on the day, and for those who did who'd like to hear the talks again.
So, today I uploaded two more of those Forum Meet talks. One is from Geoff Cooper, ex-RNZAF pilot and current airline captain, who co-owns and is chief pilot of the Fly DC3 Dakota ZK-DAK, which flies passengers all over NZ.
The other was RNZAF Spitfire ace Alan Peart DFC, who served in Britain, North Africa, Italy and Burma. The recording of his speech lasts around forty minutes and he tried to concentrate it on flying in the Burma campaign as he feels, rightly, that area of the war gets the least coverage. He's a great bloke and I think it's a fascinating talk.
You can find all the avialable shows and news of upcoming ones here on the WONZ Show page:
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/WONZ_Show.html If you would like to discuss and rate the shows there are links below each episode on the page that take you to the thread for that episode on my forum, where you can join in the discussion.
Other recordings up there also include:
Craig Brankin (WONZ Forum moderator);
Don Simms (RNZAF Skyhawk expert and author);
Bob Glading (WWII FAA Corsair pilot) and
Larry Hill (forum member, author and collector with a great story about RNZAF Spitfire ace Jack Rae's Malta parachute).
Upcoming interviews include:
Bryan Cox - RNZAF Corsair pilot
Gavin Conroy - aviation photographer and author
Bruce Cooke - aircraft designer and home builder
Jim Mungall - on RNZAF Hawker Hinds in WWII
and much, much more on the horizon
I hope you will listen and enjoy them, and give feedback, comments and queries on the Wings Over New Zealand Forum. Cheers.