Biplanes and more in NZ

highbury731

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
That's an impressive turnout of replica WW1 planes. I'm a bit puzzled by the swastika on the triplane with blue tail half.

My father was an aircraft enthusiast, flew models, won the New Zealand aerobatic championship in 1988. He had one in the air when he had his heart attack and dropped dead. I have an incomplete small scale model SE5a in a box, which he made in the early 70s and never completed. BTW model aircraft engines use(d?) castor oil.
 

ClassicBiker

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
That's an impressive turnout of replica WW1 planes. I'm a bit puzzled by the swastika on the triplane with blue tail half.

My father was an aircraft enthusiast, flew models, won the New Zealand aerobatic championship in 1988. He had one in the air when he had his heart attack and dropped dead. I have an incomplete small scale model SE5a in a box, which he made in the early 70s and never completed. BTW model aircraft engines use(d?) castor oil.

I saw the photos you mention. Before the National Socialist German Workers Party a.k.a. the NASDP a.k.a. the Nazis defamed the swastika it was used in many cultures as a sysmbol of good luck. If you go to wikipedia it will give you a whole host of cultures that it was popular with. It even mentions early aviators in particular used it as good luck symbol.
Steven
 

vibrac

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
Many of the old cogs and sprockets I dug up when rebuilding our old barn into a house and which now adorn my kitchen came from broken up threshing machines and other pre WW2 agricultural implements - many of the spokes form a swastika a symbol of fertility so I am told.
 

carlm

Well Known and Active Forum User
Non-VOC Member
When we were in NZ for their International I found a guy who offered open-cockpit biplane flights out of Rotorua airport. Man that was fun! Flew over the volcano and did some loops and stalls on the way back. I checked again recently for a friend who was going there on a holiday and alas, flights are no longer offered. The pilot, Sutherland I believe his name was, doesn't seem to be there anymore, nor his Tiger Moth or his Dragon Rapide.
 
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