History – Excitement in the skies

Following the success of aviation pioneers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, the Walsh brothers – Vivian and Leo – from New Zealand built a biplane using good old kiwi ingenuity. They gave their first public demonstration in the skies over Manurewa on 5 February, 1911. A few years later in 1915, they had established a flying school for military pilots in an old mission station at Kohimarama, where trainees would pay £100 to learn to fly in small flying boats.

The two brothers trained 83 men, up until the signing of the Armistice, with 75 going overseas to serve.

At the end of the war, these pilots returned to New Zealand to become commercial pilots or flying instructors. One of these pilots was Lieutenant Ian Keith, who flew a Blackburn Bluebird III aircraft over the district of Port Albert on 24 April, 1929, much to the delight of its residents.

The local enterprising cinema proprietor, Fred Thomas, organised the stunt with Southern Cross Airways, which was owned by Hilda Hewlett and H T Merritt. Hilda was born in Vauxhall, England in 1864, and not long after World War I ended, she emigrated to New Zealand. Hilda was the first British woman to earn a pilot’s licence after studying aeronautics in France. After her training, she returned to England with Gustav Blondeau, and together they ran a flying school before forming their company, Hewlett and Blondeau, manufacturing 800 military aircraft during World War I. Her son Francis, who she taught to fly, also had a distinguished military career both in England and New Zealand.

Her partnership with H. T. Merritt did not last long before Hilda returned to Tauranga to work again as a flying instructor. When Lieutenant Keith left Auckland that day at noon, flying the Blackburn Bluebird aircraft, he dropped a parachute over Otahuhu with a message to phone Port Albert and tell them the plane was on its way.

On his one-and-a-quarter hour journey north, travelling at 65 miles per hour, he maintained a height of 3000 feet, managing to pass under a rainstorm as he flew over the township of Kaukapakapa. With Port Albert in his sights, the pilot dropped leaflets over the district to advertise the upcoming movie screening of ‘Old Ironsides’ before managing a splendid landing on Mrs Vickery’s field in Wellsford Valley Road.

It was planned to take passengers for flights around the district, but the winds were not favourable on the day. The crowd settled for photographs before watching with fear and trepidation when the plane took off on the uneven field, before making its way back to Auckland, leaving this historic day in their memories for years to come.