BAZflyer: July 2021

Bugger’ is New Zealand's socially acceptable, bendable, all-purpose swear word for when you really can't keep that negative emotion inside. For example: “Oh bugger, the Covid19 lockdown.”

For the past few weeks, Bazflyer’s have been packed, planned and primed to fly our trusty Comanche ZK-BAZ once more over the Tasman Sea. This time for a top-end flying safari in the company of great Comanche mates.

To better appreciate the anticipated flight it might be useful to examine its compelling magnetism. Down-under, a 'mate' is more than just a friend, it implies a sense of shared experience, mutual respect and unconditional assistance. Add to that, ‘top-end’ being a colloquialism for Australia’s far northern latitudes where in the middle of a southern winter the region’s warmer temperatures are temptingly attractive.

Normally, flying ZK-BAZ over the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia, simply entails suitable weather conditions and about an eight hour over-water flight. However, never since the beginning of aviation has anything like Covid-19 been a pre-flight consideration.

As if charting a course through an ever changing minefield of Covid requirements bureaucratically imposed between various Australian States was not sufficient, tenuous conditions for travel between New Zealand and Australia have also been in play. Then outbreaks of the Delta strain in Australia saw all these factors building up to a crescendo, when ’snap’, the New Zealand government closed quarantine free travel with Australia. Bugger…!

Flying to Australia is no longer an option, at least for the next three months. So now what? Well, the Bazflyers are not about to waste a good preparation. We’re packed and ready to go. Bugger it being winter and cold outside…let’s get the trusty Comanche in the air and go fly around inside New Zealand. Jump onboard, we’re off…..

As the trusty Comanche ZK-BAZ is unleashed at full engine throttle to gather speed down the runway at Taupo Airport, its wings transform the air into lift, the same air that is so transparent as we breathe and walk through it. The process is so flawless that after only a brief roll along what is little more than a very straight road, the airplane is once again in the endless sky.

Flight might be one of the great technical and poetic achievements of our species, but the moment itself always seems like magic. Check…positive rate of climb…gear up. The wheels retract, little doors close over them and the Comanche’s form is smoothed to its purpose.

Bazflyer1 earned his pilot wings more than half a century ago and has since accumulated many thousands of hours flying various types of aircraft. Bazflyer2 got her wings a decade ago. Together, they have flown 1500 hours in their trusty Comanche, travelled around 370,000 kilometres, and even circumnavigated the world.

Some might say the desire to fly an airplane resides deep within, but for the Bazflyer’s it can be explained as an articulation or affirmation of what they do. For them flying is one of the easiest and most natural things in the world to love.

It is true, the matter of learning to fly remains forever indelibility inked in the memory of every pilot. For Bazflyer1 that includes the North American Harvard, also known as the T-6 Texan. More than 15,000 of these sturdy single engine planes were built during World War Two, many of them used to train pilots. So successful was the Harvard in this role that at one stage the type was operating in sixty countries.

All together 202 Harvards were shipped to New Zealand during the war years with the first of these very fittingly taking to the sky on Anzac Day (25 April) 1941. It has been said on numerous occasions over time that if you could fly a Harvard, you could fly anything. It was ‘the pilot maker’. Bazflyer1’s pilot log book records his ‘first solo’ flight and 171 flight hours in the Harvard.

Although it is almost 50 years since the New Zealand Air Force disposed of its Harvard trainers in favour of more modern aircraft, many examples remain flying in private ownership. Anzac Day this year (2021) commemorated 80 years of Harvard operations in New Zealand, an occasion recognised with a flying event hosted by NZ Warbirds at Ardmore Airport.

The trusty Comanche delivered Bazflyer1 to Ardmore for the gathering and needless to say, many antidotal yarns echoed around the hanger. One particular Bazflyer1 recall was performing a stall-turn manoeuvre at night and momentarily thinking the engine was on fire...such was the unexpected halo of exhaust flames exiting the big radial engine exhaust.

Bazflyer2 learned to fly in a Piper Tomahawk, a two-seat ‘pilot maker’ she affectionately referred to it as ‘Tommy’. Her first solo flight at the tender age of 60 years was a significant own-goal milestone.

Everything in life has its own time and place, and this includes exploring the endless sky in a trusty Comanche. However, as surely as the sun rises in the morning others will follow, inspired and motivated by the magic of flight, and with skills honed in a ‘pilot maker’. But, for Bazflyer1 the memory of learning to fly in a Harvard…the iconic WW2 pilot maker…will last a lifetime.

Taupo airport (NZAP) Runway 17

North American Harvards lined up at Ardmore (NZAR) for the 80th year commemoration

Thousands of WW2 pilots, including many from Australia and New Zealand, trained on Harvards in Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, between September 1939 and August 1945. Brandon, Manitoba Canada was one of The Plan's main training bases and has a memorial to 18,039 of those men who died serving British Commonwealth Forces. Bazfyers flew into Brandon on their round the world flight.