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Flying the Coast
The development of an
air service on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island
Cut off from the rest of the country by a range of
mountains, the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island – or the “Coast” as it
is commonly known – was the country’s “wild west frontier”. But unlike
Fiordland to the south, which was and still is an uninhabitable wilderness, the
Coast in the 1930s was not only habitable, it was also potentially rich.
Settlers hunted and fished, logged, milled and mined. They
farmed where they managed to clear the forest and drain the swamps. It was pure
survival at times. The isolation was inescapable, not so much because of the
great distances that travellers had to cover, but rather due to the topography
of the place – the mountains, gorges, glaciers, rivers and headlands – which
necessitated long detours and careful timing with regard to weather and tides.
Bridges were few and far between in the early years, and even ferry crossings
were often impossible after heavy rains. Each river had its attendant ferryman
or woman whose attention a traveller would attract with a rifle shot. It was
the kind of country where one would greatly benefit from a pair of wings.
Maurice Buckley, a World War I pilot, was the first to give
Coasters, as the residents of the region were called, such wings, by
establishing the Arrow Aviation Company in 1923. That year he bought an Avro
biplane on the east coast, which he transported across the country by rail,
wings off, before reassembling it in a local garage. When he opened for
business the following year, the colourful Avro was an instant crowd-pleaser
and Coasters queued up for joyrides. For the first major flight, Buckley
invited Dr Teichelmann, a local mountaineer, to join him. They flew over the
Franz Josef Glacier and landed at Okarito. Afterwards, Teichelmann wrote about
how extraordinary it was to look at the world from the air, ” like taking the
roof off the house and watching the performances from above.
Next came an aviator named Bert Mercer, who made a
reconnaissance flight to the Coast in August 1933 and started Air Travel (NZ)
the following year, Mercers aircraft of choice was a DH83 Fox Moth. By
comparison with the regular open-air aircraft of the day, the Fox Moth was a
plane that offered considerable luxury, housing four passengers in an enclosed
forward area fully protected from the weather. Mercer opened for business in
December 1934, picking up the airlines first passengers and, on the last day of
that year, commenced a regular delivery of mail, carrying 73kg of letters to
Haast and Okuru. From that day on, the Fox Moth became a much-anticipated sight
on the coast.
Mercer got on with everyone and won their respect by
anticipating, then meeting their needs. One of those was setting up the first
aerial shipping route to help transport a kind of small fish known as
whitebait. Starting in 1935 Mercer would put the plane down where there was no
airstrip, instead using remote beaches such as the one at the mouth of the
Paring River, collect the whitebait and whisk them off to the night train and
waiting city markets in perfectly fresh condition, Mercer relied on his senses
-what he could see and hear – to navigate, flying around the weather and
contours of the land. Although often warned to do so by aviation authorities,
he refused to develop the skills necessary to navigate the plane “blind, using
just its instruments on the console in front of him. The old habits were too
hard to change.
With the outbreak of World war II, mercer’s aircraft were
considered so essential to the remote Coast that they were not militarised. In
fact, the business continued to grow in the early years, thanks in large part
to a government issued subsidy, which allowed him to expand into neighbouring
areas. Despite the war in far-off lands, life on the Coast was business as
usual. The settlers were always in need of mail and transportation. In time,
though, this presented Mercer with a pressing issue: with so many now joining
the Air Force, he no longer had enough pilots. In 1942 he wrote in his diary, I
am back to where I started eight years ago- on my own.
The only solution to keep the airline going was to pack as
much into every plane as possible and make every flight count. But some of
mercer’s newly formed team objected to the amount of cargo they had to carry,
which for a small rural airline was a fact of life. One man, Norm Suttle, left
the airline after a few months in protest about carrying more than was
appropriate for the aircraft. This marked another decline in the airline’s
fortunes, When Bert Mercer died in 1944, the airline was taken over by Fred
Lucas, a man who shared mercer’s pioneering spirit. Under Lucas s leadership
the newly formed West Coast Airways saw Another decade of profitable returns.
But in the following decade, times changed fast. Helicopters were soon found to
be ideal machines for the Coast terrain, and quickly took over the vast
majority of the local air transport business.
Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given
in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
- In the
1930s, the Coast and Fiordland had populations of a similar size.
- Most
settlers on the Coast were migrants from overseas
- The
coast’s geographical features made moving around the region difficult
- The
first bridges to be built on the Coast were swept away by floods
- Maurice
Buckley flew his Avro biplane to the Coast in 1923
- Coasters
were unwilling to fly at first.
Questions 7-13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet.
Bert Mercer and aviation on the Coast
Early Years
• Mercer set up Air Travel (NZ) in 1934
• The Fox Moth was noted for its 7……. compared to other
planes
• in 1934 mercer’s company started to transport 8…………. and
passengers
• from 1935 planes landed on 9……………to pick up fresh produce
World War lI
• the airline expanded at first because it got a 10…………
• there was a shortage of 11.………. from the state by 1942.
Final Years
• there were disputes at the airline about the quantity of
12……….in each plane
• 1950s: 13………became popular and the airline suffered
3. TRUE
4. NOT GIVEN
5. FALSE
6. FALSE
7. LUXURY
8. MAIL
9. BEACHES
10. SUBSIDY
11. PILOTS
12. CARGO
13. HELICOPTERS
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