Spirit Stories Collection

I grew up around DC3 aircraft - ZK AUJ and ZK AXS. My dad, Jim Young, was a flight engineer for the Calibration Flight at Paraparaumu Airport from 1951. I have a coffee table i made from the cockpit window of ZK AQT, which crashed in Kāpiti in 1954. It’s moved with us many times and did a trip to the tip once until I got the speed wobbles and went back and got it. Our kids are already looking for it to be left to them after we go!

The main photo of my Dad on the left and Captain Arthur Hewitt on the right...I am pretty sure this was when the Queen visited and they flew her around the country. Wellington airport was closed and they had to land in Paraparaumu. The word went out and all the Cal Flight kids raced to the airport to see her. 1963.

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A memory to share 1966 ... as a 15 year old my Geography teacher at Gore High School, Martin Tyne, took my class on a Flying Classroom adventure. A Glaciation field trip in a DC3. The sheep were moved off the Gore Airport Runway and most of us, having never flown before, boarded the elegant aircraft. With Mr Tyne excitedly running up and down the aisle pointing out landscape features we saw Fiordland's névés, striations, hanging valleys, fiords and mammillated surfaces. The experience left me with a love of geography, the sound of the DC-3 and oh the smell of those leather seats. A DC3, a passionate teacher and experiential learning extraordinaire.

A picture from 1957 of my father, Captain Phill Dickson, in front of the DC-3 he was flying, in remote Turner River Station, Western Australia. An engine seized on take-off and they had to land then wait for a new engine and engineers to be flown up from Perth some 3000k away.

My wife's grandfather was Fg Off Victor C Lazell who flew DC3s for 31 squadron in India from 1942. He flew many DC3s but one of the first was FJ710 - which seems close enough to the S/N of your DC3 (FJ712) to have been likely flying alongside it in 31 Squadron possibly? We have the log book with entries in it for the missions flown by 31 squadron from April 1942 onwards. Lynn and her sister Beth both live in Christchurch where Victor Lazell emigrated to, ran the Institute of Management there and raised a family after the end of the war. Both of the pilots daughters, Barabara and Jean, still live here in Christchurch too. Mr Lazell was a much loved father and grandfather and the presence of your aircraft here is a like living link to a part of his life and legacy.

I first flew in a DC3 (unaccompanied) age 10 from Christchurch to Gisborne via Wellington and Napier in 1953 and again in 1954. I have loved flying ever since. I was born in 1942 making me the same age as the Spirit of Douglas. The DC-3 I flew on in this picture is Pūtaitai, named after a native New Zealand duck characterised by it’s wide, flat bill. That is me standing in front of the wing.