TRANSCRIPT

Side 1 of 1

…informal get-together. It’s not an official general meeting of the Society. And one of the main reasons is to meet and hear a few words from Tom Brooke-Smith from London, and you’ll hear about that later on. [applause]

Tom Brooke-Smith: Your patron tells me to stand up but, really, I should be sitting down, waiting for the chairman to tell me.

Chairman [?]: You’ve just made it before I asked you to sit down.

It’s very pleasant to have our patron, Sir Geoffrey Roberts here, and his wife, Lady Roberts. We’re very honoured at your presence.

One or two members haven’t yet joined the Society. We’d like to have you join and if you care to see the secretary out here with your subscription, she’ll be very pleased to receive it. We need money for our preservation work at MOTAT.

Being an informal meeting, there’s no official business but I will ask Ray Gasparich to give you some indication of the work that’s being carried on at MOTAT to bring you up to date.

Ray Gasparich: Thanks, Joe. Not too much – we’ll keep it short and to the point because I’m dying for a cup of tea like you all are too.

The work going on out at MOTAT is progressing very satisfactorily. There’s a small group that attend every Wednesday. We are stretching the times from just 9 o’clock, or round 9 up to something after lunchtime, and getting out into the later afternoon now. And we wouldn’t mind seeing a few more faces out there. You just bring out your toolboxes, you don’t have to be, ah – and if you haven’t got any toolboxes, just bring yourselves out. We can make use of you in the job we’re doing.

So far, we’ve just tidied up the inside of the aircraft. At the moment the two front cabins are almost completely refurbished. In other words, they’ve been repainted, we have got new carpet down on the floor. Carpet, incidentally, which your generous donations provided, and the paint we got was very generously given by rather a large firm. I think it goes, if you find it cheaper anywhere else, then come back and let us know. So that was a very generous offer.

But there’s work being done on the general work inside the aircraft, trying to seal it up, stop the water getting in, kill a bit of the corrosion and do the general preservation. Now, if there’s one thing that we are short of at the moment, and that is, we’ve got no Mses out there with us. Mrs, Miss or Mses – we wouldn’t mind seeing some of them out there on the Wednesday because the decoration of the aircraft inside, particularly the seats and the curtaining and one or two other jobs, can be much better done by ladies, I feel quite sure. So we would like to see more faces out there, and perhaps if there are some who would be able to do it on the Saturday, we may be able to get people organised to go out there and work the Saturday as well. Or on the weekends, if that would suit. So, if you could see myself or Geoff Freer, or any of the committee, and if you are interested, leave your name with us. We’ll contact you and tell you what it’s all about.

But we welcome anybody at all on Wednesday, Wednesday mornings and as long as there’s not too many, there’s always enough cups to get a cup of tea all round. The boiler goes on as soon as we get there, so 10 o’clock is morning tea time. So come out and see us, anyhow.

Thank you very much. [applause]

Chairman: Thank you, Ray. I now invite Allen Williams to introduce Tom Brooke-Smith. Allen.

Allen Williams: Thank you, Joe. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it doesn’t take too long to introduce a famous aviator. Tom Brooke-Smith, I think, flew about the same time as he learnt to walk. I know he had his pilot qualifications before he was old enough to have a licence. He started flying for Short Brothers about 1946, ’47, and he flew for Shorts – did a number of jobs for them, including, of course, the test flying of the Solents which, and the previous Short airplanes that we had. He achieved world fame in being the first pilot to fly an airplane which took off vertically, using jet thrust, and transitioned into horizontal flight. And he’s currently Master of the Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators.

To me, he goes down in history as the pilot who certificated, or assisted in certificating the Solent which we, as we all know, is the only airplane that got into airline service with the wings in the wrong place. [laughter and applause]

Chairman: While Tom is getting here, which is fairly imminent by the look of it, I notice in the Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators award – back in 1958, Tom received the Derry and Richards memorial medal from the Guild of Air Pilots. And that was for the best achievement in experimental flying for that particular year. So that’s just a little addition to your c.v. Thank you.

Tom Brooke-Smith: Could you hear me down the back? There’s a purpose in that, I might say, but if I flew an aeroplane and got it through its type certification with its wings the wrong way round, I must be a miracle man.

It’s absolutely wonderful to be here today, and to see such an infectious lot. I might say that wherever there’s an aviation gathering, we are an infectious crowd of people. I felt the infection when I came down here this morning, and it’s lovely to see you, Mr Chairman – to met you again, and also our patron, dear Sir Geoffrey Roberts, and Phyllis, his wife, who I hadn’t met before yesterday afternoon when we arrived at Auckland with more baggage, I might say, than I would liked to have had but my dear wife, if she goes away for a weekend, she takes about six trunks. [laughter] Thank god the aeroplanes are big enough today for us to sling things like that in the back without having to watch our weight, and the old 44 kilos, or whatever it was … I’ve forgotten now.

I don’t want to talk very much. I just want to try and get a message across to you, and it is this: that since the immortal brothers Wright, on a place upon a map called Kittyhawk, in the short span of little more than 80 year, we find ourselves aloft in drawing room comfort, spanning the oceans at great altitudes, lunching off caviar and champagne, and all this at speeds faster than the sun.

Military aircraft can now fly at up to four times the speed of sound, and also operate in automatic flight modes on ground-hugging, below radar strike missions, to arrive unheard and unannounced. Deadly messengers of enormous destruction. With the magic of avionics, great airliners can be brought down to land safely in fog. And I’m told that a controller at John F. Kennedy can tell a jumbo pilot, heading his way over the North Pole, to within a handful of seconds when he’ll be passing New York’s outer marker.

The Navy’s aircraft carriers have steam catapults able to hurl strike aircraft into the sky, or give them greater war loads with an appliance known as a ‘ski lift’, ‘ski jump’, and then land them onto an angled deck with a mirror site which takes all the sting out of picking up the arrestor wires.

Our pilots’ escape systems are second to none in the world, and they have been directly responsible for the saving of thousands of young fliers’ lives, and continue to do so. Strategic and tactical combat aircraft can be moved across the hemispheres and brought quickly into action. Refuelled by giant tankers – filling stations in the sky, carrying enough fuel, each one of them, to put a 3-litre car 22 times around the world at the equator.

All this great achievement has come about, broadly speaking, by the scientists, hand in hand with the flier. And aided, of course, by the catalyst, unfortunately, of two world wars.

Does not this make the mind boggle?

It is said that people will never forward to posterity, who do not look backward to their ancestors. As it always has, the love of aviation runs thick in the veins of all who belong to its fraternity. And this very day, you good people are working to ensure to future generations, the romantic age of the great flying boats, and preserving to posterity, ZK-AMO, Awatea.

Thank you for listening to me, and I think now we could get on with Allen’s tea drinking, and I can walk around and talk to you all. I’m only happy to answer questions and meet everybody.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. Thank you Sir Geoffrey and Lady Roberts, and all of you here. And let’s get on with the show. And if there’s anything else I could do before I go back to the UK, please put me to work.

There is one thing I’d like to say here, and that is that there are some philatelic first day covers … There are two that I have which feature my face on the front – that’s bad luck – but they also feature the take off, the maiden flight take off of the first of the Solent 45s, Aotearoa, at Belfast, when I was at the controls. And also my jet vertical take off aeroplane is on the envelope too. I would like to give those to you, Mr Chairman, to do with what you will. And perhaps raffle or whatever it is you would like to do.

Thank you very much, and thank you very indeed and I’m looking forward to talking to you. [applause]

Chairman: Thank you very much, Tom. Yes, we will receive these first day covers with many thanks, and we will devise ways and means of disposing [of] them in such a way as that the funds of the Society will be increased.

I think I would like to ask Sir Geoffrey Roberts, our patron, to say a few words of thanks, and in response to Tom’s comments. Sir Geoffrey. [applause]

Sir Geoffrey Roberts: Thank you President Joe. I’m sure we all rate it a very high honour today to this Society that we should have Tom Brooke-Smith with us. I’m only sorry that his wife, Jenny [Janey?], isn’t here too. Along with Tom in 1947, they were a couple of characters around the Belfast scene, and believe me, I did mean what I say. A notorious place called the Crawford’s [unclear] Inn.

But I’ve got to put him right on a few things here. He mentioned Wright brothers. Now when you got to the Museum on Wednesday, Tom, I hope they’ll take you in to see the Pearse aeroplane which everybody in New Zealand says flew before, powered flight, sustained, before the Wright brothers. It’s never been conceded properly yet, but the argument will go on like the 1905 All Blacks try at Cardiff Arms Park.

This occasion is also notable for the fact that we have not only the first person to fly the Solent Mark 4, but we have the last person to fly the Solent Mark 4. [applause] So we have the first and the last, god bless them. …

Brookey was quite right when he termed this our battle at the moment. Let me say, I think it’s fair to say that there are [unclear] power now, in the old company [reference to Air New Zealand?], with dollar signs in their eyes, and they don’t look back before 1981. Now, none of us ever looked back. We always looked forward all the time. You couldn’t afford to lack too far in aviation. But the assembly here know we never did forget entirely the past. And as Brookey hinted, we can learn from history. And in fact you cannot plan the future properly unless you know a little bit about the history.

If I had my way, of course, with the present crop at Air New Zealand, I’d make required reading that magnificent biography of G.N. Roberts, To Fly A Desk. [laughter] I’m safe to say that now because it’s out of print and you can’t buy it.

Brookey is going to address the Royal Aeronautical Society here in Auckland on Tuesday, 7:30, just down the road here in the ATI English language theatre. …
I think if any members of this distinguished society would like to be there on that occasion, I wouldn’t be out of order in suggesting you came along. I think that was what he was hiding a bit in his short and sweet talk just now because he wants to meet people, see you. The big guns he’ll reserve for next Tuesday. And I know your president and Geoff Freer and the committee have planned quite a busy time for Brookey and his wife, including press. There’ll be some press. Hopefully television. To cash in on the task we have in front of us.

The president and I had a good talk last night. It’s time now for us to pressurise for this thing, and it’s going to be pressurised and I’m going to suggest later on to the chairman – we had a talk on it last night – that we see [unclear] carpenter and following the final summary the final summary of what this thing’s going to cost. Then he and I, and maybe others, can form a deputation to see Air New Zealand, and move from there. And I think we’ve got to move pretty quickly now.

I shuddered, you know, when I heard the other day that that thing out there – the last of the great flying boats in the world – and that’s not, it’s not a national call. It’s an international call. If anybody wants to see the last of the great flying boats in the world, they’ve got to travel across the world and come to the Auckland Museum of Transport & Technology to see it. And I don’t mind saying that Spruce Goose up in Los Angeles is a fraud. Sure, it lifted off the water about four feet by Howard Hughes, put back on, never to fly again. Now it’s a prime exhibit, gathering in dollars up in LA under a canopy similar to the one the president gave a talk of, here.

So, let’s together, keep together, and let’s apply this pressure in every means we know how. This isn’t looking back over your shoulder, this isn’t going back to the dark ages, the old days which people are being asked to forget now. This is to put something on the map that, in 50 years time, if it’s properly preserved – and thank god, Ray and his friends are doing it – will, everybody will stand aghast and say, ‘Well, look what they used to fly. What they used to fly in.’ And air’s made that progress in 50 years, what’s it going to be like in the next 50?

And here we have a priceless exhibit, standing out in the weather, deteriorating, which we’ve got to get under cover. I know we’re all mindful of that, particularly Captain Shepherd at the moment, and the committee. And the thing is it’s not small money. It’s big biccies to get a thing like that under cover, and somehow or other we’ve got to – I’m not going to go into the details, but Joe and I have [tried?] with the committee on several fronts, and lost out. And I’m going to let Brookey know now that the first approach some time ago, a long time ago, was to Shell and they gave us, I think it was 15, 20,000 dollars for maintenance.

The Air New Zealand of 150, when they ran into bad times was withdrawn. And what I thought would be the one – Short Brothers – I approached the Sydney agent and no response from them either. So it’s left to us, and to these people in this room, this committee, somehow to generate the enthusiasm to preserve this very, very valuable exhibit for posterity. And I don’t call that looking backwards, I call that being [sensible?].

So, having taken up so much time, again I say a very warm thank you to Brookey for not only going to Hong Kong and Australia, but transferring himself over here with your good wife, Jane, to be with us for three or four days. The programme has been made, and Brookey’s hosts while he’s here are Mr & Mrs Squire [telephone ringing] who is another of the same ilk. A test pilot from the United Kingdom, and they know each other very, very well. Thank you for coming. [applause]

[General closing comments for meeting, and information about morning tea. Morning tea-like sounds.]