Samantha Gee of RNZ
A plane that once provided Nelson's only air service during World War II has returned to the city's skies.
The restored 1941 Lockheed 10A Electra - named Kuaka - drew a crowd during a special visit to Nelson Airport.
The rare art deco airliner, with its blindingly bright chrome exterior, was last seen in Nelson when Trans Island Airways stopped its scheduled flights between Nelson and Christchurch in 1959.
The plane is one of only two still flying in the world, with the other in the Czech Republic.
Aviation historian Richard Waugh said the Lockheed Electra was a "very sophisticated, fast aircraft" that played a pioneering role in New Zealand's aviation history.
"They were the first monoplane all metal aircraft in New Zealand and, with a tailwind, capable of say 200 miles an hour, which was faster than anything the Air Force had in the late 1930s."
During World War II, they were the only planes servicing Nelson.
"In 1937-1938 it pioneered most of the airline schedule routes in New Zealand, particularly Auckland to Dunedin, and then from 10 November 1939, it did the airline service to Nelson."
He said the Lockheed Electra was remarkably comfortable and relatively quiet, with an interior as spectacular as the exterior.
The aircraft was involved in New Zealand's first fatal accident involving passengers on a scheduled flight, when ZK-AFE 'Kereru' crashed near the summit of Mt Richmond on a flight from Wellington to Nelson on 7 May 1942.
Five occupants were killed, with the tragedy commemorated on a plaque at Nelson Airport.
A restoration decades in the making
Kuaka is owned by Rob Mackley, who saw it advertised in the Trade-A-Plane magazine in 1996.
"I thought, wow, that's quite rare. It was an Alaskan number, so I rang them, and I said, 'is it a Lockheed 10?' And they said, 'yes, sir, it is'."
It was being sold by a museum and was not in a flyable condition, but Mackley flew to Alaska that night to take a look at it.
He said because they rarely came up for sale there was no benchmark for its worth, and despite being "young and naive" he decided to put an offer in.
"It was a sealed bid tender, so you had to just write what you wanted to pay, put it in an envelope, take it to the reception of the museum, put it in their mahogany box."
About two weeks later, to his surprise, he got a fax saying, "come and get your aeroplane".
He said it was a mission to get the plane to New Zealand, it almost didn't happen. A restoration job he thought would take three years, took almost 30.
"It's just been one of those restorations where we've tried to be as faithful on everything as we can, and that's led to multiple years more and obviously more money, and I never added it up.
His wife Caroline is also a pilot and Mackley said the pair loved taking people out on the plane.
"You can fly it with one, but I opt to fly it with my wife, because she's actually more qualified than me so she's always co-pilot, and then there's room for 10 passengers.
"It's not a hanger queen, we do use it, it's neat for people to be able to come and see what aviation used to be like."
On Saturday, one of those lucky passengers was No. 23 Squadron air cadet Tayla McLean.
"It was very cool, [the flight] was way longer than I thought and the inside is very nicely decorated and we've got to go over Kaiteri and Tahuna area and circle around Nelson."
Nelson Airport chief executive Brendan Cook said the rare plane drew quite a crowd, with people young and old turning up to get a closer look at it.
"It's an absolutely amazing aircraft, only two of its kind flying in the world with a long history of aviation in Nelson through its flying career back in the 40s and 50s."
He said travelling on it offered a "bit of a look back in time as to what flying would have been like" then.
"It was unbelievably smooth and quiet, it would have been the sight of luxury back in the day."
Cook said it was not the first time the airport had hosted an historic aircraft, and he hoped there would be more opportunities to do so, in the future.
This story was first published on rnz.co.nz
