Prior to heading off to the South Island in 1997, I had arranged a visit with Ian Brodie to the Alpine Fighter Collection Hanger. A week after the Warbirds over Wanaka show I dropped in, and while my partner Louise went shopping I had the chance to wander round with my camera.
Things got off to an awkward start on arrival when I discovered Ian was away, and no-one knew anything about me coming. I don't blame Ian at all - especially after all the work he had to do for the show - he deserved more than a rest, but for his holiday he had gone off to do the book of the show. Fortunately the nice lady at the NZ Fighter Pilots Museum talked to the right person over at the AFC hanger and I was in. A very nice engineer named Matt Bailey, took me through, pointed out a few things, and left me to it! That's Matt pictured below working on the Mustang. We later chatted a little, and he arranged with Mark Hanna for me to photograph the OFMC P-40E (NZ3009/ZK-RMH) too. My conversation with Mark (a very friendly guy) was unfortunately very brief as he had a phone call from England.
I should note that the AFC hanger does have a public viewing gallery, and of course some of the AFC aircraft can be seen in the NZFPM. As you can see below, I did get a few general images, but I have to admit I spent most of my time on closeups. These appear on the relevant aircraft pages.
© 1999 Phillip Treweek, all rights reserved