A History of Civil Aviation in New Zealand (Maurice E McGreal), Tauranga in Tauranga, Bay of Plenty for sale
New Zealand has a long and varied association with civil aviation. It had its fair share of early dreamers, experimenters and innovators and there has been unproven claims that one inventor, William Pearse, may have pre-dated the Wright Brothers in making the first powered flight. There was a growing interest in the Domion in the days leading up to WWI, but it was the rapid advances made in the technology of flight during that conflict that fired public imagination and interest in the development of aviation. There were the flyers returning from service in WWI who brought their skills, knowledge and expectations for aviation back with them. However, this is not a book about aircraft and pilots, but an overview of the official administrative organisation for civil aviation in NZ from 1912 to the early years of the 21st Century, The author had an active life as a pilot in miitary and civil aviation before joining the NZ Civil Aviation Department in the early 1960s. His account takes the reader through the earliest years of flight in NZ, the aero club movement which made flying available to the public, the time when commercial aerial companies rapidly came and went, to the establishment of an airline operating throughot the country, using modern aircraft, from the mid-1930s. Its development virtually ended with the outbreak of WWII. When that conflict ended the Government decided NZ would have a nationalised airline, from which grew the National Airways Corporation for domestic services and initially TEAL, later Air New Zealand, operating overseas e subsequently mergeds with to create the one national flag carrier. McGreal's book covers a myriad of issues including independent operators competing with Air NZ, (not always successfully), the advent of the helicopter and aerial agriculture, aircraft manfacturing, with an interesting chapter on the Erebus crash, largely based on official reports. This book highlights the immense progress made by NZ civil aviation since WWII, when most commercial operations initially used ex-military aircraft, through flying boats to four-engineds piston engine lanplanes to prop-jets and the pure jets .An excellent reference on the largely behind-the-scenes actives of those entrusted with the administration of civil aviation in NZ. First edition of 2003 from David Baterman, 276 pages including references and index, illustrated with numerous in-text b/w photographs. Blue hard covers with gilt spine titles are VG+ with light wear lower edges, text block is NF, no inscriptions. Colour pictorial DJ is VG+ with light/narrow crease top front edge. Size: 23.5cm By 16
Author
Maurice E McGreal
Title
A History of Civil Aviation in New Zealand
Publisher name
David Bateman, Auckland
Shipping time
2 - 4 days
Publication year
2003
Edition
First edition
Binding type
Hard cover
Listing condition
Used
Item condition
Very good
Vendor name
BOPBooks
Vendor rating
Key words
New Zealand, Civil Aviation, History
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