NZFF

The inaugural Auckland-Sydney flight commenced on 30 April 1940 with ZK-AMA "Aotearoa", commanded by Captain J W Burgess with 10 passengers. This service was scheduled weekly and covered the 1200 miles of Tasman Sea in 9 hours.

The Auckland to Sydney route was so popular that by 1944, TEAL was operating three return flights a week across the Tasman.

Now who would like to celebrate this 9 hour journey by recreating this flight from Mission Bay to Sydney Harbour!!
Let me know how you get on.

kiwibarguy wrote:

QUOTE (kiwibarguy @ Apr 30 2009, 01:26 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The inaugural Auckland-Sydney flight commenced on 30 April 1940 with ZK-AMA "Aotearoa"

Neat illustration of these awesome aircraft, funny tho, I've never seen one naked like this, only ever seen pics of them floating in the water, and to be honest I just hadn't imagined that they even had landing gear

If you are serious about the recreation thing kiwi, and its a neat idea, how about doing it online as a group? We could meet in Auckland and do the Fiji leg in DC-6's to save a little time, then the coral route over a series of evenings in Solents and Sunderlands? Great wee article here on the route. Here's another article at TripAdvisor that has some pics from the era and history with a little commercial travel advertising thrown in.

Typical flying times were: Auckland - (7.30hrs) - Fiji - (3.45hrs) - Samoa - (5.00hrs) - Cook Islands - (4.05hrs) - Tahiti.

Some off those flights across Tasman were really a challenge , old term just a cup of gas in the tanks when they landed ..due to headwinds ... 'WOW' lucky they were in a flying boat !

Dino , great links