Spirit Stories Collection

My prized possession when I started school was a set of words stamped, cut out and kept in a corn cap tin belonging to my mother. Words were replaced daily as I learnt them. My reading books were Janet and John. The aeroplane stamp looks like a DC-3. I was desperate to learn to read and saw my tin of words as the pathway to my independence. Thousands of older New Zealanders will remember this stamp. I am in awe of my teacher Miss Wallace....what a messy, fiddly, time consuming task. What a coincidence too, that years later, my first time on a DC-3 was as part of my education, on Geography field trip from Gore in 1966.

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My very first sighting of a DC‑3/Dakota was as a child, just before a family holiday. We were walking across the tarmac to board our flight to Basle Airport, and there she was — our aircraft — standing proudly in the sunlight, looking utterly glorious. Her shape struck me immediately; something about her curved nose and smooth lines reminded me of a dolphin.

My dad told me she was a Douglas Dakota, probably a C‑47, and as we walked closer he began to tell me about the vital role this remarkable aircraft had played during the war.

I could hardly wait to get aboard. I still remember the steep climb through the cabin to our seats, the sense of adventure rising with every step. Then came the sound — that deep, confident rumble of her engines as she prepared for takeoff. She gathered herself, thundered down the runway, and lifted us gently into the sky.That moment stayed with me. The feeling of being carried aloft by such a graceful, storied machine never left my heart, and I’ve loved the DC‑3, in all of her formats, ever since.

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Photo Credit: The photograph of Spirit was taken at Cherbourg Airport,  June 2024, during D-Day 80.

Great memories of Flying from Norfolk Island to Sydney and being in the cockpit as we passed over Lord Howe Island in February 1966. Previously I had flown in a DC3 from Whenuapai to Kaikohe in 1961, and Gisborne to Whenuapai in early 1950s. I loved flying in the DC3 - “Tail dragger’s” 😎❤️ The good old days of aviation in the Pacific. I attended the farewell dinner for TEAL at the Royal Akarana Yacht Club premises in Auckland in the 1960s. I became more involved in aviation in New Zealand in the 1970’s joining both the Taupo and Napier Aero clubs. I have had a lifetime love affair with various aircraft, big and small, fixed wing and helicopters, commercial and private. The DC3 was the aircraft that caught my imagination and sent me out to follow my dreams.

It was the first aircraft I got to work on after my Air Force trade training.
During 1976-1977 I got to work on the DC3 daily, we did a return trip from Ohakea to Whenuapai, onto Norfolk Island and then Richmond Sydney. Slow wins the race as they say.
In 1977 we put the aircraft into long term storage pending their sale. I also got to bring NZ3551 out of storage so it could fly to Wigram and become part of the Museum. NZ3551 as the "VIP" aircraft flew the queen in 1953, and on retirement had amassed a meagre 12,000 flying hours

I grew up around DC3 aircraft - ZK AUJ and ZK AXS. My dad, Jim Young, was a flight engineer for the Calibration Flight at Paraparaumu Airport from 1951. I have a coffee table i made from the cockpit window of ZK AQT, which crashed in Kāpiti in 1954. It’s moved with us many times and did a trip to the tip once until I got the speed wobbles and went back and got it. Our kids are already looking for it to be left to them after we go!

The main photo of my Dad on the left and Captain Arthur Hewitt on the right...I am pretty sure this was when the Queen visited and they flew her around the country. Wellington airport was closed and they had to land in Paraparaumu. The word went out and all the Cal Flight kids raced to the airport to see her. 1963.

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A memory to share 1966 ... as a 15 year old my Geography teacher at Gore High School, Martin Tyne, took my class on a Flying Classroom adventure. A Glaciation field trip in a DC3. The sheep were moved off the Gore Airport Runway and most of us, having never flown before, boarded the elegant aircraft. With Mr Tyne excitedly running up and down the aisle pointing out landscape features we saw Fiordland's névés, striations, hanging valleys, fiords and mammillated surfaces. The experience left me with a love of geography, the sound of the DC-3 and oh the smell of those leather seats. A DC3, a passionate teacher and experiential learning extraordinaire.

A picture from 1957 of my father, Captain Phill Dickson, in front of the DC-3 he was flying, in remote Turner River Station, Western Australia. An engine seized on take-off and they had to land then wait for a new engine and engineers to be flown up from Perth some 3000k away.

My wife's grandfather was Fg Off Victor C Lazell who flew DC3s for 31 squadron in India from 1942. He flew many DC3s but one of the first was FJ710 - which seems close enough to the S/N of your DC3 (FJ712) to have been likely flying alongside it in 31 Squadron possibly? We have the log book with entries in it for the missions flown by 31 squadron from April 1942 onwards. Lynn and her sister Beth both live in Christchurch where Victor Lazell emigrated to, ran the Institute of Management there and raised a family after the end of the war. Both of the pilots daughters, Barabara and Jean, still live here in Christchurch too. Mr Lazell was a much loved father and grandfather and the presence of your aircraft here is a like living link to a part of his life and legacy.

I first flew in a DC3 (unaccompanied) age 10 from Christchurch to Gisborne via Wellington and Napier in 1953 and again in 1954. I have loved flying ever since. I was born in 1942 making me the same age as the Spirit of Douglas. The DC-3 I flew on in this picture is Pūtaitai, named after a native New Zealand duck characterised by it’s wide, flat bill. That is me standing in front of the wing.