The Flying Boat Forum from www.seawings.co.uk

[flyernzl]

Not sure if this type belongs in here or in the 1919-1939 section, but here goes . . .

The New Zealand military forces operated 19 Walrus amphibians between 1936 and 1947. Some were operated off ships by the NZ Division of the Royal Navy (later the Royal New Zealand Navy), others were shore based as pilot trainers.
A few survived the war and four of them were sold into private hands in 1947.
J M Gould bought two of them, and had a problem - he was based in the North Island (near Wellington) and the two Walrus were located at Woodbourne, the top of the South Island. Undaunted, he flew one across Cook Strait to his home base. Civil Aviation immediately jumped on him, threatening death and destruction if he did it again, so he started up the second one and taxied it all the way home. Both of these aircraft were never used again and were broken up after Gould was killed in a Tiger Moth crash.
The second pair were sold ex-Hobsonville to Claude E Cook, Whangarei. They were relocated to Mangere airport in Auckland (now Auckland International) in November 1947 and one of them, X9512/NZ158 was issued with a civil registration as ZK-AMJ, the second Walrus X9507/NZ156 serving as a spares source. The pair were on-sold to Ralph Howard Exton, Orakei, Auckland, in December the same year although I believe ZK-AMJ never flew as such. Falling into dereliction, NZ156 was broken up in 1949 and ZK-AMJ (seen below in 1951) was sold in October 1951 to Amphibian Airways, New Guinea, for use as spares for VH-ALB
Eventually of course VH-ALB was taken to the UK, restored in its previous RAAF identity as A2-4 and placed on display at Hendon.
I wonder what parts of ZK-AMJ are still in that airframe?

Any other Walrus stories out there?




(VH-ALB photo by Geoff Goodall via Ed Coates)