1955: Tasman Glacier Airstrip
September 22, 2022
By AHNZ
Today in New Zealand history, 22 September, 1955, Harry Wigley made aviation history with a grass take-off and a snow-landing using his retractable-ski plane. A man who looked at Tasman Glacier and saw an airstrip!
Wrigley designed the wooden skis himself and was justly rewarded in tourism revenue for the resulting Mount Cook Air Services business.
As proof of concept, Wigley and Mr Allan McWhirter made the first flight. The second had a member of the press (always essential in aviation history if you want to actually make aviation history) and soon after Ed Hillary himself. It had been only 2 years since Hillary and Tenzing Norgay conquered Everest. Wigley and McWhirter’s conquest was an even more innovative and Capitalist assent.
“A hinged axle lowered and raised the Oregon skis, which were laminated onto kitchen formica. This system was activated by a handbrake-style lever which the pilot reached by leaning out the window! An oval cut into the skis allowed the wheels to protrude for landing on hard surfaces. The Auster was fitted-out in the Mt Cook Company’s Timaru workshop.” – New home for retractable-ski plane, Stuff (2009)
“A new phase in New Zealand aviation was reached‘today when an aircraft fitted with skis landed on the snowfields at the head of the Tasman Glacier, in the heart of the Southern Alps…Compared with the six-hour journey by bus and on foot from the Hermitage to the Malte Brun hut, the aircraft deposited its passengers right in the middle of the snowfields, a few hundred yards from Malte Brun, within 25 minutes of takeoff. ” – Press (Sep 1955), Papers Past
“”In April 1991, Air New Zealand purchased the remaining shares in the Mount Cook group of companies, acquiring 100% The company continused to operate under its own brand for a short while….by February 1996…the Mount Cook Lilly all but disappeared from our skies…On Dcember 9th, 2019, the remains of Mt Cook were merged into Air New Zealand’s operations, and it ceased to exist as a separate entity.” – RecWings Magazine (Jan-Feb 2020)
Mt Cook Airline had started out as motorcar company Mount Cook Tourist Company of New Zealand (est. 1912) with Wigley’s father, Rodolph Wigley. Capitalising on New Zealand’s share of post-war booty, the Wigley’s applied for and received ex-WW1 planes. A similar bump after WW2 led to Mt Cook Airline becoming a great national success. In 1991 Air New Zealand acquired 100% ownership of the Mt Cook group companies and proceeded to shut it down. As we have seen with other absorbed companies (eg. Ernest Adams in 2022) there were decades of value in the branding so the new owner ran those out before closing down the brand entirely in 2019.
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Image ref. Mt Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Company’s Auster Aiglet ZK-BDX on Tasman Glacier mid-1950s, Fred Watson Collection, © 2020 Mark Greenwood; Canterbury Recreational Aircraft Club
Ref. First ski plane landing on Tasman Glacier, eHive
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