Galatea-Murupara Residents Enjoy Aeronautic Thrills

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 35, 7 September 1949, Page 5

Galatea-Murupara Residents Enjoy Aeronautic Thrills

The residents of Galatea and Murupara enjoyed the thrills bf aeronautics on 1 Sunday afternoon when the Murupara Chamber of Commerce arranged for two planes from the Rotorua and Bay of Plenty Flying Club to come out to the Galatea Aerodrome and take up the willing residents for “flips.” _ Lunch was on sale and the catering was arranged by the Galatea Women’s Institute.

The bravest of the sightseers went up in the Tiger Moth for aerobatics, but who had the bigger thrill, the one in the ’plane or the ones who watched, it is hard to say, when the Moth went looping the loop, banking, •zooming. The less intrepid ones were content to go for a straight flight in the ’Auster ’plane and this afforded many of the farmers a chance to have a look at their farms from the air and get a bird’s eye view of them. No doubt many of them got quite a few shocks! Many of the children present also enjoyed the thrills of flying from the cabin of the Auster and no doubt in the days to come there will be much talk of “I went up in the aeroplane. Did you?” when school starts again this week. '

Apart from the purely personal enjoyment one gets from a trip in the ’plane it is really quite a bit of education to be able to view the surrounding countryside and realise just how far the Urewera hills on one side and the Kaingaroa Forests on the other side do stretch. (Are there really that many trees in the forests? the number must be fantastic).

It also gives the farmer a chance to study the colour of his paddocks, and it is not likely that many of them Realised before the different shades of green in the paddocks even on their own farms, let alone compared with any one else’s.