Fun in a big red bus for $1

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 1

Fun in a big red bus for $1

By

PAUL CORRIGAN

the Royal New Zealand Air Force Museum, at Wigram, during the daylong Wings and Wheels classic yesterday. I am usually hopelessly flummoxed when confronted with something mechanical. But my instructor, Joe Elisara, assured me that the buses are ridiculously easy to drive.

trailers of the Country Gentlemen’s Historic Racing and Sports Car Club, which organises the motor-racing side of the Wings and Wheels. So I took the steeringwljeel and changed gear a couple of times, pushed a Utile on the accelerator, arid was surprised to find /that the bus was lighter and more responsive than most cars I had driven. In three minutes I returiied the bus, Joe Elisara, and myself safely to the park. I got out, relieved that I wouldn’t be taidng the turkey of the day prize. ' The 1986 Wings and

Wheels Classic followed the formula of its predecessors: day-long races by motoring enthusiasts and aerial displays by civil and military aircraft New to the civil display was Air New Zealand’s latest Boeing 737, with only 60 hours on the clock. Appearing for a second time was a Mustang fighter-bomber, one of the few survivors of more than 12,000 built during World War 11. Watching and listening to it was nostalgic. For me the highlight was the helicopter-like performance of a Mount

“You should have a go at driving one of the buses at the Wings and Wheels, dear,” my wife said to me the other day. “You’ll probably find it quite easy, and I’m sure they won’t let you hit anything.” So I overcame my reluctance yesterday and paid $1 and climbed into the driver’s seat of a Christchurch Transport Board bus at R.N.Z.A.F. Wigram. Letting people drive one of the eight-tonne monsters was one of the ways to raise funds for

After I had started it and put it into gear, the bus began moving without my actually doing something. There was no time to ponder this because the bus was rolling towards , the massed cars and

I Cook Line Pilatus Turbo- • Porter, which is built in r Switzerland. [ The military display 1 was flown by R.N.Z.A.F. aircraft — an Orion sub-marine-hunter, a Strikemaster trainer, an Iroquois helicopter, the Air Force Museum’s Harvard, a Hercules transport, and, last, sneaking in hard, fast and low and very noisily, a Skyhawk fighter-bomber. ' The former commander of Wigram, Group Captain Colin Rudd, was injured when his 1939 Morgan 4/4 rolled over at the southeast comer of the circuit

- An Air Force ambulance i took him to Christchurch Hospital, where his condition last evening was . given as comfortable. According to informa- ' tion broadcast by Radio * Wings and Wheels during ’ the afternoon, and race ' officials, his injuries were not believed to be serious. ‘ “It’s the first accident > we have had in the 10 years we’ve been going,” a race official said. The radio station was a r vast improvement on the a old public address system, 1 which could not be heard 4 unless one stood within a i- few paces of' the L loudspeakers. \