Plane “Awarua” Broken Up
AUCKLAND, Sept 6. Any of the thousands of passengers who travelled across the Tasman on the veteran flying-boat Awarua would be pardoned if they did not necognise her to-day. Scattered over half an acre outside an Onehunga aluminium foundry, the aircraft is being “boiled down” into aluminium ingots which will eventually be used for making a wide range of commercial castings. The Awarua was purchased partially strippepd by the owners of the Aotearoa, which is now being converted into a tearooms at Mission Bay, and later sold to th e foundry. Towed to the Tamaki Estuary, the Awarua was broken up into transportable sections and moved to Qnehunga. Her present owners estimate that there are about five tons of aluminium in the aircraft. The fuselage skin is three-ply with an inner core of alclad. an alloy. The skins, however, will render very little in solid aluminium, th bulk of which' will come from the! engine blocks and mountings.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GRA19480908.2.70.5
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Grey River Argus, 8 September 1948, Page 8
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162Plane “Awarua” Broken Up Grey River Argus, 8 September 1948, Page 8
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