Sunday 7 January 2018

Very Low Level Fletcher!

Blog follower Steve Gwilliam saw my recent blog header photo of Super Air's PT 6 powered Fletcher on approach to Dargaville, and it reminded him of another Fletcher photo that was taken by his late father Don:

Steve writes:  The photo on the recent Civair blog cover of the Fletcher coming into DA prompted me to look for one of dads more exciting photos, well it was for the small boy standing beside him! The story goes as while out on a family road trip we came across some top dressing on a steep strip over and under wires on the Paparoa/Mangapai Rds intersection. Strip is still there and used. We went out into the paddock across the road from the strip to take some photos and were obviously spotted by the pilot. First time round he descended down a bit and passed low-ish overhead but next trip he followed the contour down into the small valley and came at us at below fence height and hence the photo. The pilot was Don Jenkins who was later killed while topdressing at Pipiwai in James Aviation's Fletcher FU 24 950M ZK-BHY.

Look at the fence post! - that's low!

The main difference between the 2 photos is that I took mine with a very long lens while the Fletcher was a long way out but Don took his photo with only a 200mm lens!  Thanks for sharing the photo Steve. 

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