Microlight Aircraft of New Zealand - the Formation of MAANZ

With increasing microlight activity across the country there was a need for some sort of oversight and the impetus for this came from the Waikato area, with the placing of a notice in newspapers around New Zealand of a meeting to be held at Te Kowhai airfield on 22 August 1981:

This notice was from The Press in Christchurch on 8 August 1981.

I understand that at this meeting the Microlight Aircraft Association of New Zealand (MAANZ) was formed and that at least some of the committee were Ken Asplin, Ian Todd (from Rotorua), Laurie Weake and Stu Rogerson.  (Peter Karl recalls another committee member was an English guy from Tauranga who had the agency for Vector microlights but I can't find his name).

After MAANZ was formed as an Incorporated Society, another meeting was held at Te Kowhai on 12 December 1981 where several microlights flew and others were on the ground (but this could have also been a meeting of the Waikato Microlight Association that Ken Asplin was President of - the Waikato Microlight Club says on their website that they are one of the oldest (microlight) clubs in New Zealand).

Somewhere along the line the first Microlight Rules were promulgated by the Civil Aviation Division of the Ministry of Transport as follows:

In case you have difficulty with reading this, the bones of the regulations were 

(a) an empty weight of 150 Kg or less, 

(b) a lifting area of 10 square metres or more, and 

(c) a wing loading of 10 Kg per square metre or less at empty weight that is designed to carry not more than 2 persons.  

Microlight aircraft were also divided into 2 classes:  

(a) Class 1 for single seaters with a maximum fuel capacity of 35 litres, and 

(b) Class 2 for two seaters, which required a Permit to Fly.  

An exemption was also given that the registration marks only had to be displayed under either wing (which is why many microlight photos were taken from low down!).

And so legal microlight flying in New Zealand was underway!

It did not take long for the newly released microlight flying community to spread their wings - in January 1982 four microlights flew from Te Kowhai to the AACA flyin at Taupo, where I took the photo below:

In the photo you can see a Quicksilver MX (with the spoilers that you can see the silhouette of in the wing) and 3 Mirages.  The support van is painted up as Skyflight Waikato which was Ken Asplin's company that was the agent for the Mirage.  There obviously was quite a bit of interest in the aircraft.

Again, I did not take much notice of this new flying phenomenon, but I am advised by someone else who was there that none of the microlights had registration letters applied.