This year marks the 80th anniversary of the first Harvard trainer aircraft to fly in New Zealand.
Some of the revered machines are now seeing out their dotage with the Warbirds, including Harvards 52 and 53 - inseparable twins who have spent the past 78 years wing tip-to-wing tip.
Warbirds Harvard pilot Dean Beverley described the pair to Seven Sharp as a “couple of dear old ladies living in the hangar together, chatting and gossiping and knitting and carrying on” before getting “wheeled out every other day and put through their paces”.
The warplanes followed each other off the production line at North American Aviation, in California, in 1943.
"They came to New Zealand on the same boat. That was the B.J. Wheeler in 1943 and in September, they both got commissioned, brought on charge in the RNZAF,” Warbirds' John Kelly explained.
"The Flight Lieutenant who test flew the airplane test flew 52 on the 28th of September 1943 and flew 53 on 29th September 1943."
In all, 202 Harvards were shipped to New Zealand’s shores, with the first having flown on Anzac Day 1941.
They were initially used to train pilots destined to see action in the Pacific.
"If you could fly a Harvard, you could fly anything," pilot Dave Brown said. “It was the pilot maker."
Harvard owner and pilot Ace Edwards, 81, first laid eyes on a Harvard when he joined the Air Force as a trainee technician at 17.
“I fell in love with it and that was it. One for the noise, two for the looks and three for the fun,” he said.
He now owns and flies no. 98.
Edwards worked on Harvard engines for the first two decades of his Air Force career before the plane’s retirement from service in 1977.
Harvard 52 and 53 were decommissioned and put into storage on the same date, before being moved to Ohakea, where they found themselves in the Warbirds hangar at Ardmore.
"They've been together for so long now that I don't think they would fly if they were by themselves, so nah, they will be staying here," Kelly said.
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