What’s the appeal, Michele had asked. And as I trudged through the mud on to Masterton’s Hood Aerodrome, a southerly in my face and a lowering sky threatening more rain, I did rather wonder myself.
It’s a fair question. What exactly is the point of standing in a muddy field watching a lot of old aeroplanes flying about? Isn’t it just train-spotting with planes? I suspect Michele thinks so.
The point of the biennial Wings Over Wairarapa air festival for the town is it’s a much-valued tourist draw, some years attracting many thousands of foreigners – that is, out-of-towners – and their wallets to our region, although in recent times WoW hasn’t been much of a wow at all.
The 2021 event was shut down early by a snap Covid lockdown, and the 2023 show was cancelled in February because of Cyclone Gabrielle. WoW was rescheduled for last weekend, only to have heavy rain and winds bugger up Friday, force the cancellation of Saturday – usually the most popular day – and then curtail the schedule on Sunday.
Still, the show mostly went on and, despite the grim weather in the morning, the punters turned up, too, including our old neighbour Rod and his mate Kevin, who’d come down from Auckland specially.
The appeal for them wasn’t difficult to fathom. Both are engineers – at one point I overhead them discussing the workings of different types of jet engines – and they have flown together and even crash-landed together. In other words, Rod and Kevin are more like plane connoisseurs.
I, on the other hand, watched a lot of war movies and built a lot of Airfix kits when I was a kid. But it didn’t seem to matter whether you were an aeroplane expert or an ignoramus once the skies cleared and the displays began.
The likes of WoW and Warbirds Over Wānaka are among the few times we civvies get to see the country’s tiny Defence Force doing its thing, and the inclusion of three different types of military helicopters and the Black Falcons display team was a chance to appreciate the skill of its flyers. Two aircraft, a Strikemaster and a Venom, were reminders that our air force, now primarily geared for surveillance and transport, did once have more bite to it as these two 1950s-designed jet fighters took turns roaring over the crowd before disappearing into the distance.
But it was planes from the 1930s and 1940s that excited the most attention, as much for the unique sound and grace in flight each had. I oohed at the sound and sight of a 1943 Spitfire Mk IX – I once had a model almost like it – and aahed at a F4U Corsair, a beautifully restored American fighter from the same war.
However, it was the roar of the Roaring Forties, a display team flying old RNZAF Harvard training planes, that helped me understand the uncomplicated appeal of an airshow. Whether aircraft connoisseur or former maker of 1/20 scale models, we all stood in a muddy field watching a lot of aeroplanes flying about because it makes small, excited boys and girls of us all. Well, everyone except Michele.
There is another appeal for small boys and girls at events like WoW. That is those caravans – I counted around eight of them – that sell hotdogs on a stick.
Michele, who seemed to have worked out that airshows are for small boys and girls without ever going to one, made me a “school lunch” to take with me. She wrote my name on the bag and signed it “X, Mum”. She also told me not to spoil my appetite by buying any hotdogs on sticks.
Bugger her, I thought as I queued for one behind a real mother and her young children.
“Two hotdogs, but no sauce on either,” the mother told the guy in the caravan.
“Are you foreigners?” he barked back with a laugh.
Wow, I thought, welcome to Wairarapa.
