Delivered in style!

1/2/2010

At 88, Doug Stewart (1935-36) says his legs do not work as well as they used to. But when you have wings, who needs to walk?

The former World War 2 aviation engineer has had a long and close association with aircraft. So when it came time for him to move from his Wanaka house to a retirement home in Dunedin, he decided to do it in style.

Homeward bound . . . Doug Stewart critiques pilot Barry Cardno after their flight from Wanaka to the Taieri airfield.

Doug was flown to Dunedin by Barry Cardno (1987-91), a Wanaka pilot who lost the use of his legs after an agricultural flying accident in 1995. The pair had spent many hours in the air together flying to the West Coast for whitebaiting or sightseeing.
Barry said they spent much of the 45-minute flight to Dunedin giggling about one of their many flights to Haast.

‘‘We made an unplanned stop at Makarora airfield because Doug needed a cup of tea. We wheeled up to the reception at the airstrip and asked to borrow their phone so I could adjust our flight plan.

‘‘The lady behind the counter looked at Doug with his walking frame, then she looked at me in my wheelchair, and then she said, ‘Where’s the pilot?’. We giggled about that for ages.’’

While Doug was thrilled with the flight to the Taieri airfield, near Mosgiel, he wasn’t as happy about moving into the Belhaven Rest Home. However, after his second stroke in November last year, he had found it was becoming more difficult to look after himself, and care was becoming necessary.

But he said a highlight of the rest-home would be living again with his wife of 60 years, Jessie, who has been living in the rest-home for the past 18 months. And despite the move to the rest home, it would not be Doug’s last time in an aeroplane.

Barry has promised to take him on another sightseeing flight — this time around the Otago Peninsula.