A Dragonfly in the Rainbow?

A discussion on Brian Chadwick, the disappearance of his DH90 Dragonfly ZK-AFB in 1962, and reports of aircraft debris in areas near Mt Aspiring. 

This website consolidates the observations of several people relative to the Rainbow Valley and areas to the east of Pope’s Nose peak, near Mt Aspiring. Evidence perhaps, that an aircraft, most likely Chadwick’s, might have come down in this area. 

The disappearance

Much has already been written about this aircraft and it’s disappearance in 1962. The definitive history of Chadwick, the disappearance of his aircraft and the extensive search for it, has been thoroughly set out in the Rev Dr Richard Waugh’s superb 2005 book “Lost...without trace”. Richard dedicated his book to the memory of the five people killed in this tragedy. 

The Dragonfly piloted by Brian Chadwick with four tourist passengers left Christchurch on February 12th 1962 bound for Milford. There were two route choices - via the West Coast (the preferred usual tourist route), or alternatively east of the Main Divide whenever the West Coast route was blocked due to bad weather. The Dragonfly disappeared. After it left Christchurch there were no officially accepted and confirmed sightings of it again. It was largely believed to have crashed either in the mountains or in bush, somewhere south of Christchurch either on the West Coast or in mountains to the East. Considerable resources were put into the search effort but the volume of reported sightings and hearings was such, especially on the West Coast, that search authorities were faced with an overwhelming task. It developed into what would become the most extensive aerial search in New Zealand aviation history. 

Aerial searches were carried out by fixed wing aircraft as in 1962 helicopters were rare in New Zealand. Much of the search effort was directed at the West Coast. On the day of the disappearance the West Coast weather had been good but the ranges were described by one very experienced mountain pilot as being “pitch black”. The search was given up before many areas on the east side had been well covered and weather and other factors meant that unfortunately no further search was carried out in the Aspiring area.

The DH90 Dragonfly 

In 1962 this was a more than 26 year old aircraft, a twin engined bi-plane with a wingspan of over 13 metres and a 9.6 metre long fuselage. It was imported into New Zealand, new, from the UK in 1937. Designed by de Havilland, it had been built as a luxury touring aircraft aimed at the wealthy private owner market. It was the last biplane de Havilland designed and built.

Geoffrey de Havilland had an intense interest in natural history, particularly entomology, and named many of his aircraft after insects. The Dragonfly’s fuselage was a monocoque shell of fabric covered pre-formed plywood with a cantilevered undercarriage and welded steel engine bearers. The two Gypsy Major engines drove twin-bladed wooden propellers.

This Dragonfly had some potentially serious technical issues relating to carburettor icing in one engine and an inability to stay aloft on one engine particularly at high altitude. When it left Christchurch the aircraft had been overloaded, with considerably more fuel than permitted.

It had earlier been equipped with a Magnetic Compass however Chadwick had replaced that with a Radio Compass, a move later criticized by some engineers and pilots. One said that the new Radio Compass had limited range and in mountainous country would be virtually useless. Another said that to not take a Magnetic Compass while flying in the mountains was - “beyond dangerous and stacking the odds up really high as you never knew when you might need it”.

Some who knew the aircraft well, later expressed the opinion that it had been an underpowered aircraft totally unsuitable for mountain flying.

Chadwick

Chadwick firstly trained in the RAF as an aeronautical engineer though in 1941 commenced some flight training. He came to New Zealand in the early 1950’s, looking for opportunity.

By the time of his disappearance Chadwick had had an extensive flying career, not only in New Zealand, and had carried out more than 150 tourist trips from Christchurch to Milford return. He was an ex-RAF Squadron Leader and a very experienced pilot. He was also ambitious. He’d once told an American interviewer that he had hopes of building a nation-wide tourism airline in New Zealand.

Chadwick had been described as having an adventurous spirit. One person who knew his flying well thought he was a little foolhardy. Following the disappearance someone else who knew him well said that he thought Chadwick and his southern flights in the Dragonfly had been an accident waiting to happen.

Chadwick himself described the New Zealand alps as the trickiest he’d found anywhere in the world, and said that there had been several occasions when he found himself fully committed in shocking weather. In a conversation with a fellow pilot, Chadwick mentioned some flying episodes that his colleague thought would have been hair-raising. Chadwick talked about how his passengers just didn’t know the risks he took for them. He described how he was once forced during a flight to Milford to make a difficult landing in Queenstown after being in cloud and running seriously low on fuel with ice coming off the propellers knocking holes in his aircraft. Chadwick was observed after that flight as being in such a state that he could not hold a cup of tea. His nerves were completely shot and he spoke in a fatalistic way about how he expected to be killed on these flights.

One pilot thought Chadwick a likeable chap but who's style of flying led him to believe that Chadwick was not a safe pilot and definitely not an alpine pilot.

These were thoughts on Chadwick by some of the people who knew him well professionally and are only mentioned here as being, perhaps, relevant to what might have happened to Chadwick and his four passengers. Beyond that though, Chadwick deserves to be remembered for his courage, entrepreneurship, and huge contribution alongside his friend and fellow Brit pilot Brian Waugh, in pioneering a new era in New Zealand aviation tourism.

Reports & Observations

Mt Aspiring Station - 1962 

Mt Aspiring Station is a huge historic farm property situated at the confluence of the East and West branches of the Matukituki River, with both branches originating from tributary streams running from six glaciers surrounding Mt Aspiring. The Station has been farmed by the Aspinall family for over 100 years. In 1957 they voluntarily surrendered 50,000 acres (20,235 hectares), of their station to the Crown to help form what is now Mount Aspiring National Park.

Several people at the property who were familiar with routine aircraft activity around Aspiring, including Phyllis Aspinall, reported clearly hearing an aircraft around noon on the day of the disappearance, circling for 10 minutes high in or above thunderous cloud. On that day in February 1962, and at that time, there had been no known aircraft other than the possibility of the Dragonfly in that area. While never sighted, that aircraft was never heard or seen again, or otherwise accounted for, which consequently leaves the overwhelming thought that it perhaps never left the area.

Paul Powell, mountaineer & author - 1962 & beyond

Some people professionally involved in the search believed that the Aspiring area was one of strong possibility. Paul Powell, a very experienced mountaineer who had climbed extensively in Mt Aspiring country, was the Chief Search and Rescue Officer of the New Zealand Federated Mountain Clubs in the Otago region and was heavily involved in the search. He knew of the Aspiring Station hearings and felt very sure that the aircraft had come down in that region. Some close colleagues of his felt the same.

Powell was a Dentist by profession, a poet, and an author of several books including his classic book on mountaineering - “Men Aspiring”. In a chapter he devoted to the disappearance of the Dragonfly, Powell said - “I have a feeling, so strong that it has returned to me time and time again over the years, that the Dragonfly is somewhere near Aspiring...”

Powell spent much time after the search was called off searching for it on foot in areas above both branches of the Matukituki River. He later had the New Zealand Geographic Board name a nearby peak after the Dragonfly.

Interesting sketch from Powell's book "Men Aspiring" showing the Dragonfly flying through Rainbow Col

Cowie & King, hunters - 1962

Two men, Owen Cowie and Ron King, reported seeing something just six weeks after the February 1962 disappearance. They had been hunting on the tops on the east side of Rainbow Valley near Aspiring, in April. They both saw a red/orange coloured object lying on the snow in the vicinity of Kitchener Glacier. They thought it had a metallic appearance. Unfortunately, at the time the men weren’t aware of the aircraft’s earlier disappearance. Some months later they overheard someone at their tramping club talking about it and then realised the possible significance of their sighting. Cowie was told later by the tramping club member that the area had in any case been well searched and that Cowie was therefore wrong. In fact, the area had not been well searched whatsoever. Their sighting, and what they had to say about it, was never actively followed up, until 1992.

There could be no natural reason for something of that description to be on top of any glacier, particularly in 1962. It could only have come from an aircraft; there can be no other rational explanation for it. Cowie had taken a photo from where they were standing but unfortunately the slide image wasn’t clear enough to identify the object. He also drew a map of the area where they’d seen the object. 

Owen Cowie's sketch

Bob Gibson, hunter - 1963 

In November 1963, 20 months after the disappearance, another hunter, a professional one named Bob Gibson, saw something in that same area but on the eastern side of Rainbow Valley. Deer had been a pest since the 1930’s, destroying native plants and trees and causing erosion. The government decided to reduce their numbers by engaging hunters known as deer cullers. The cullers worked in remote areas, living in huts and using their eyes for a living. Bob was one of those. He was in Rainbow Valley with a friend, hunting deer. He saw the sun shining on something and reflecting back. He thought it unusual and tried to check out the reflection using his rifle’s telescopic sight. At first he thought it might have been a waterfall as the area has many ravines and watercourses but he quickly discounted that due to his knowledge of the terrain. He decided to check it out and using his bush navigation instincts made his way up to where he had seen it. He arrived at a point where he was able to look down and saw where a beech tree had had its top snapped off. Below it, another tree also had its top snapped off. The breaks appeared relatively fresh but were not natural and were completely out of keeping with anything he’d ever seen before in the bush. He was left to conclude that something had come down on an angle and hit them. He attempted to get down to them but couldn’t. By then it was getting dark and bad weather, so typical of the area, prevented any searching the next day. The men then left the area and Bob soon after went deer culling in the North Island and never returned to the Aspiring area to hunt.

Gibson had spent many years in the mountains. He’d buried caches of ammunition and supplies in various areas that he expected to return to one day.

In 1992 Gibson and his 1963 companion agreed to be flown back in to the area where Gibson attempted to identify the area he’d seen this. Cowie and King also agreed to be separately flown in later, to do the same thing. In the opinion of the researcher who went with these men and spent several days with each of them, their stories are 100% credible. These were no-nonsense tough individuals who between them had seen something very unusual. Given all that, what then to make of it?

Alan Duncan, hunter & helicopter pilot - 1972

Alan Duncan has been described as the best hunter New Zealand has produced - a legend among those of his generation who professionally stalked New Zealand’s high country. He was said to apply himself to hunting with a single-mindedness that bordered on the ruthless. A distinguished New Zealand writer and former deer culler described Duncan as good at anything he turned his hand to, yet remaining a modest man who never concerned himself with status. He was a man of few words but great action. Duncan later began flying, firstly with fixed wing aircraft and then helicopters, hunting for Sir Tim Wallis’s deer operations out of Wanaka. In later years he and his wife moved to Geraldine, then on to Pleasant Point near Timaru from where he continued hunting with a friend, Brad Bradley.

Duncan once casually mentioned to Bradley about how, in 1972, he’d been piloting a helicopter and chasing a stag at the northern end of Rainbow Valley. Rotor downwash from the hovering helicopter disturbed bushes and revealed what Duncan described as “a silver wing” - in Duncan’s opinion, part of an aircraft.

Bradley describes his late friend as having been a man of few words, who shied away from attention and who thus somewhat characteristically never gave the incident more thought, or bothered to report it. At Bradley’s instigation, the two men spent time together on Google Earth to identify the area within Rainbow Valley where Duncan saw this object.

That sighting by Duncan was 10 years after the aircraft disappeared. He was well familiar with aircraft and his belief in what he'd seen remains very credible. Relevant to this is the history of various repaints of the Dragonfly over the years. It had earlier been painted a bright orange, to enhance it's visibility. In 1960, two years prior to the disappearance, it had been repainted blue, with white wings. The painters carrying out the work found that the bright orange paintwork was bleeding through the new white finish (wings), a common problem when bright red or orange underlying paint absorbs into a new lighter-coloured top coat. A "dope" primer was applied. Dope is a plasticised lacquer that for many years was commonly applied to fabric covered aircraft. It sealed fabric surfaces and rendered them weatherproof, increasing durability and lifespan. This dope contained silver metallic (aluminium) compounds that gave the coating a silver finish.

Over the 10 years that this wing had been lying in a mountain environment it would have been exposed to considerable weathering that would likely deteriorate the white coat, leaving the more robust silver coloured dope coating visible. Duncan's quiet disclosure of this find, to a friend who thought it deserved follow-up but like others had little resource to achieve that, deserves very serious consideration.

Rainbow Valley - possibilities?

The Rainbow is a confined valley running roughly North/South below Kitchener and Lucas Glaciers and the peaks of Pope’s Nose and Moncrieff. It is prone to avalanche on its west face; in 1969 four university students were killed in an avalanche at the northern end of it. A large glacial snowfield slopes down towards what is Rainbow Col - a low gap between peaks, situated at about 1700m elevation with near vertical bluffs plunging down to Rainbow Stream. The valley’s name derives from the rainbows that can be seen in the waterfalls that cascade hundreds of metres down into the valley. It can be a beautiful but hazardous area to wander in, best done on the east side of the valley away from avalanches from above the bluffs. Aspiring Flats, immediately below these glaciers, is a large flat area that can be landed on in some conditions. Rainbow Stream fans out and flows into the Flats.

The Dragonfly had once been painted bright orange. One person familiar with the aircraft has said that despite the new over-paint in 1960, some underneath parts - possibly cowling/nacelle or spats, (all alloy) were still orange, the same colour as the metallic object seen by Cowie and King.

From all this, one possibility could be that perhaps the Dragonfly had been lost in the thunderous cloud described by people at Mt Aspiring Station, perhaps inevitably coming down on a single engine, and had collided with peaks by the glaciers, resulting in part of it’s undercarriage coming off from where the aircraft continued down into the opposite east side of Rainbow Valley, a rugged area covered in bush, scrub and ravines. Three (amateur) searches in that area in the 1990’s found nothing. The area is covered in very tall beech trees, almost impenetrable bush, and ravines that could easily swallow up an airplane wreck of this type.

A small part of the aircraft, perhaps a wheel spat, might have been knocked off on to a snowfield or glacier top (6 weeks later seen by Cowie and King), with the aircraft descending down across Rainbow Valley into rough terrain high on the east side. But other possibilities have also been presented. A former pilot, the late Paul Beauchamp-Legg, had flown this aircraft many times and knew it’s engineering and handling characteristics extremely well. Amongst many observations he said that this aircraft in high turbulence would be like a piece of paper in the wind. The relevance of that is discussed below.

Since the 1990’s, no new information had come to hand and the mystery, and any theory about Aspiring, was largely left to rest. Over Xmas/New Year 2020 a private review of an Aspiring scenario was carried out. The sightings in the 60’s by these three very credible people, all of whom had agreed in the 1990’s to revisit the area and re-enact what they’d seen, coupled with Duncan’s 1972 report, left a convincing possibility that something had occurred in the area. But what? Part of the scenario was troubling in that Bob Gibson had seen something relatively fresh, yet this had been 20 months after the disappearance. How to account for that? There was some difficulty in connecting what was an obviously manmade object being seen on a glacier or snowfield six weeks after the disappearance, with something being seen across the valley a full 20 months later, yet described as “fresh”. Faced with those seemingly conflicting facts, was there another possibility?

Lingering too was Paul Beauchamp-Legg’s earlier description of how any part of this aircraft could easily be carried across this valley in conditions of northerly storm and turbulence. Dramatically picturesque as it is on a nice day, the glaciers and rough terrain high above this valley can be frequently subject to violent wind storm, turbulence, updraughts and downdraughts, with wind so strong it can be impossible to stand up in. Updraughts occur on the upwind side of mountains and downdraughts often with extreme turbulence can occur on the downwind side. These can occur in all conditions, due to many factors.

So was there an alternative possibility that virtually all of what was left of this lightly constructed aircraft actually remained spread over an area near the foot of, or buried within or near to the glacial snowfields near Pope’s Nose or in rugged bluffs leading down to Rainbow Col which are all subject to yearly snow avalanche, with some part of the aircraft later dislodging and being carried across the valley, months after the crash during spring thaw and the notorious north-westerly storms that can prevail, thus accounting for the freshness in the tree breaks on the east side below, and then Alan Duncan's sighting some years later? If so, considering the terrain, it could be reasonably speculated that some of the aircraft debris, and what might be left of human remains, might well have moved off the tops and down into the craggy bluffs below. Admittedly speculative, but possible. In the early 1960’s this was not an area frequently flown over, or greatly visited.

Red herrings?

These areas near Aspiring are covered in heavy snow for much of the year. In early 2021 some updated satellite and aerial images were sourced that showed snow-free areas near Kitchener and Lucas Glaciers and Rainbow Col. Planet Labs, an American private Earth-Imaging company set up by some ex NASA scientists, designs and manufactures miniature satellites with high powered telescopes called “Doves”, that are put into orbit as secondary payloads on other launch missions. Their Doves scan all of the earth, every day. Additionally, New Zealand’s Linz Data Service recently provided updated enhanced aerial photography of most parts of New Zealand, including Aspiring.

An examination of enhanced imagery of the area revealed a number of objects of very uncertain but possible interest. One object in particular seemed similar in profile to a Gypsy Major engine. This appeared to be embedded in loose moraine near Rainbow Col, low down in a basin very close to the bluffs, somewhat protected from yearly movement and the dynamics from the loose rock that would tend to move other things around it and dump them down into the bluffs and valley below. While the image clarity wasn’t perfect, it’s general profile is similar to a Gypsy Major engine, and it’s positioning, colour and overall appearance seems out of context with the surrounding terrain. The object seemed to have an inclined top, at a similar degree of distinctive slope as a Gypsy Major. There was a blurred profile of what could be liberally interpreted as the airscrew hub (with of course no propeller).

Gypsy Major engines are somewhat unusual in that they are an inverted type with the much greater bulk of the engine containing the cylinders and lower crankcase bearings all located below the propeller axis. The top and lower engine casings of these engines were made from magnesium and aluminium cast alloys. The top magnesium cover is from low density Elektron magnesium (developed in Germany long ago but also manufactured in Britain) which is unusually light but with high tensile strength and corrosion resistance. Thus, no rust.

Confusing image of object resembling profile of Gypsy Major engine

Gypsy Major engine

The image, interesting but very inconclusive, was reasonably consistent with this large bulk of the lower engine case, or remaining part of it, being well buried in the moraine, thus trapping the viewable top of the engine in position in this basin. However, experts in aerial photography have now advised that in their professional opinion this “object” is considerably much larger than any engine and probably just simply a very large rock. An attempt to positively eliminate this object by locating and photographing it by helicopter was carried out in March 2021 but the basin and its object had unfortunately been covered by unseasonal early snow. Nothing could be seen.

Additionally noted was a nearby object roughly similar in appearance to a corrugated sheet. It too seemed embedded, within a long shallow crevice. It’s of interest perhaps that the three UK factory-fitted fuel tanks of a Dragonfly are fabricated from alloy and had (a few) corrugations in them. Another de Havilland aircraft of the same era, powered by the same Gypsy Major Engine - the de Havilland Tiger Moth, has a fuel tank that was fully corrugated. The Tiger Moth was a very popular aircraft in New Zealand. The de Havilland Aircraft Company of New Zealand at Rongotai, Wellington, produced 181 of the 335 Moths used by the RNZAF between the years 1939 to 1956.

Some years prior to 1962, one of the original three fuel tanks of Chadwick’s Dragonfly had to be replaced at the de Havilland factory at Rongotai, Wellington. Original Dragonfly factory parts would have been unavailable. So it could be possible that the new fuel tank might have been fabricated at the factory, perhaps from available alloyed corrugated sheet different in profile from the factory-fitted tanks shown in original factory de Havilland engineering plans.

The eventual location and identification of this suggested “engine” and the corrugation will probably eliminate them in the matter, but they are mentioned here for someone's later determination by finding them and decisively ruling them out, or not. There are other objects nearby on the top of Rainbow Col that from this aerial imagery also seem to be of interest. But again perhaps they are nothing more than further red herrings that detract from the more reliable primary reports and observations of earlier years.

Corrugation in crevice at top of Rainbow Col

The Junkers conundrum! 

Tauranga city airport is home to the Classic Flyers Aviation Museum. In 2008, a Tauranga man gifted an object to the Museum. This was a triangular cast metal Junkers manufacturers nameplate that the man said he removed from the side of an aircraft engine that he found near Mt French, near Mt Aspiring, using his ice axe to chip it off the side of the steel engine block. The find was in 1965, when he was 15 years old and climbing in the area with his late brother. The following is part of the man’s description given to the Museum in 2008 of the circumstances of him finding it -

“My brother and I recovered the plate in 1965. We had been climbing around Mt. French and crossed Gloomy Gorge and sidled east intending to drop down to Pearl flat and Liverpool Bivy. We missed our ridge in white out conditions eventually coming out at Cattle Flat about 20 mins west of the Aspiring Hut. The debris was just below the snow line in a gully. We had dropped down to get out of the wind and have a “brew”. We had no land marks to identify our position in the conditions at the time, coming out in the West Branch of the Matukituki River well away from where we intended.”

Junkers nameplate found in 1965, now in NZ museum archive

Sketch made in 2016 by Junkers finder

In late 2021 the finder, now in his professional years a respected New Zealand scientist, provided some further detail of his find from 56 years earlier. He said that until he had been contacted recently by aviation researchers he had never realised the historic import of his find. He and his brother had been seeking shelter in a gully. The man sat down on what he thought was a moss covered rock, but which he found was instead an engine. He and his brother found an additional chunk of metal, which they thought was possibly a second engine. In a number of dialogues he gave further detail -

“We were descending in whiteout conditions and I took us (my brother and I) down the wrong ridge. We sheltered for a while above the snow line waiting for a gap in the weather so I might get my bearings. My brother was sitting on the motor. It had a distinctive aluminium cover which I sketched when we got home. The conditions were atrocious, we were cold, wet and very tired with only the decal to support our story. The area was a gully (shute) and would be susceptible to both avalanche and rockfall. We should not have been where we were for many reasons. It was not an area anyone with more than a modicum of mountain experience would wish to traverse! We reported it to the local police but little interest was shown. We lived at the time in Otematata. It was the local policeman to whom we took the decal. With parental encouragement. He returned it some time later. Because there was no fuselage the local policemen thought it would have been WW1. Being wooden and fabric there would have been nothing left. I believed him being a gullible teenager and the matter was forgotten until I saw the notes Mum had kept and also discovered she had also kept the decal. We looked about us at the time hoping for more pieces we could take away to verify what we had seen. At the time and with the weather considered, there was no evidence of anything salvageable in an area of about 100m x 100m we wandered around. We never went back to the area, I guess in part as there was no interest in our finding.”

Later enquiries with Junkers experts in Germany suggest that this unusual crankcase cover pattern, as described and sketched by the finder, was consistent with a Jumo 210 or Jumo 211 aircraft engine of possible (circa) 1930’s manufacture. Jumo 211 engines had been used in a number of German aircraft of the 1930’s and 1940’s, including Ju87, Ju88, and several others. Junkers experts in Germany remain perplexed over this account of a Junkers find in New Zealand in 1965. They advise that the Jumo 211 was a wartime engine and that the German Luftwaffe, of course totally committed elsewhere, had very little military strategic interest in New Zealand during WW2. They also advised that these nameplates were not fitted to all Jumo engines.

One version of the Jumo 210 had been used in reconnaissance aircraft operating from large German auxiliary cruiser vessels (“Raiders”) of the type that had been operating in New Zealand waters during WW2. There is also earlier documented precedent of a German reconnaissance floatplane being deployed in New Zealand waters from a German raider during WW1 (SMS Wolf) and carrying out flights over the West Coast of the South Island. Junkers introduced a small single engine aircraft, the F13, in the early 30's. Some of its variants were powered by a Junkers engine, the L5. It had a corrugated aluminium alloy skin. 322 units of it were produced and its reputation for toughness saw it being used in some of the most remote parts of the world. It had a long operational history including use as a floatplane. Questions remain as to whether it was ever used militarily, and to date there is no information to hand as to whether the Junkers engines of it, or of any of its later 30's variants, ever had a cast metal nameplate fixed to the engine. Two of the four German raiders actively operating around New Zealand under false flags during WW2 carried two aircraft each, some painted grey. One of those aircraft - an Arado - was a variation of the Arado AR68 aircraft which utilised a Ju210 engine. The operations of these disguised raiders were of course carried out under secrecy. There is a record of supply transshipments, including re-supply of a floatplane aircraft, being carried out in the Kerguelen Islands. Transshipment was a relatively simple process carried out by way of the aircraft being mounted on their floats, lowered over the supplyship side, and then towed to the waiting raider.

The distinctive “aluminium” cover as described and sketched by the man adds considerable credibility to his account. It seems well against the odds that a 15 year old New Zealand teenager, in 1965, could otherwise have knowledge of the unusual profile and makeup of an aircraft engine design that would barely be known about outside of German aircraft engineering circles. He would surely have had to have seen one. Moreover, the crankcase cover of Jumo 211 (inverted) engines were in fact of cast aluminium, as he described. And, he had the nameplate, now still held in the Tauranga Aviation Museum archives.

One prototype of the single-engine reconnaissance Heinkel He114 aircraft used on some raiders had a Jumo 210 engine. Those particular aircraft were housed in the ship’s No 2 hold and could be raised to deck level by a winch operated lift. When being launched, the aircraft were hoisted out on the leeside of the ship, would taxi down-wind, and then turn back facing the ship, which would then steam slowly ahead, turning down wind so that the aircraft would have a calm patch of water from which to take off into the wind.

All of this deserves more thorough investigation. There is no official record of any Junkers aircraft operating in New Zealand, ever. Two Junker 87 non-operational wrecks, presumably with Jumo 211 engines, were imported into New Zealand by Sir Tim Wallis in the early 1990’s but were exported back to Europe some years later. While in New Zealand they had been stored at Wanaka Airport for intended restoration.

Jumo 211 engine showing curved top and nameplate position

Restored Jumo engine showing position of riveted Junkers nameplate

Conclusions

Alan Duncan’s indicated area

Otago and Westland are geographically separated by the Main Divide. The line of the Divide follows along the peaks above Kitchener and Lucas Glaciers and the reports relative to Rainbow are on the Otago side. If the area around Rainbow Col is one day found to be a crash site, the debate as to whether Chadwick ever got to the West Coast consequently then becomes somewhat academic. Geographically, he could have done, but exactly via what route may never be known. Did he perhaps follow what was clear West Coast weather on that day and come up the Waiatoto Valley to show his tourist passengers Mount Aspiring? Or did he get into the area of Jacobs River, successfully leave it, and go direct to Aspiring to try and show his honeymoon passengers the majesty of it all?

The observations detailed in this discussion propose a reasonable degree of plausible evidence that there may well be remnants of aircraft debris in the area of the Rainbow and those areas immediately above it to the west. German Junkers aside, more likely than not then - Chadwick's Dragonfly. But we'll never know for sure until someone stumbles over something, perhaps released from glacial moraine in Rainbow Valley or the bluffs on the south/west side of it or the rugged areas below Pope’s Nose, or - a well resourced search is actually undertaken.

The Junkers report creates a tantalizing dimension. It perhaps stretches coincidence that there could be two historic aircraft wrecks - one well known and the other a complete mystery that could rewrite aviation history, in such close proximity to one another. So is it possible then that these sightings and reports (Junkers accepted) are actually connected, and what lies in parts of this region is actually debris from not two aircraft but just one, that may in fact not be the Dragonfly? We'll probably never know until someone gets into this area with the resources of helicopter access, manpower, commitment, and the right degree of persistence, and finds out.

There is realistic opportunity for a properly organised ground search to be carried out based on Duncan’s sighting, which may also be relevant to what Gibson saw. Simply, it could well be that both mens observations were of the same thing. A ground search based upon Cowie’s sighting is out of the question due to the terrain and it’s expanse, although the bluffs below are well worthy of helicopter survey. As for the Junkers report, the finder of the Junkers nameplate has now identified an area quite close to French Ridge Hut, a large serviced hut built just below the snow line in 1999 by the New Zealand Alpine Club and the perfect base for a ground search.

Some years ago, when Alan Duncan and his friend Brad Bradley spent time on Google Earth in an effort to narrow down the area in which Duncan saw the object he described as a “wing”, Duncan pointed to an area of rough terrain, below bushline, between creek lines running down slopes on the eastern side of Rainbow Stream below Sisyphus Peak. Duncan made mention of this object being seen in scrub, near a small flat plateau. He said that he conjectured at the time that the main aircraft wreckage could be somewhere above, in the glaciated areas or bluffs on the Rainbow Col side of the valley.

Duncan’s description of this find in high scrub and bush, in conjunction with Bob Gibson’s report in the 60’s of finding broken beech trees below him, perhaps helps in narrowing down and defining the type of terrain in which to best carry out any search. Due to the challenging terrain, avalanche risk and alpine weather, any search effort should be carried out by experienced people familiar with operating in that kind of environment. All of these areas are now on Department of Conservation (DOC) administered land and DOC Landing Permits would be required for helicopter support in an organised search.

November 2022 update - Continuing speculation as to whether Chadwick got to the West Coast or not has prompted further research during 2022. An analysis of sightings and hearings on the Canterbury/Mackenzie region side of the alps, including new information from five separate sources, is now detailed in a new 9 page report. This report reveals a clear accumulation of evidence that Chadwick stayed on the eastern side of the Main Divide and never got across to the West Coast despite attempts to do so during the flight south. The report is available by clicking on the link in the top navigation menu. To contribute to the discussion or ask a question, send an email to: lewbonenz@gmail.com