WONZ 230 – Harley Cadwallader

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Guest: Harley Cadwallader

Host: Dave Homewood

Recorded: 14th of October 2020

Released: 8th of December 2020

Duration:  1 hour 5 minutes 30 seconds

Harley Cadwallader was a career topdressing and spray pilot. He learned to fly at his home airfield of Masterton with the Wairarapa Aero Club, on Tiger Moths. He started in the agricultural aviation industry as a loader driver with Wairarapa Air Services, working with a pilot who was topdressing with a Cessna 180. All the while he was working towards his own commercial pilot’s licence.

On gaining his CPL he was sent by Air Services to Beryck Dalcolm’s topdressing school. Then on return to the company he began actual topdressing operations on a de Havilland Canada Beaver.

He moved to Fieldair and continued to fly from Masterton’s Hood Aerodrome in a Beaver for them. Following a break from flying for a few months he then re-joined Fieldair as a pilot, not based at Napier.

Harley remembers an incident where he was a passenger in Beaver ZK-BFN with Fieldair chief pilot John Riddell. They crashed on take off and were both injured due to the aileron cables being crossed during the aircraft’s overhaul.

Sometime after recovering from that incident and continuing to fly his own Beaver, Harley was promoted to fly a Fieldair DC-3 topdresser.

Harley lost his medical for three years as a result of the accident earlier causing issues, but he eventually regained his licence. By now there was a downturn in the industry in New Zealand, and so he took the opportunity to travel to Libya for a job training pilots how to spray crops.

On return to New Zealand he worked for Fieldair at Dargaville for a couple of years, and then a big downturned saw Harley decide to return to Africa, this time spraying wheat crops in the Sudan. He did two seasons there, and whilst there the famous BBC television documentary ‘Into Africa’ was filmed, following the exploits of the Kiwi and British pilots who flew the Cessna Husky ag planes there.

The next job was flying two seasons topdressing in Australia, based at Crookwell, NSW. Whilst there Harley trained up to fly as an aerial firefighter, in a PZL-Mielec Dromader, but never ended up fightig any real fires.

Harley and his wife Juliette then purchased a motel, and they ran that for around five years. He continued to fly on call flying a Fletcher for Johnson Air Services. This was his last flying job. After selling the motel he worked for a surveyor for 10 years.

Harley finishes the interview with a story of a fire onboard his DC-3 topdresser in the air!

Above: Harley Cadwallader in November 2020, during the interview. (Photo Dave Homewood)

Above: Harley in a Fieldair Beaver (Photo via Ryan Cadwallader)

Above: Harley with a Beaver (Photo via Ryan Cadwallader)

Above and below: Harley in the Fieldair DC-3 (Photos via Ryan Cadwallader)

Above and below: Harley with his Fieldair DC-3, ZK-APK, which is now beside State Highway One at Maungaweka (Photos via Ryan Cadwallader)

Above: Harley with a Husky in Africa (Photo via Ryan Cadwallader)

Above and below: Harley ‘water skiing’ in a Cessna Husky on a canal in Sudan (Photos via Ryan Cadwallader)

Above: Harley in the Dromedar in Australia (Photo via Ryan Cadwallader)
Below: Harley in a Fletcher (Photo via Ryan Cadwallader)

Below: The opening of ‘Into Africa’ gives a brief glimpse into the life of the pilots in the Sudan

Thanks to Ryan Cadwallader for setting up this interview with his father, Harley.

NB: The music at the end of this episode is Wild Flower by Joakim Karud