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Guest: John Hansen
Host: Dave Homewood
Recorded: 16th of June 2019
Released: 24th of July 2019
Duration: 1 hour 48 minutes 35 seconds
In this episode Dave Homewood sat down with aeronautical engineer and recreational pilot John Hansen, in his hangar at his private strip at Pokuru. John talks about his life in aviation, from watching the topdressers as a kid at Rangiora and playing in his uncle’s war surplus Avro Ansons, to becoming a loader-driver with Peter Rowley’s Aerial Sowing. He learned to fly at Harewood and was intending to go commercial and get into flying topdressers, but his path diverted into engineering.
He worked with the then-new company New Zealand Aerospace Industries at Hamilton Airport, setting up tooling for production of the CT/4 Aitrainers, and then working on the assembly line of Airtrainers and Fletchers.
He then worked for around a decade with Wishart helicopters, which was owned by Sir Tim Wallis, during the height of the deer recovery days. When that industry cooled down, John returned to Aerospace, now known as Pacific Aerospace Corporation Ltd. There he led the engineering team that created the turbine-engined CT-4C Airtrainer, and later worked on the upgraded piston version, the CT-4E. He also worked on the PT-6 engined Fletcher project,and the ANZAC Frigate project, before he went out on his own and is now an engineering consultant.
John also spent time in France at the Alpha factory preparing the engineering side of the deal that would see the production move to Hamilton in New Zealand.
Meanwhile he got into recreational flying and briefly owned a Bede BD-5 project. He replaced that with a Druine Turbulent that he flew all over the country for many years. And later he built his Hansen Deuce, which is based on the Bakeng Deuce but very highly modified by John.
Above: John Hansen with his Hansen Deuce ZK-JFH
Above: John telling stories about his beloved Turbulent ZK-CAX
NB: The music at the end of this episode is Wild Flower by Joakim Karud
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