The Red Checkers – Part 1, 1948-1976

By Dave Homewood.

The Red Checkers are the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s longest serving aerobatic display team. Their performances have thrilled audiences around New Zealand and they have built up a reputation for precision flying that is second to none. Currently, they are into their 41st year as the Red Checkers, but the team’s origins stem back much further.
Red Checkers pilots have traditionally been instructors from the Central Flying School (CFS). Their day job is to train other RNZAF pilots how to become instructors, and they also monitor the quality of all flying training across the Air Force. Some years, the team has been supplemented with pilots from other squadrons, but collectively they represent experience and professionalism, and they excel at showing off their finely honed skills to the public at air shows and flying displays.
The Central Flying School was born in 1941 to train instructors for the many flying schools the RNZAF had around New Zealand at that time. However, by 1948, much had changed for the CFS. Wartime demand for pilot instructors had receded and the instructors now had the freedom to take on a new role—public aerobatic performances.
So three CFS pilots, Mick Walker, Jack Scott and Max Hope, worked up a routine in their Harvards, which they practiced at Wigram from the 12th to the 19th of February, 1948. Then, on the 20th of February, the RNZAF’s first post-war aerobatic display team gave their first public display (a rather basic display consisting largely of formation loops) at RNZAF Taieri, near Dunedin, for the Royal New Zealand Aero Club Pageant.
On the 6th of June, 1948, the same pilots performed their routine again at Harewood, Christchurch; the CFS Wigram display team was born.
The following year, the team reformed—with just two aircraft initially—and on the 22nd of January, 1949, at Whenuapai, Max Hope and Stan Quill again performed formation loops.
By March that year, the third aircraft was back, and the team of Jimmy O’Donnell, Jack Scott and Max Hope introduced their specialist trick—flying with lengths of rubber bungee cord linking their aircraft by their wingtips. This was first seen publicly at Mangere on the 18th of March, 1949. They performed two further displays that year: Invercargill on the 4th of June (without the bungee) and Whenuapai on the 16th of September—bungee-tethered again.
The team then disbanded for four years until the CFS Wigram display team (two aircraft) reformed in 1953. The team proved very popular and, in 1955, a third aircraft joined the team.
Throughout the 1950s, the team displayed only at Wigram open days and at events around Christchurch. However, for the 1960–61 summer season, the CFS Wigram team, now led by Mayne Hawkins with Alan Dyer and Barry Flavall, went “on the road” on an extensive tour and RNZAF recruiting drive around the North Island.
Along with a Bristol Freighter and an RNZAF Canberra, the team flew displays at Stratford, Hamilton, Kaitaia, Kaikohe, Whangarei, Dargaville, Tauranga, Matamata, Paeroa, Thames, Morrinsville, Gisborne, Wairoa, Napier, Hastings and Waipukurau.
Another dimension was added for the 1961–62 season in the form of a fourth member —Flt Lt John Buckmaster—whose solo display really enhanced the overall appeal of the team’s routine by “filling in the gaps” while the team regained altitude between manoeuvres. “I seem to remember that John Buckmaster’s solo display was the talk of the town at the Queenstown Autumn Festival in 1962,” says Barry Flavall. “The routine was really pretty tame because of the limited power of the Harvard, but the immediacy of the display to the viewers, together with the smoke and the Harvard’s distinctive noise, made up for this shortcoming.”
For the 1965–66 season, the team began with a three-ship formation led by Flight Lieutenant Tom Lambert, and a solo aircraft flown by Trevor Bland. This four-man team thrilled the crowds at the opening of Auckland International Airport at Mangere, on the 29th January, 1966.
The team then began to experiment with a fourth aircraft flying in the box—which experts said couldn’t be done. However, Trevor Bland, who already had vast experience of formation flying in RNZAF Vampire and Venom teams, and the RAF’s Blue Diamonds, thought otherwise.
Robin Klitscher, who joined the team two seasons later, explains why it was initially thought that a four-ship box formation was unachievable: “Prior to the Lambert team, it was said to be impossible to loop four Harvards in box formation because it was thought that the number four, with its slightly greater loop radius, wouldn’t have enough power to stay with the formation. However, the early Lambert team proved this wrong. It was possible—though only just. The leader had to fly a very consistent loop, using only partial power—little enough that the number four could stay with him, but not so little as to make things embarrassing for the wingmen in echelon over the top.
“What was usually necessary was for the number four, behind and below the leader, to get ahead of the game a bit and sneak up on the leader so that over the top, when he would be at full power and dropping back, he didn’t lose the entire formation. It was a bit of a kludge but it worked—though only with lots of practice. We carried this trick on after Tom left and I can remember, as leader, doing lots of sorties just as a pair in line astern working things up. I also recall occasionally catching sight of the number four’s propeller and cowl ahead of my sightline past the leading edge of the wing as we went over the top, which could be a bit scary!”
On the 14th of March, 1966—having proved the concept of a box loop—Lambert’s team displayed this new arrangement for the Air Officer Commanding Training Group and gained his seal of approval. Thereafter for the season, Gavin Trethewey flew at the number four position in the box and Trevor Bland flew as the number five soloist.
A lot of credit for subsequent decades of Red Checkers displays must go to Flt Lt Tom Lambert and his 1965–66 CFS Wigram team. They and the teams immediately following them set the standards that have been maintained to this day with both the Red Checkers and with the (civilian) Warbirds Association’s Harvard teams.
For the 1966–67 season, Tom Lambert returned as leader of the CFS Wigram team, joined by Roger Henstock, Gavin Trethewey and Don Smith in four-ship formation manoeuvres, while Ken Gayfer took the solo spot. It was after this 1966–67 season that Ken Gayfer suggested the creation of a more memorable “brand” name for the team—the Red Checkers.
Ken recalls how the name came about during a brainstorming session at a restaurant: “The name is the combination of two inputs. The Royal Air Force CFS instructors are—or used to be—informally called ‘the checkers’ because they carry out routine upgrading of flying instructors and random checks on instructors’ standards. From a doodle of mine on a paper napkin of a Harvard box formation with one aircraft in line astern, I saw that with their red wingtips and tail sections, they formed a loose chequer-board pattern. The association of ideas relating to us as RNZAF CFS ‘checkers’ while simultaneously describing the appearance of the aircraft’s red and silver chequer-board pattern seemed like an obvious play on words. It’s amazing what a couple of glasses of red will do for the imagination!”
So the Red Checkers identity was born. The new team for the 1967 season included Lambert, Henstock and Gayfer, with the new additions of Flying Officer Dick Metcalfe and Flight Lieutenant Robin Klitscher. Although the team was keen on the new Red Checkers label, Robin recalls they had a little trouble convincing those higher up the chain of command. “There was some resistance to identifying the team by such a name; it was seen as elitism—a manifestation of the instinct in this country not to tolerate heads being raised too far above the parapet. We had also arranged to have the engine cowls of the aircraft done up in red checks—Red Checkers. This was—just—acceptable. However, we’d also dyed our drab’grey issue flying suits red in keeping with the team name. This was absolutely unacceptable…tall poppies gone mad and an insult to government property!”
Robin also remembers the style of display the crowds saw during the first Red Checkers’ year. “As far as the routine went, I recall writing a paper at Wigram about how the aerobatics team should look. Its theme was ‘patterns in the sky’. Of course, in the Harvard, there were strict limits to what was possible, so most of the manoeuvres were pretty standard. However, the addition of numbers four and five did open things up a bit. Particularly with smoke, the number five (solo) man could fill in while the rest of the team scrabbled to regain height lost in the preceding manoeuvre, and vice-versa.
“There was also the potential for ‘opposed’ passes, one of which formed the culmination of our show—the team doing a fan break with smoke toward the crowd, with number five appearing from behind the crowd—also with smoke—and pulling up and through the fan break. It looked good but took quite a lot of practice to get right.”
It was this final manoeuvre that inspired the team’s logo—another Ken Gayfer inspiration. “The design of the patch is derived from an adaptation of the spectators’ view of our last manoeuvre,” says Ken, “where the team of four flew towards the crowd and I came from behind and flew in the opposite direction between the leader and number two whilst the four were commencing a fan break.”
Over the next few years, the excellence achieved by the first Red Checkers continued, and the team’s reputation grew as older members left and new pilots replaced them. The 15th of March, 1970, was a historic day for the Red Checkers when—under the leadership of Flt Lt Larry Olsen—they became the first RNZAF display team to perform in front of Queen Elizabeth II. However, that team, which also included Flight Lieutenants John Hosie, Graeme Goldsmith, Doug Lloyd and soloist John Lanham, very nearly didn’t make it to their Picton display.
While practising for the big event, the team had a mid-air collision that damaged three aircraft, which all needed replacements as repairs could not be effected in time. Although they usually practised within the safe confines of their own Wigram training area, on this occasion, the team was using the New Brighton (civilian) training area.
Having completed one routine, the team was into its second and just about to break into its “bomb burst” manoeuvre, when a civilian light aircraft appeared just above them. The lead aircraft sighted the interloper just as the break was called and reacted immediately to avoid it—something the following aircraft were not expecting and they were unable to avoid colliding with each other (thankfully without crashing and with no injuries).
The aircraft all recovered safely to Wigram where the maintenance personnel immediately had to “find” some usable “smoke” birds for the Picton display.
“They did a great job, as not all Harvards were modified to take the smoke kit,” says Graeme Goldsmith. “As for the display for the Queen, I’m not sure the show was our greatest, as a rip-snorting nor-wester created severe turbulence that was as bad as I ever experienced. It caused us some positioning problems in the narrow confines of the bay—but we got through.”
The following year, the Red Checkers continued to appear at public events but significantly fewer. There were only three public performances in the 1971–72 season, and just two the following season as the worldwide fuel crisis intervened. Oil restrictions forced major cutbacks in all sorts of RNZAF activities, and the team was disbanded after its 1972–73 summer season.
After missing one season, a “reprieve” saw the team reform under Flt Lt Barry Mitchell in late 1974 when they began practising and working up to a 1975 season. Also in this team were Sqn Ldr Don McAllister, and Flt Lts John Lamont, Peter Cochran and Ian Wood, with Flt Lt Cecil Crook as a reserve. However, just before their planned debut performance at the RNZAC Pageant at Tauranga on the 1st March, 1975, the plug was suddenly pulled on the team, forcing a red-faced Minister of Civil Aviation, Dr Martyn Finlay, to explain to the disappointed Tauranga crowd why the feature act had not appeared. That was the end of the 1975 team, which never performed publicly. However, it wasn’t the end of CFS trying to restart the Red Checkers.
Frank Sharp recalls that in 1976, while he was undergoing an Instructors Course at CFS, “I was invited by Squadron Leader Ces Crook to try out for the reforming Harvard formation team. I only did a couple of flights, with a formation aerobatics sortie as number four of a four-aircraft formation on the 14th of April, 1976. I think that permission to reform the team was withdrawn and I don’t recall any Red Checkers that year.”
Despite the best efforts of CFS, the Red Checkers were now in an indefinite hiatus.