Episode 53 – Les Marshall Part One

Host: Dave Homewood Guest: Les Marshall Duration: 49 minutes 19 seconds Topic: Les Marshall very kindly sat down with Dave Homewood for a couple of hours in the Pioneer Aero Ltd hangar at Ardmore to talk about his long and interesting career in aviation. He talks about his dicovery of aviation in 1945 as a six or seven year old, and his time in the Royal New Zealand Air Force under Compulsory Military Training. He recalls learning to fly at the Waikato Aero Club, Rukuhia, and towing gliders as well as gliding at the Piako Glider Club, Waharoa. He then joined Wanganui Aero Works as a topdressing pilot flying a Piper Cub. Les moved from there into a job with Rural Aviation based at Feilding, flying Cessna C180’s. Next he took a job flying Fletchers with Robertson’s Air Service at Rukuhia, Hamilton. This was followed by a move to Gary Toulson’s Adastra Aviation, also based at Hamilton. When Adastra was bought up by and absorbed into James Aviation Ltd, Les ended up with that well known company. Many thanks to Paul McSweeny and Steve Cox of Pioneer Aero Restorations Ltd for setting up this interview with Les, and for providing a great list of topics for discussion that they recalled from many years of hearing Les’s tales over smoko. By the way the small music is Magic Ghost from Danosongs