Trevor Hunter
Born
Trevor Balfour Hunter

(1915-01-25)25 January 1915
Whanganui
Died8 May 2002(2002-05-08) (aged 87)
NationalityNew Zealander
SpouseJames Colway
Aviation career
Flight license1933
Air forceRoyal air force
RankFirst officer

Trevor Balfour Hunter (25 January 1915 – 8 May 2002) was a New Zealand aviator. She accompanied Ted Harvie on his record-breaking flight from North Cape to Bluff in December 1933. She was the first of five New Zealand women accepted to fly with the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War.

Life

Hunter was born in Whanganui on 25 January 1915 to Alice Elsie and Marmaduke Archer Hunter.[1] She was named Trevor as her mother was sure that the baby would be a boy. She was a member of the Whanganui Aero club and gained her 'A' license in 1933, flying solo at age 16.[2]

At the age of 18, she flew with Harvie on his flight from North Cape to Bluff which, at 1,880 kilometres (1,170 mi), was the longest recorded flight in New Zealand at the time.[3] The record lasted 28 years. She was also one of the four female pilots who escorted Jean Batten on her arrival to New Zealand following Batten's solo flight from Britain in 1934.[4]

She joined the ATA in 1941. Like other women from New Zealand who joined she had to pay her way to Britain to be examined. She was enlisted in the Ferry Service and flew planes from their factories to squadron bases. In this time she logged 1,200 hours of solo flying and flew 42 types of aircraft including, Spitfires, Warwicks, Mitchells and Wellingtons.[5]

After the war, Hunter was employed as a commercial pilot. In 1950, she married a journalist, James Colway, who became the editor of the Whanganui Chronicle from 1964.[6]

References

  1. ↑ https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22418765
  2. ↑ Colway, Trevor (20 May 1993). "Interview with Trevor Colway". Retrieved 7 September 2021 – via National Library of New Zealand.
  3. ↑ "The magical Moth". New Zealand Geographic. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  4. ↑ "First flight from North Cape to Invercargill". New Zealand History. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  5. ↑ "Winstone, Jane". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  6. ↑ Fortune, Gabrielle (31 March 2021). "'ATA-girl': The Fab Five of New Zealand Aviation". Auckland Museum. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
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