NEW ZEALAND, aviation - An album of 16 monochrome photographs of the arrival of Imperial Airways flying boat "Centaurus" in Auckland harbour following its flight in Dec. 1937, the first by a flying boat from Sydney. Please see the full description below.

NEW ZEALAND, aviation -  An album of 16 monochrome photographs recording the arrival of Imperial Airways flying boat "Centaurus" in Auckland harbour, New Zealand, following its flight (originating in Hythe, UK) from Sydney, Australia, the first by a commercial flying boat to cross the Tasman Sea, on 27th December 1937, the upper wrapper of the album stamped in gilt, "Flying Officer C. F. Elder, 'Centaurus'", and signed on the front pastedown by Tom Bloodworth, A. Holderness and W. B. [?]Simon, respectively the Chairman, Superintendent and Secretary of the Auckland Harbour Board, the photographs 160 x 210mm. With a further collection of 21 monochrome photographs, unbound, recording the flight's reception at Wellington and Auckland; together with a copy of W. K. Stewart's Brown's Signalling. How to Learn the International Code of Visual and Sound Signals (Glasgow, [1933], 8vo, original cloth-backed pictorial boards, the front pastedown signed "C. F. Elder, I. A. L."). A PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORD OF A TURNING POINT IN AUSTRALASIAN AVIATION. Colin Forsyth Elder (d.1940, killed in action) was the First Officer on board the Imperial Airways flying boat "Centaurus" on its groundbreaking flight from Hythe, Southampton, UK, to Sydney and then onto New Zealand, under the command of New Zealander Captain J. W. Burgess. The outward passage followed the Empire route to Darwin, but then diverged by way of Groote Eylandt and Mornington Island to Karumba and the Gulf of Carpentaria, across the Cape York Peninsula to Townsville, down the coast to Brisbane and then onto Sydney. At Sydney a passenger, the Hon. T. W. White, Australian Minister of Customs, embarked for the first flight on 27 December 1937 by a commercial flying boat across the Tasman Sea to Auckland, New Zealand. The flight of 1,330 miles was made in fine weather at an altitude of 10,000 feet. In addition to its crew and passenger, it carried letters of greeting addressed to the New Zealand Herald newspaper from the Lord Major of London, the New Zealand High Commissioner in London and Jean Batten who, the previous year, had made the first flight from the UK to New Zealand. It is estimated that about 50,000 citizens of Auckland witnessed the plane's arrival in the harbour: their enthusiasm, in addition to the arrival of the plane, are recorded in the present unique archive. Provenance: From the Estate of the late Donald Dooley, whose aunt married Colin Forsyth Elder.