History
The Hawke's Bay & East Coast Aero Club was New Zealand's second aero club, being incorporated on 12 November 1928. On 3 August 1932 the Hawke's Bay & East Coast Aero Club purchased an 80 acre block of land next to the Hastings Golf course for a new aerodrome, and on 20 January 1933 the Aero Club opened a new club house, which still exists on site as the old club house, several hundred metres away from the current modern club house.
New Zealand Aerial Mapping Ltd purchased its first plane in 1936 - a Monospar ST25. NZ Aerial Mapping has been based at Hastings Aerodrome ever since, and it is New Zealand's oldest aviation company. The company headquarters are located in the Hastings CBD.
In 1939 when World War II broke out, pilot training stepped up to provision trained pilots for the Air Force. Hawke's Bay received an initial quota of 12 trainees, which was supplemented with an extra five pilots every eight weeks. The Hawke's Bay & East Coast Aero Club linked with the Air Training Corps and in line with a national move agreed to give the Government its planes in the event of war. With the outbreak of war the Hawke's Bay & East Coast Aero Club effectively went into hibernation. By March 1940, 32 of the clubs trainees had joined the RNZAF, the RAAF or the RAF.
The operations of the Hawke's Bay & East Coast Aero Club resumed in January 1946 with the end of the war.
In 1968 the Hawke's Bay Skydiving Club was born based at the Hastings Aerodrome, and in that same year the Hawke's Bay Gliding Club built its hangar base at Hastings Aerodrome. In 1976 full runway strip lighting was installed for the main runway. Two years later in 1978 the main runway was sealed when New Zealand Aerial Mapping sealed a 1000 metre landing strip to accommodate its new and larger aircraft.
Read more about this topic: Hastings Aerodrome
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