Some of Dunedin's earliest flying experiments took place on the foreshore of Otago Harbour where minor reclamation had been completed by the 1900s.
But when the Otago Harbour Board began major reclamation work, first at Pelichet Bay to form Logan Park for the 1925-26 New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition, and then along Andersons Bay Rd to form what would be called the southern endowment, many citizens realised that the city's shortage of flat land might be changing into a surplus.
About 1930, interest in aviation was booming and before long the words "flat land" and "airport" became closely associated.
Former mayor John Loudon, who was chairman of the Otago Harbour Board, raised the matter of siting an airport on the southern endowment and gave the proposal his support.
The Otago Aero Club had been promoting the idea for some time.
The club was making a good fist of running its operations at Taieri aerodrome but, as they compared their progress with other clubs, they realised that their distance from the city was a distinct disadvantage.
The Otago Harbour Board had agreed to some work being carried out in the early 1930s and the club described the result as "a splendid landing ground within the city itself".
The general feeling was that the airport on the harbour was a valuable civic amenity, although realists pointed out that it might be only temporary given the rapid changes taking place in aviation and the new demands constantly being made of those who ran airports.
The Otago Harbour Board now had to make up its mind whether an airport was an option it supported.
Board members were generally supportive but the great unknown was how long it would take for the material being dumped at the foreshore to solidify enough to bear the weight of aircraft.
Spurred by Dunedin Chamber of Commerce enthusiasm, in June 1935 the Otago Daily Times leader writer wrote: "Of the suitability of the site from the point of view of its position there can be no doubt.
"Almost as close to the centre of the city as the Railway Station, it would be an ideal site for an airport in the event of all conditions being favourable ...
"Whether the foreshore is the ideal alternative site [to the Taieri aerodrome] is a matter on which there is not complete unanimity.
"The prevailing northerly and southerly winds, which appear to follow the line of the harbour, blow right across it, and a doubt has been expressed whether a landing ground could be accommodated there..."
Harbour board engineer James Wilkie reported the southern endowment land would be able to take planes in about 18 months but that it would take up to five years before it could take the larger planes now being envisaged.
While he believed a landing area could be quite easily established, he pointed out that there was no commercial benefit to the board, as any income from aviation would not compensate for the cost of reclamation.
He suggested the board continue as planned, reclaiming about 45 acres.
There had been suggestions that 200 acres would be needed for an airport but the board decided it would "wait and see".
In response, the vice-president of the Otago Aero Club, Ivan Penrose, strongly supported the foreshore aerodrome scheme.
The following year, the proposal was raised again, and at the February 1936 meeting, Otago Harbour Board members decided to "investigate the possibility of establishing an airport".
It was estimated the site would be open to flying on 85% of the days of the year and would be the main city airport.
Board members had varying views.
Jim Munro, a baker who was also the Labour MP for Dunedin North, felt the reclaimed land was too valuable to be used as an airport and urged the board not to encourage the aviation lobby.
In a leader a day or two later, the Otago Daily Times agreed with Mr Munro.
"It is difficult to see that the board can offer further encouragement to proposals which it is evidently in no position seriously to entertain."
Hard on the heels of the newspaper's dismissal of the project came the release of more information (see map below).
The area to be used would be much larger than originally thought; some buildings would have to be demolished; work would take at least 10 years and the cost would be about 250,000 ($26 million today).
The Otago Harbour Board believed only central government could afford to fund such a project and chairman John Waters could see no reason why they would want to.
The foreshore airport made the headlines again in November 1942 when both the Otago Expansion League and the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce took up the cause.
Chamber president Charles Begg believed the demand for air travel and freight would expand greatly after the war and that "there would be a very definite advantage in having an airport in the centre of the city".
This time, the Otago Daily Times was a little more supportive and praised the chamber for its wisdom in raising the matter.
It also based its support on the theory that planes may change so much in design that wings would not be needed and so a small landing area would be sufficient.
Otago Harbour Board chairman Richard Thompson pointed out that the tremendous increase in the size and power of aeroplanes since the early investigations of the 1930s now made the harbour airport even more unlikely.
Perhaps an airport could be built at the southern end of the Otago Peninsula, Mr Thompson suggested.
The land could easily be levelled off and the planes could take off in foggy weather by travelling seawards.
But the Otago Expansion League would not be denied.
A delegation led by their president and aviation pioneer Horatio Mackay attended an Otago Harbour Board meeting in March and again argued for the southern endowment airport.
Mr Mackay believed the heaviest planes could use such an airport without filling in any more of the harbour.
By October 1943, the Otago Harbour Board, having been invited to discuss the issue yet again at a mayoral conference, made a statement which left no room for doubt.
Chairman Thompson simply announced that "there is absolutely no room for an airport on the Southern Endowment".
At the mayoral conference on October 27, the harbour airport topic sparked lengthy and vigorous debate.
Nothing in the day's discussion changed the mind of the Otago Harbour Board and the classic compromise was reached with the setting up of a committee to examine the whole question of Otago's aviation future.
During 1948, the deliberations of the committee revived interest in a harbour airport, and although the committee dismissed the scheme as impractical for larger aircraft, Mr Mackay felt the committee had not allowed enough open discussion.
He envisaged the dredged spoil from the Victoria Channel being dumped on the foreshore until about 600 acres had been reclaimed covering the area from the Birch St wharf to a point just beyond Waverley.
On this ground, landing strips could be formed.
But by now the Otago Harbour Board had made its point and the harbour airport idea faded off the radar.
While a land-based airport was never developed in Otago Harbour, the use of the harbour for flying boats had many supporters.
In January 1938, Imperial Airways, which would establish a United Kingdom-Australia flying boat service in August, sent Captain John Burgess on a survey trip to New Zealand using a Centaurus flying boat.
For the flight to Dunedin on January 4, he had to leave Lyttelton at 5am in order to reach Dunedin at high tide.
ODT, January 5, 1938: "There was a great crowd to welcome the ship.
"Captain Burgess chose a run parallel to the main crowd, landing well in towards the shore and taxied the machine to a buoy in the inner harbour.
"With the brisk tail wind, it was a pretty piece of work, for there was little room to swing the plane in the basin, but a right-about turn made on a small radius brought the plane dead into the wind to a full stop at the buoy."
During his tour, Capt Burgess had been claimed as a "local boy" by Auckland and Wellington (where he went to school) but he was happy to admit that he had been born in Dunedin.
Capt Burgess told the crowd, "this is the first occasion on which a flying boat or seaplane has flown from England to Dunedin, but I hope it will not be long before you see them coming out here regularly."
The plane headed north the next day.
ODT, January 6, 1938: "The engines were warmed up at 6 o'clock in taxi-ing about the harbour and at 6.15 they were opened out and the Centaurus, with twelve passengers on board and a fair amount of luggage and petrol, was in the air in about 20 seconds."
A transtasman flying boat service from Auckland to Sydney was established by TEAL on April 30, 1940, and the flights continued during the war.
In June 1948, TEAL was planning to buy more flying boats and begin a service between Evans Bay, Wellington, and Sydney.
This scheme was bitterly opposed by South Island interests who pointed out that the North Island already had its transtasman link.
In Dunedin, there was a particularly strong reaction as there had long been support for the use of Otago Harbour as a flying boat base.
The board chairman in 1948, William Clarke, believed "a terminal could be established on the harbour near the Andersons Bay inlet".
"All the necessary landing facilities could be provided there, and the centre of the city would not be further away than a 10-minute run by motor car."
The ODT claimed that business interests in Melbourne and Dunedin strongly supported a flying boat service between the two cities.
As an extra, the ODT provided a background article on developments in amphibian aircraft, pointing out that these planes would be ideal for a Dunedin-Central Otago service, being able to land on Otago Harbour and on the small airfields being developed throughout Central Otago.
The chairman of TEAL and NAC, Sir Leonard Isitt, described the proposal as "impossible" and noted that when Captain Burgess made his landing on Otago Harbour in 1938, he had to make an early morning take off to catch the tide.
Otago Harbour Board chairman Clarke hit back by stating that the area to be used by flying boats could be easily dredged to allow operation at any time.
He noted that sea planes could be introduced to Melbourne, Bluff, Dunedin and Lyttelton almost immediately.
The Dunedin City Council supported the Otago Harbour Board, with Cr Leonard Ireland deploring the fact that the journey to Melbourne from Dunedin meant flying through Auckland and Sydney.
The Otago Harbour flying boat base was delivered a fatal blow late in 1948 by the Tymms report from the committee set up to consider Dunedin's airport options.
Tymms believed the Corstorphine hill would prevent large flying boats using the upper harbour, while the lower harbour was obstructed by Quarantine Island and Taiaroa Head.
The board refused to give up, however, and the chairman, Mr Clarke, said the board would "make its voice heard again when the time was deemed opportune to warrant a seaplane base in New Zealand".
The scheme resurfaced three years later.
In a speech to the Royal Empire Society in Wellington in June 1951, Air Vice-marshal David Carnegie stated the flying boat would be the plane of the future, not only because of the large loads they would be able to carry but because of the ease of finding good landing spots.
The ODT leapt on his speech with glee, pointing out that the 31 million ($55 million) recently spent on bringing Harewood (Christchurch) up to international standard would never be recouped from landing fees and 32 million was to be spent bringing Rongotai (Wellington) up to standard while the flying boat base at Evans Bay, Wellington, was doing the job for a few thousand pounds.
Otago Harbour as a flying boat base remained an option, and the October 1955 meeting of the Otago Harbour Board undertook to examine the use of the southern endowment as a "transport centre". Mr Clarke stated, "I think we can say that Momona is a washout."
He believed that it was only a matter of time before helicopters were commonplace and that seaplanes were about to make a comeback.
He noted a report of aircraft which needed only 71 yards of runway to take off and that "the endowment has 1400sq yards, sufficient to establish a transport centre second to none in New Zealand".
The matter was referred to the works committee where it faded away altogether.
But as late as 1959 came a long letter to the editor of the ODT from one of aviation's most experienced men, Dunedin-born and Taieri-trained, Fred "Popeye" Lucas.
He strongly opposed the building of Momona.
The timing of his letter (June 1959) was crucial as there was still time for the whole Momona project to be scuppered.
His argument was that short- or vertical-take-off airliners were being designed so why persist in spending money "further out into the marsh"?
He advocated a runway on the reclaimed land along Andersons Bay Rd to be used by the short-take-off Handley Page Heralds or Fokker Friendships.
Mayor T.K.S. Sidey was surprised by what Mr Lucas had to suggest, pointing out that "vertical-take-off machines were at least 20 years away and that Momona was needed now".
In a letter to the editor on December 9, 1959, Thomas Anderson, mayor of Port Chalmers and a harbour board member, told the Evening Star that the Rotodyne aircraft expected to be available in 1961 would be ideal for operating from an airfield on the southern endowment land even though preliminary work had started at Momona.
The Fairey Rotodyne was a 1950s British compound gyroplane.
Although successful in trials, the Rotodyne programme was cancelled when a lack of orders doomed the project.
Naturally, it was not heard of again as the answer to Dunedin's problems, and by 1960 any idea of a harbour airport had been entirely overtaken by visible progress at Momona.
The book
Flight Path Dunedin is being launched on Monday at the Community Gallery on Princes St (next to the iSite) 12.30pm-1pm.
Historic times
The launch of Flight Path Dunedin, A History of Aviation in Otago was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the official opening of Dunedin Airport by civil aviation minister John McAlpine, on May 22, 1962.
Dunedin Mayor T.K.S. Sidey noted the opening came exactly 101 years and one day after Gabriel Read sparked the Otago gold rush by discovering gold at Tuapeka, and he considered it a milestone of equal importance.
The first plane to land at the airport was a DC3, although other aircraft using the tarmac that day included a Friendship and a Viscount.
