While the weather gods shone on the Wings over Wairarapa Air Festival being staged in Masterton this weekend, the Covid gods did not.

Last night, following the Government’s announcement regarding a change of Alert levels to New Zealand with the Wairarapa moving to Alert Level 2, organisers of the three-day event made the call to cancel Sunday’s air show. Chair of the Wings Trust Board Bob Francis said he was disappointed to cancel the third and final day and acknowledged many ticket holders will be feeling the same way. However he took heart that two of three fantastic days of the Air Festival had taken place.

“We were very disappointed to make this call but the health and safety of all our team, volunteers, ticket holders, pilots and exhibitors is paramount, and we need to follow Government and Ministry of Health guidelines. However what a magnificent two days of the Air Festival we had,” said Mr Francis.

“Friday's Schools Day was simply outstanding and Saturday's flying programme, which featured the historic fly over of the B-52 was truly remarkable and an experience that all who attended will never forget."

Mr Francis says he had been inundated with universal positive feedback from ticket holders, the New Zealand Defence Force and stakeholders around the quality of the entire flying programme. This featured over 70 aircraft representing the spectrum of aviation history from The Vintage Aviator’s collection of rare WWI aircraft, to Waco biplanes and a DHC Chipmunk through to the NZ Defence Force’s NH90 and a C-130H (NZ) Hercules aircraft.

In addition Mr Francis said the STEM Aviation and Education programme, designed to inspire youngsters to learn about potential aviation careers, was outstanding. This included having 5000 Wairarapa students on site on Friday being able to take part in maths, rocketry, virtual reality, digital fabrication, 3D printing, engineering, simulation, robotics, circuitry, drones, unmanned aircraft, satellite tracking equipment, basic ballistics, body armor, missiles, protection equipment, static aircraft and turbines as well as see live performances from Nano-girl, a superhero character created by nanotechnologist and engineer Dr Michelle Dickinson and the NZ Astrobiology Network Aircrew.

Mr Francis said now Masterton was in Alert Level 2 (as of 6am Sunday, February 28, 2021) his team was working hard to mitigate risk on site at Hood Aerodrome by doing a staged pack down.

In addition, information around the Refund and Donation options available to ticket holders affected by today's cancellation was in the process of being communicated.

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