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Trek Airways
/ Trek Lugdiens Trek
Airways was founded on 23rd Sept 1953 with Tom Meredith and Fanie Botha as
principle shareholders. They started operations on 3rd Oct with one Dakota
ZS-DIY, bought with money lent by Botha, who only eight months later was
to drop a bomb- shell by exercising his lien on the aircraft and selling
it to Africair.
Fortunately
Tom managed to save the day by obtaining a loan from Lombard Bank to
purchase a Viking from Airwork ZS-DKH. This turned out to be a blessing in
disguise and within a short period they ended up with three Vikings. New
shareholders joined Tom and these were Cecil Snelgar, Fred Gratz, Jock
Hamilton and Paddy Rorke.
C.J.H.
Patmore replaced Fanie Botha as Chairman of the Board. Captain Snelgar
became a full time Director and Commander. A month later Patmore resigned
and Paddy Rorke became Chairman and Meredith continued as Chief Pilot and
Operations Director.
Ted Broome
tells the story that on one of their first Dakota overseas flights one
generator was unserviceable and the second one failed over France where
the Air traffic Controllers were on strike. They had just passed over
Lyons and the only source of power they had was from what was stored in
the battery.
Between
Radio officer Ted Broome’s efforts and the accurate keeping by Tom of his
navigation log they arrived over Skipholt airport dead on
time.
After the
forced sale of the Dakota and entry of the Vikings, which were now being
used to a maximum, the staffing position had improved. Although the
Vikings operated out of Jan Smuts Airport, Rand Airport was still used as
a maintenance base from which aircraft were ferried over to Smuts before
each European flight.
Tom in his
book tells the story of being awarded a charter contract, which called for
the transport of 120 folk dancers. They were to start their journey from
four different countries in Europe, using four different aircraft, which
would be required to arrive at Johannesburg simultaneously.
For this
project they used their three Vikings, plus one chartered English
operator. Crews were given a comprehensive pre-flight briefing and they
achieved, what was, until then the largest group ever flown into the
country at the same time.
On a flight
from Ndola to Johannesburg one of the Vikings under Capt. Cornelius Balt
lost about 27 sq. feet of fabric from the port wing. Unable to maintain
altitude he made a forced landing into a disused airstrip near Messina in
the then Northern Transvaal. He showed superb airmanship in making a safe
landing on a strip dotted with anthills.
On another
occasion Tom made a skilful landing in a strong cross wind at Nice with no
rudder control. An inspection of the rudder control system revealed that
one of the connecting rods between two sections of the actuating cables
had become corroded and snapped.
In 1957
Trek Airways was to introduce Skymaster Aircraft and so the three Vikings
became redundant and a subsidiary Company, registered as “Protea Airways”
was formed, to which the three Vikings were transferred. Later one of the
Vikings ZS-DKH ended up becoming a landmark from 1961 to 1987 on top of
Vic’s Viking Garage near Uncle Charlie’s interchange near Johannesburg.
The aircraft is now preserved by the South African Airways Museum
society.
Later which
is not in the time frame of this book on Rand Airport Operators, Trek
Airways successfully expanded to Constellations and finally a Boeing 707
and Boeing 747SP. Due to political pressure the aircraft were later
registered in Luxembourg under a new name called Luxavia.
Rentmeester
Beleggings and Safmarine were to become shareholders and in Oct 1983 Tom
resigned due to a power struggle, It was not long after that the Company
went under.
Tom
Meredith was a true Aviation Pioneer, for which South African Aviation
owes him a debt of
gratitude.
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