structural damage, Field bought Barbara II and started the Gisborne Aerial Topdressing Company on 2 August 1949. He calculated his first drop cost £2.10s. per ton of fertiliser, and he was able to charge farmers £5 per ton. In September 1949 he became the founding president of the New Zealand Aerial Work Operators' Association, later the Aviation Industry Association of New Zealand. In 1951 he renamed the company Fieldair Limited and brought in modern De Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beavers, and in 1955 Lockheed Lodestars and DC-3s. Fieldair developed the tractor-mounted hopper loader, adopted throughout the industry, and became the largest topdressing firm in the country by the time of Field's death in 1981. Fieldair's logo is a strangled goose. According to legend, a hungry Fieldair pilot flying between airstrips saw a single goose which looked like dinner. His somewhat hopeful method was to attempt to manoeuvre alongside the bird, side slip into it and grab hold. The first few attempts failed and the goose got wise. A dogfight developed, and both fliers lost altitude. A hundred feet over a gully the goose broke towards the aircraft, and hit the prop, breaking it. The pilot force-landed, and concocted a suitable story of a bird strike, which was sadly undone when the farmer requested the company's services, as "You blokes must have the best pilots in the country ... one of your blokes chased this goose around my farm for about a half an hour. He must have just missed by inches every tree on my place. And to top it off this bloke succeeded in killing the goose and landed to pick it up". (Ewing & MacPherson, p182). Wanganui Aero Work Wally Harding, a pioneer Waiouru farmer, converted his Tiger Moth into a top dresser in 1949 to use on his own not particularly productive high country station. The following year he founded Wanganui Aero Work Ltd. By 1954 the company added the first PAC Fletcher to its five Tiger Moths. It also operated Beavers, Ceres, Cessna 180/185s, Piper PA-25 Pawnees, Piper Cubs and Cessna AGwagons, but eventually standardised on Fletchers for its fixed-wing fleet, purchasing eight PAC Crescos when these were introduced. In 2004 the family business was bought out by Ravensdown Fertiliser Cooperative, although two of Wally's grandsons remain in the company: Bruce, chief pilot, and Rick, operations Manager. The fleet currently consists of eight Crescos, two Fletchers, and