Old chair-o-plane set to thrill again

Alan Williams has spent more than 230 hours painstakingly rebuilding and restoring a fairground ride for the community. Now he hopes to piece together its history.

For the past two years the retired tradesman and farmer has worked on the former Waimate Christmas Carnival chair-o-plane ride, which thrilled young and old at the event held in Victoria Park, from the late 1950s to the 1990s.

Much of the ride’s history is unknown, such as justexactly how old it is, and how it made its way to Waimate, Williams said.

He has spoken with a woman who remembered the ride being bought in Ō amaru and residing in her parents’ backyard for at least five years, before it appeared at the Waimate Christmas Carnival.

Williams got onto the restoration project when he was repairing a boiler at the Waimate Museum and the opportunity to get the chair-o-plane up and running came along.

‘‘It seemed like it was the next project and just seemed like a good idea,’’ he said.

In July 2020, the chair-o-plane was moved from storage, while other parts including spare seats and chains were found at a Waimate workshop.

‘‘It was a bit like the parts were all over Waimate,’’ Williams said.

While Covid-19 lockdowns and supply chain issues did slow down the process, he said he had to wait for parts and wait times for some businesses when things needed doing, but he wasn’t worried about waiting.

The chair-o-plane passed its final safety inspection in early May, and while Williams said it had been exciting to get the tick of approval for operations, he couldn’t have reached that point without the help of businesses in the town and a few helpers.

While many businesses helped in the restoration, one of the more memorable parts of the project was when a test needed to be done on the transmission.

Due to safety concerns Williams said he did not want to use actual children for the test, so with the help of PGG Wrightson 25kg bags of chicken feed were placed in each of the seats and the ride was turned on.

Williams said no chicken feed was spilled and that was ‘‘a great sign’’.

Part of the restoration has also included an upgraded transmission of the ride by adding in two more speed settings.

‘‘It will be great for parents and grandparents of young children now as on the low speed they can walk beside it.

‘‘There are two other speeds which are a bit faster for slightly older children, whereas before it was just on and off,’’ Williams said.

While adding the additional speeds and revamping the transmission was one of William’s favourite parts of the rebuild, one of the more tedious parts was the painting, he said.

‘‘The painting took a long time as I had to strip any old paint, wire brush it, undercoat it and paint it. The process was very tedious,’’ he said.

The estimated budget for the restoration was $6500 and Williams said he wasn’t aware of the project going over budget.

Williams is ‘‘hopefully optimistic’’ the chair-o-plane will feature in markets and events in Waimate but said volunteers are needed to make that possible.

‘‘We need young fit people to volunteer for when we have to disassemble the ride and put it on the trailer and then assemble it again. It will take a long time for me to do it, but some younger people could have that done within an hour or so.’’

Williams said one interesting part of restoring the chair-o-plane was then learning small histories of the ride and learning more about the town he now resides, and is hopeful it will be used by the community again – possibly in September, ‘‘Covid permitting’’.

Do you know more about the history of the Waimate chair-o-plane? Email maddison.gourlay@stuff.co.nz