Guest: Ian Quinn
Host: Dave Homewood
Recorded: 13th of July 2025
Published: 14th of July 2025
Duration: 1 hour 19 minutes, 55 seconds
In this episode Dave Homewood chats with Ian Quinn, aka ‘chinapilot’ on the Wings Over New Zealand Forum – https://rnzaf.proboards.com
Ian started his aviation career volunteering as a schoolboy at the Wellington Aero Club in the 1960s. He then went on to a long career in commercial aviation, including flying skiplane Cessnas with Mount Cook Airlines, flying in Australia, New Britain, Bougainville, Fiji, NAC, Air New Zealand and Cathay Pacific.
He lives in Hong Kong, where this interview was conducted from via Zoom, and since retiring from Cathay he has worked for the Hong Kong air accidents authority. Ian talks all about the interesting roles he has had in aviation, the places he has lived and the people he has met along the way.
Photos from Ian Quinn’s collection. All are copyright Ian Quinn.
Above: Ian in the captain’s seat of a Cathay Pacific Lockheed Tristar in 1994.
Above: 17-year-old Ian Quinn with a Tiger Moth at Omaka Aerodrome, Blenheim, while he was working as a refueller for SAFE Air
Above: ZK-COH, one of the ski-equipped Cessna 185E tourist flight planes that Ian flew while working for Mount Cook Airlines.
Above: Ian and Cessna 185A ZK-CBS on Tasman Glacier, New Zealand, in 1968.
Above: Ian at the Inus Plantation, Bougainville, PNG, in 1971.
Above: Ian flying over Tarawa, in the Gilbert & Ellice Islands, 1975.
Above: Ian with a Twin Otter. at, Mitiaro [approximately 150NM NNE of Rarotonga], Cook Islands, 1979.
Above: An Air New Zealand Fokker F-27 Friendship, as flown by Ian in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s. The photo was taken in 1981.
Above: The Cathay Pacific Lockheed Tristar as flown by Ian in the 1980s.
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