The transition from piston power to jet engine would have been an amazing era. Nazi secrets and radical ideas, boffins and brave test pilots. Todays plane, as we continue our build up to Wings over Wairarapa, is another design marvel, the de Havilland Venom.

Only four years after world war two, when piston power won the air war, this design flew for the first time. Entering service with the RNZAF as loaned aircraft alongside the Vampires soon afterwards.

The image above was captured at Wings over Wairarapa in 2019. The plane is ZK-VNM, which was built in 1956 and flown by John Luff, it is currently  based in Whanganui.