First flight across Cook Strait
The first successful flight across New Zealand’s Cook Strait was completed on 25 August 1920 by Captain Euan Dickson of the Canterbury Aviation Company, alongside C.H. Hewlett and J.E. Moore. Flying a 110‑hp Le Rhone Avro 504K, Dickson departed Sockburn Aerodrome, Christchurch at approximately 7:00 a.m. The aircraft made an unscheduled stop near Kaikōura due to strong northeasterly winds, then continued via Blenheim before crossing the Cook Strait. It landed at Trentham Racecourse in Upper Hutt around 2:10 p.m., with a total elapsed time of just over seven hours and an estimated flying time of about 4 hours and 40 minutes. Three days later, the same crew completed the first return flight from north to south. The flight carried the country’s first official inter‑island air mail and represented the first successful inter-island crossing by airplane in New Zealand.