Short Sunderland in New Zealand service

The Short Sunderland was developed as a long range maritime reconnaissance flying boat and was widely used during the Second World War. New Zealand purchased four Sunderlands in early 1944 for use as transport aircraft but did not receive them until the end of that year. They were operated by the Flying Boat Transport Flight of the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) from February 1945, carrying cargo and repatriated New Zealand military personnel from the South Pacific back to New Zealand. They soon began carrying paying passengers and in late 1947 the Sunderlands were transferred to the New Zealand National Airways Corporation. Used on passenger routes between Auckland and Fiji for a few years, they were eventually returned to the RNZAF.

The RNZAF acquired 16 more Sunderlands in 1953 and these equipped Nos. 5 and 6 Squadrons, operating from Fiji and New Zealand respectively, to carry out maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine patrols. The Fiji-based aircraft were also used for search and rescue missions. Some Sunderlands were also used by the RNZAF's Maritime Operational Conversion Unit, based at Hobsonville in Auckland. Considered to be obsolete by 1960, they began to be withdrawn from service a few years later. The last operational flight for a Sunderland of the RNZAF was in April 1967. The majority were scrapped although two still survive, one as an exhibit at the Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland, New Zealand, and the other in the collection of the aviation enthusiast Kermit Weeks.