Today marks 100 years since World War I veteran Captain Euan Dickson completed the first flight across the Cook Strait, with bonfires lit in provincial towns to guide his way.
The flight in 1920 from Christchurch to Trentham, in Wellington, was carrying the first air mail between the South and North Islands.
A Fox Moth, with a RNZAF NH90 flying chaperone, will depart Christchurch International Airport, flying past the Air Force Museum of New Zealand at Wigram.
It will then fly over Kaikoura, Omaka, and then across the Cook Strait and land at Trentham Racecourse in Upper Hutt this afternoon.
Pilot Aaron Patchet speaks to Corin Dann.
