WONZ 343 – Flying Boat Month – Paul Dalley

Guest: Paul Dalley, aka Seaplane Paul

Hosts: Dave Homewood

Recorded: 10th of January 2026

Released: 1st of February 2026

Duration: 3 hour 52 minutes 49 seconds

In this extra-length Wings Over New Zealand Show “Flying Boat Month” episode Dave Homewood speaks with Paul Dalley, who grew up with aviation around him thanks to his grandfather Ian Henry, a well-known propeller maker.

Paul talks about learning to fly, his adventures flying his Piper Cub in Japan while running a language school there, and flying air displays there with fellow Kiwi pilot Robert Fry and others. He talks about flying in Australia where he’d planned to buy a tourism flying business and how things changed. And flying in Papua New Guinea.

And then he ended up purchasing a Lake Buccaneer in New Zealand and he took it up to Vanuatu and achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a flying boat pilot in the Pacific, just like Jake Cutter in one of his favourite childhood television shows, Tales of the Gold Monkey, and the 1992 film Porco Rosso.

Paul has some wonderful adventure stories and ells of some seriously scary moments in the air, in Japan and in the Pacific. He has real insight into the joys of flight too. So sit back and listen to the stories of Seaplane Paul.