Very interesting, Ian. Those ex-WW2 pilots---many of them veterans of the Battle of Britain---became legends in this country, justifiably so. Their death rate was unfortunately very high---one of the worst hazards was the long wires that farmers had strung up from hill to hill in places like the King Country and Taranaki, in order to move hay bales to otherwise inaccessible spots. The wires were almost impossible to see, and the farmers sometimes forgot they were even there, so the topdressing pilots encountered them unexpectedly.

One pilot described negotiating these almost invisible, lethal wires as like flying through the wires at the back of a piano.