He is John Pheasant. He fixes and flies aeroplanes, his own Tiger Moth biplane. This Pheasant is a flyer by name and by deed.

'I am the only pheasant that needs four wings to fly.”

He married Gloria Bird. I kid you not. Bird became Pheasant. They nested and had a brood of three.

It doesn't end there. The Pheasants have feather patterned wallpaper on their stairwell. 'I saw it and had to have it,” says Gloria.

The handrail on the stairwell is fashioned from an old wooden wing spar. Another of Gloria's flights of fancy, which came to her in the dead of night.

The stairwell leads from their front door on believe-it-or-not, Dakota Way, to a two-bedroomed apartment about the size of a first-class air cabin. The apartment is perched atop an aircraft hangar.

The hangar is home and the hangar home is at an airport. Tauranga Airport.

They're in on the joke, even though you would think after half a century of marriage the Pheasants and the Birds would be well sick of all the avian and aeronautical nonsense making. But they mischievously perpetuate it, and I suspect, quite enjoy it.

But we're not here for word play, we're here to talk about gentile retired folk living out the golden years in a glorified garage at a major controlled airport – a whiff of avgas, screaming Pratt and Whitneys, banged up against your neighbours and no views?

So what's in it for a girl? 'Not a lot,” says Gloria. 'I have to admit, not a lot.”

'Yeah, not a lot,” agrees John.

Does she share John's passion for aeroplanes? 'I have a support role,” she says.

And what about the anomalous allocation of resources here – John has a 2100m2 hangar or 'cave” as he calls it, and Gloria's space is a 78m2, two-bedroomed mezzanine apartment, a hotel room, an afterthought, tacked onto an aircraft hangar.

She must begrudge that?

'Yes, at times I do. I would like more space.”

And there would be better places to live. 'If we were rich this could be hobby home and I could have a house with garden.”

So is it a selfish existence? 'To a certain extent. It's an aviator's existence” says John. But no more selfish than golfers or sailors.”

A friend once asked her why John needed so much space and she replied 'because he is a man, that is why”.

And it's mostly men on the airport, of course. 'Men who are passionately involved with aeroplanes and flying,” says Gloria. 'And men who have lost wives because of it, I suspect.”

John laughs, but then he can afford to laugh.

And she is neither bitter nor resentful. Not in the least.

'Because it was all going to be temporary, wasn't it?” But it's been 10 years of temporariness so far.

Then you have to consider this: John's sitting there thinking what a beautiful afternoon it is. Then he will say to Gloria 'Shall we go for a fly after dinner dear?” And they just wheel BFF out the backdoor and go for a fly.

Yes, Pheasants soar after dinner and watch Tauranga settling for the night. And that's a wonderfully romantic notion. 'It is for some of us,” says Gloria. 'How many pensioners on a fixed income could even contemplate that?” Not many I suspect.

But if the Pheasants didn't live in a hangar, they couldn't have afforded BFF – the blue 1940 Tiger Moth sitting down in John's cave.

'BFF is six months younger than me,” he says proudly of the old World War II trainer.

And if John wasn't an aeronautical engineer, that would have changed things again. 'We just wouldn't be able to afford it.”

There is, of course, a love story smouldering here. But not with Gloria, not only with Gloria. BFF was received free as a heap of rubbish – completely dismantled, a spares package. But John set it aside in the garage for 30 years while they raised a family. Then he spent three years getting it into the air. It's a fourth child – or is it the first child?

John was an Australian sea scout who grew wings. He was doing bob-a-jobs for sea scouts when he was apprenticed as an aeronautical engineer fixing flocks of Tiger Moths orphaned by the end of World War II. There was no need for the trainers.

He came to New Zealand for metal experience – 'Because the top dressing industry was bending aeroplanes all over the place. We were scraping them off hill sides and repairing them.”

And there just happened to be a young farm girl called Gloria, who would lie in a paddock and watch 'little yellow Tiger Moths buzz about over Bell Block aerodrome near New Plymouth” where John worked.

Gloria is straight up. 'When I met him I didn't think he would be around for long.” But soon they will celebrate 50 years of marriage.

Interesting their first home was a rented one bedroomed flat at the Bell Block aerodrome. Life's gone a full circle. She is back at an airport. 'Yes, I took a wrong turn somewhere in life.”

Gloria likes Tiger Moths and is grateful to them, from both a wife and mothers perspective. 'Yes, because they were reliable. They bought John home every time. He took the kids flying and it bought them home too?”

And she is attuned to Tiger Moths.

'I'd have to say the Tiger Moth just chortles away rather nicely. It doesn't scream or whine.” But chortle? By definition to laugh or chuckle with satisfaction. Listen to a Tiger Moth – she has nailed it.

The Pheasants both play – John with aeroplanes and Gloria with Bay of Plenty Symphonia. 'Piano-wise I love playing Beethoven and orchestra-wise, the French composers, Bizet especially.”

As she puts it, 'I have re-engaged with my music” and is rehearsing for a concert. Life at the airport has also give her space, peace and quiet for another passion. 'I have done more reading these last ten years than I have ever had time for.”

Peace and quiet? At an airport? Time to dispel a myth.

'No aircraft noise, no traffic noise, no industry noise,” says Gloria.

They are half a kilometre from, and at right angles to the runway. Aircraft take off and land into the prevailing wind which carries off the noise. 'We can hear them start up and taxi if we listen hard,” says John.

A bigger noise problem came from down the road beyond the airport. The loaders at the log overflow depot would grab some logs and then back up. 'Beep, beep, beep all night,” says John.

Airports and aircraft have been kind to John Pheasant. They have provided him with a career, a passion and a lifestyle. At the pinnacle he was ticking off the air worthiness of 747's for Air New Zealand – a huge responsibility. And he's still fiddling with aeroplanes in his own cave.

'If I was to fail my medical or if Civil Aviation nailed me for something, then I would quite happily give it up and say to heck with you.”

Then the lapsed sea scout could reconnect with his first love: buy a little boat and go fishing.

'But when the weather suits boating it also suits flying and I prefer to fly.”

Even in their seventies they see the airport as an 'interim place”. They have more chapters to be written.