My new message pads at work

One of our managers here gave me these to use for passing messages on.. Aren't they nice!! :-)

Another aviation gaffe on TV

I saw last night's episode of Bones, and saw yet another aviation related mistake on a TV program. They mentioned more than once the victim had a Cessna Turboprop parked up. Next thing we see them examining the aircraft in question, and lo and behold it's a Cessna 340! Which most definitely has piston engines. TSIO-520's according to my lookup of the aircraft on landings.com.

Why can't these people get simple things like this right??? It's blatantly obvious to anyone who knows the first thing about aircraft! Grrrrr!!!!

Now **that** is how a Cessna 150 is meant to go!

A day at Raglan

I’ve been wanting to take some photos at Raglan for a while, and didn’t want to drive, so I booked JGP, and when Saturday dawned nice and sunny, I dragged Euan along and off we went! We did a bit of a detour as Euan had been talking about getting some video of the coast south of Raglan from 500ft for a while, so we headed south, and helped by a gentle descent and a nice tailwind, we had a groundspeed in the 160s. Euan shot some video, and we headed north to Raglan, where we heard a guy on the radio trying to land and having to repeatedly go around, which he later told us was due to pedestrians and their dogs on the airfield. I did a rather embarrassing Hot ‘n High (TM) approach and landing, and we went into town. I got the photos I wanted, and after lunch we headed back and flew home. Our tailwind turned into a headwind but we were still back in 15 mins thanks to us getting our act together early (5 miles from the edge of the zone), and a helpful controller who cleared us straight in. Having a fast aircraft helps – our 180hp 172 cruises at 125 easily.

Euan shot a fantastic video of my landing at Hamilton which I keep playing over and over and over :-)

All in all, an excellent way to waste a Saturday morning!

Mutt Muffs

Just been reading a thread on rec.aviation.piloting regarding flying with your dog, and someone mentioned doggy headsets. So I did some digging and found Mutt Muffs


Have a look at the customer gallery - they just look bizarre, but if I was able and willing to take my dog flying I would definitely get one of them, or the noise in the cockpit would probably be excrutiating for her.

The best use I have seen for a helicopter!

Click here to see a helicopter being used to open beer bottles. Right on!!

Here is another good use for a chopper - spreading bits of itself across the countryside!!

Just some random aeroplane photos

Arrow DQV


C172 DXO


C172 WAM


Alpha WJH

If anyone cares, all of these photos were taken with matrix mode, -1/3 exposure compensation, cloudy WB, saturation +2. I find Canon cameras in particular overexpose in contrasty light, and I just leave it set to -1/3 pretty much all the time. Otherwise the white of aeroplanes gets blown slightly. Times like this I wish I had Nikon gear :-)