Flying for Dummies

New Site for this Blog

2011-12-27T13:06:00.001+13:00

Hi all

This blog has now moved to my homepage, please visit me there at www.cjnielsen.net/flyingblog where there are fresh blog entries, photo galleries, and more. You can grab an RSS feed from my site to continue following my flying blog.

Thanks all

Chris

RIP Ken Fenwick... And some aerial photos...

2011-01-18T21:10:00.011+13:00

Recently Ken Fenwick sadly passed away. He was an absolute legend who flew in WWII and was our CFI from the mid 50s to the late 70s, and I believe was still giving licenses out in the 1990s!! Our club patron from 1967 till present, I have a copy of his Fenwick Flying Manual, and he was a regular bar patron until a few months ago, where he would remember everything you had talked to him about even months before. Sharp as a tack, he will be much missed.

As a tribute to Ken, the Aero Club arranged a formation flyover at his memorial this Saturday just gone. The formation was to be three Archers and a 172 in what I would call a diamond shape (forgive me but I know very little about formation flying) followed by three Robins in a V shape. The aircraft would do a pass over the memorial then the four seaters would leave and the Robins would do another pass, with the lead aircraft pulling up to leave a hole for the 'missing man'.

I asked to come and photograph the formation, and the best place I could find was in the back seat of the left aircraft in the front formation. Having never done air to air photography it didn't occur to me to establish which way the formation would be turning, so most of my shots have the formation obscured by right wing. There was also no chance to get a spot in a Cessna, so I couldn't open the window, hence my shots needed a lot of work in Photoshop to make them presentable. The aircraft behind were impossible to see, so I just shot the front formation.

This was all a big learning experience for me, next time I will be much better prepared. Bring on next time!

So, here's the photos, hope you like them.
Shot with Nikon D90 plus 20-35 and 70-300 VR

The other two Archers in the formation shown here

UFS banking left

High contrast shot of WAM

Slightly less dramatic shot of WAM

Closeup of an Archer and it's hard working pilot

Robin formation breaks away to do it's display

Archers starting to line up for landing

I'm back!

2010-12-12T15:51:00.005+13:00

I can't believe my last post here was February! That's really slack of me :-)

Not much has happened for me in aviation over winter - I've not flown, not taken any photos, been too busy with other things. Now I've gone and gotten current again, and bought a DSLR for aviation stuff, well I'm back baby!

I've got some pics here for you from the recent Warbirds Open Day at Ardmore

Tauranga airshow photos

2010-02-22T22:25:00.006+13:00

I've been a little slack in posting about our Tauranga airshow trip. Suffice it to say it was a nice flight there and back, and a very well run airshow. Here's a few photos of the show:

Eagle Air open day photos

2010-01-23T22:02:00.005+13:00

From my backlog of shots that I'm finally scanning - these are from Eagle Air's open day last November, where the public was allowed to clamber through and around their Beech 1900D airliners. Got to sit in the pilot's seat, cool! Some images for you...

Titan Mustang photos

2010-01-21T21:06:00.003+13:00

Sorry for the lengthy delay since the last post, I've been waiting for my new scanner to arrive so I could get some decent image quality, and now it is here I'm busy rattling through my backlog of images.

Anyway, one of the local flying instructors has just finished building a Titan T-51 Mustang. He's spend so many years slaving over it I think he might be a bit nervous about actually taking it flying!!!

Hopefully I will have a chance to take some aerial photos in the not too distant future.

Catching up on my photos: Te Kowhai fly-in

2009-12-20T18:36:00.007+13:00

Sorry for the long silence on the blog folks, I've had a crazy few months. Catching up on posting my photos now, this is from a month or two back. Te Kowhai had a (private) fly-in to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the airfield, and two of us managed to accidentally gatecrash the party. Oops!

Photos from my 1950s camera here, I thought that would be fitting, since the aircraft are mostly at least that old.

Runway opening display

2009-09-22T22:28:00.008+12:00

At Hamilton Intl (NZHN), the new runway has just been unveiled, or at least the partial sealing of one of the grass strips. Along with the 1000th locally built aircraft being delivered, this called for lots of boring speeches by boring politicians and a nice little flying display. Note it was *not* an airshow, but we don't mind if we have planes flying round. The 750XL and the Fletcher were just awesome - the 750XL taking off in about 2 plane lengths and demonstrating a *very* short landing and ability to reverse on the ground. The Fletcher was an awesome 8 cyl powered beast! Both aircraft did some pretty hard core displays.
Our Alphas did a 3 ship formation then one split off to do solo aeros, not sure if I got any photos of that, but it was the standard awesome Noel Kruse aerobatics display. Here's some photos of the show for you:

CT/4:

Some Bantams:

Some Alphas:

A Fletcher 400:

750XL:

And after the display the aircraft were parked up at a nearby cafe:

A few people turned out...

The view from above...

Our mayor doing the talkytalk...

Small announcement

2009-09-13T15:12:00.002+12:00

Hi all

I've been tinkering with writing a logbook program, and I'm just letting you know that the first version is ready to go. It's open source (free) and I encourage everyone to download it, have a look and if you like it let me know. It's not version 1.0 yet but it's stable and should just be missing the odd feature. Please tell me what features you think it's missing!!!!

Main download page is here. Windows XP/Vista version is up now, the Mac version should be up there shortly

Thanks all...

From wired magazine: Ancient Jet Keeps the U.S. Air War Flying

2009-08-24T19:00:00.000+12:00

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/08/the-eisenhower-era-jet-that-keeps-the-air-force-aloft/

"Fly Better" part 1 released

2009-08-11T13:00:00.002+12:00

Hi all

I'm here to tell you all that Noel Kruse, our club's advanced aerobatic instructor, ex-RAAF wing commander and all round good guy (plus one of the world's highest time Robin/Alpha pilots) has released book one of his "Fly Better" series.

It's available for FREE on the web at: www.flybetter.co.nz

Just thought you would all like to know about this

D-Day in Tauranga

2009-06-13T22:02:00.007+12:00

Hi all

Went to D-Day in Tauranga with one of the lads last weekend, highly enjoyed myself! Similar to last year's effort, they had recreations on the ground and in the air, plus "handling displays" from the various choppers that were just awesome! Yaks and Harvards did excellent aerial displays, the only issues were the Yak that had an engine failure the day before and landed in the golf course, and the ME108 which caught fire once it landed and parked up. Nothing major, thankfully.

Here's some snaps for you, random order as per usual

(photo geek details: taken with either a Nikon F5 + 300 f/4 + 1.4 TC, or a Nikon F80 + 80-200 f/2.8, both with Fuji Superia 400, using manual exposure metered off the grass, not that anyone cares :)

Suffice to say, I'm extremely pleased with how these images have come out. Please click on them and view them large!

Up close with a Pitts

2009-06-03T19:14:00.004+12:00

I spent some time up close with Noel Kruse's Pitts S2-S and took a few photos for the club newsletter, here for your viewing pleasure. This aircraft was originally one of a three ship aerobatic team, the Royal Jordanian Falcons. After a midair collision which destroyed two of he three, the remaining aircraft was sold, eventually to Noel. He brought it with him from Australia when he emigrated a year or two back.

Epic Fail with the Jungle Jet at NZHN

2009-05-07T22:50:00.003+12:00

Hi all

Man this blog's a mess!!! I kinda screwed up with the photos of Whenuapai where I finished scanning them, posted them on Flickr, copied the links here, realised they looked horrid, edited them all in picnic, then realised it broke all the links here, furthemore realised I'd been using the scanning software wrong and need to rescan them now I've got the thing under control. And I kinda gave up on the reposting.. Also I have WAC open day photos I meant to post..

Anyway, this should keep you going.. Pacific Blue brought their Jungle Jet, aka Embraer 190 to Hamilton today, and I tagged along behind the invited guests and managed to get inside and even onto the flight deck. Then I got booted out when someone figured out I wasn't invited :)

The epic fail in the blog title?? Let's see.. Bring your nice shiny jet to Hamilton, park it in front of a crowd of dignitaries and important people, then find the air stairs don't fit and you can open any of the doors !!!! Hahahahaha!!!!

Had my own epic fail though - the carpark pay machine ate my change and I wasn't leaving without it!! The fire rescue guy had to walk over because the ute's in the shop and the fire truck won't fit through the gate!!!! And he had to disassemble the machine to extract two very sorry looking notes :)

Anyway, on with the photos..

Whenuapai photos..

2009-04-02T22:40:00.001+13:00

Well, one minute they were there and next they were gone... I managed to break every single link about an hour after posting the last image. Oh well...

Since nobody commented I can only assume that.. a) nobody reads my blog now or b) the photos sucked... Probably b) :-)

I will look at reposting the photos here tomorrow. Sorry about that folks!!!

WAC Open Day

2009-03-31T21:11:00.004+13:00

The aero club had an excellent open day this weekend just gone, lots of nice aeroplanes on display and we had some excellent pilots passing through who did a little display practise... Good number of people turned up, probably 400 or 500 at any one time. I spent the day up on the tower balcony, got some decent shots which I'll post tomorrow for you all, until then please have a look at my flickr set

Whenuapai last weekend

2009-03-29T00:35:00.003+13:00

Sorry to take so long to report back folks, been a crazy week.. I've just about processed all my photos, will post them as I get them through Photoshop.

This is the quick version as I'm still short of time, sorry.

Euan and myself, plus a couple of pax planned to go to the Whenuapai open day in Auckland last weekend, at the last minute getting aircraft switched for the one that's just come back from major repairs after being crashed into with a truck. Anyway, I digress. The weather was good, Euan flew well, when we got to Auckland I offered to do the radio, so he flew and I talked. Not sure I helped much but there you go.

The aircraft displays, both static and flying were mighty impressive! C-17 and F-18 kicked ass, the F-18 was so loud I think my eardrums gave up and went home :)

I didn't get to the C17 cockpit but did get into the Herc left seat, w00t !!!! Good stuff...

The c17 was handy as a sunshade all day as it was a touch warm there, and I had a great day shooting.. What more could you ask for??

Our trip back was slightly slower due headwinds, but we still got home before most of the cars got out of the car park...

I've been culling images but still have a shitload so I'm going to split them up and post by subject aircraft. Technical details for any film camera geeks out there: All aerials and long shots - Nikon F5 / 300 F4 / 1.4TC, all interiors shot with Nikon F80 / 20-35 F2.8, film was a mix of Superia 200/400, Fuji Pro400, Kodak Portra 800, and my fav, Kodak Ektar 100

Interesting video on tailplane icing

2009-02-16T21:54:00.004+13:00

Here's a video from NASA about tailplane icing, which may well have caused the recent crash in the USA. Check out at about 11:00 where they take an aircraft up with bits of foam strapped to the hori stab to simulate icing. at 13:00 minutes they tell you not to try this yourself and about 15:00 they experience a full blown tail stall.

Good thing for all us to watch methinks..

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2238323060735779946

More photos of our new Archer III

2009-02-08T14:04:00.003+13:00

One success, one failure...

2009-01-17T19:26:00.002+13:00

First the success: It's BFR time again!!!! While planning for my trip to the Masterton airshow I realised to my horror late last month my BFR was due on the 7th of this month. Gasp!! Then several bookings didn't happen due to unserviceable aircraft and other reasons. Last chance was this week, so I had them book me a couple of slots. The first on Wednesday went very well, including a practise forced landing that ended up with my landing the aircraft! Thankfully it was on an airfield!!

The next booking was last night, and I was very worried that due to feeling ill that day I wouldn't pass, but I managed to hold it together and passed. I'd already done my ground work so I submitted that and my logbook was duly stickered and returned to me ready for another 2 years.

Now the fail. Epic fail more like :-)

I had the Arrow booked for this morning, and I turned up at 8am and prepared to do my preflight while the latest weather was downloading on the flight planning computer. It took a few minutes to get the damp cover off and hung up to dry on the deck, and on with the preflight. When I got to the first wing fuel drain port I found it stiff and it only dispensed a trickle of fuel. When I released the sample container, the valve didn't close. Fiddling with it didn't help, and it was fair pouring onto the ground. An instructor was nearby and I called him over to look at it. He managed to reduce the stream of fuel to a trickle but the valve stubbornly refused to close completely.

I abandoned the aircraft and grabbed an Archer instead. That also needed a cover removed and a preflight performed. My passenger, also a pilot, offered to perform the preflight and I quickly agreed. I went and pulled the weather off the computer, quickly determined I'd be best to fly east to avoid the incoming front, drew lines on my map and worked out the headings to hold. All this was taking much more time than I was comfortable with, and bearing in mind my 8am start was designed to let us be airborne at 8:30 for an arrival before the 10am airspace closure at Masterton. Now we were pushing our 8:30 departure, had a slower aircraft and a significant (15 minute or so) detour. Hmm, not good!!!

By the time I had everything organised and stowed, then rushed out to the car for an item I'd forgotten, then gone back again for the key to the aircraft that I'd also forgotten, it was 8:35. I started the aircraft and called up for clearance, and was told to standby, so I taxiied out and headed straight for the run-up area. Still no word from the tower so I proceeded to do my run-up and pre-takeoff checks. I got to "controls full and free" before he called me back, so I rattled off my request. We were given a clearance with a taxi to the holding point we were currently parked at for a takeoff on the (sealed) runway 18, so I immediately called back with 'ready' and his response was to clear an Air NZ aircraft to backtrack and lineup on runway 36. Damn!! We have no taxiways here so those aircraft have to enter the runway halfway down and trundle about a kilometre, then turn around and takeoff. Damn!! I immediately requested the grass and was granted it, and prepared for a max performance takeoff (25 flap).

The aircraft got off the ground smartly and I held it level to build up airspeed to Vx then climbed out, reducing flap as we obtained a positive rate of climb then set heading on track. As we flew southeast, the cloud was a broken layer at 4000 ft or so, and it looked very ugly underneath. Bearing in mind it was supposed to clag in this afternoon, that was not a good sign! At any rate, I looked at my watch and it read 9:45. I reluctantly concluded our broken airplane had doomed our trip. Bugger!

We climbed up to 6500 feet once clear of airspace but by Taupo (30 mins flight) the broken layer underneath us was looking pretty overcast, which limited our options severely. This, combined with the holdup, the detour and the slower plane, meant we had no chance of making it. Bugger!!! I finally called it, and informed my passengers I was terminating the flight. They took it well, and we agreed that since Mt Ruapehu was near, we could do a scenic around it and go home. My passenger did a bit of flying here and there, and we had a nice scenic, of which I will post the photos I took if you ask me.. We flew home on the map + VOR + GPS and had a nice smooth flight home, at least until my top of descent when we shot down under cloud and it got a bit rough. Other than that we had an uneventful flight home. I think they enjoyed it, but it really sucked that the plane broke down and ruined our day.. Oh well.

Some photos of the new Archer

2008-12-27T22:44:00.002+13:00

Well, our new baby has arrived at the aero club, a nice shiny Archer III. 2003 model, 350 hours on the clock, and DUDE it's nice! Here's a couple of snaps for you...

A random recent photo...

2008-12-17T08:04:00.002+13:00

Climbing turn in an Archer. Shot with my fav point&shoot camera, a Olympus Stylus Epic. $20 on trademe :-)

A recent visitor..

2008-12-16T22:41:00.002+13:00

Nice Comanche!!!

New Tamron TC joins my kit...

2008-12-13T22:12:00.003+13:00

Just visited Auckland today and picked up a Tamron SP AF 2x Teleconverter to be used with my Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 and Nikon 300mm f/4 lenses. First impressions are fairly positive, but it does make the 80-200 autofocus hunt a lot, especially on the long end. I haven't tested it in bright light yet, nor have I got sample images back either, but I'm warming up to it. We'll see how much of a hit the image quality takes, but I'm sure that because I'm using good lenses with it, I should be reasonably happy with the images it makes. We will see!!

Update: Dec 15th

I've tested the TC in the field and there is good news and bad news. Good news is the image quality with the 80-200 2.8 is surprisingly excellent! Sample images below. Bad news is the AF hunts too much to be useful for shooting aircraft. Bummer!

I've returned it and swapped it for a 1.4x converter. Bad news with that is I was forced to return it in person. Cue 3 hour drive and an afternoon off work. Which is not all bad news! Further bad news is instead of pocketing the refund for the difference I ended up buying even more stuff :)

Warbirds open day

2008-12-11T19:16:00.010+13:00

I wasn't going to go to the Warbirds open day at Ardmore last Sunday, but Euan twisted my arm and convinced me to go. Sunday was a glorious day so we grabbed FWS and shot up in the morning nice and early. At Ardmore were a lot more aircraft than I was expecting, including these:

There were also the usual suspects, including the ME108 and NUT, both of which I was very happy to see..

Then we had the Harvards, which did their usual thing...

The photo above looks like a bad case of lens flare but if you look close it's actually a smoky engine start...

The Thunder Mustang was a welcome sight, looking beautiful in the sun as usual. The hangar was immaculate, and the coffee was very nice as well! Big thanks to the Thunder Mustang team for making us feel welcome!

Unfortunately even though the Spitfire looked very nice it broke down just before it's scheduled display and wasn't able to be flown. Damn shame!

Some nice cars and planes were around the place, here's a couple...

Evan posing beside FWS... I don't think he saw the camera in my hand, and I suspect he wished he could fly back with us :-)

Just a photo on the way home of Hamilton central city from the air..

Sorry for the image quality on these, I had the lab do me a CD to save time... Looks great at 6x4" but not much chop fullscreen. Oh well...

I'm a winner! Yay!

2008-11-30T12:36:00.004+13:00

I'm very pleased to be able to say that I won NaNoWrimo this year!!!! What's that, you ask? Oh, just write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days!

I completed my 50,000 words this morning so I'm a winner!! Now, back to catching up a month of real life that's been piling up! Oh, and I should probably sleep as well..

This was about as good as it gets...

2008-11-16T12:16:00.002+13:00

I hadn't flown for a month or two so decided to go on Saturday, and invited 3 friends to come with me. Originally we were going to go to Tauranga in the Arrow for a $100 hamburger, but the Arrow became unavailable at the last minute, and I realised on Friday that due to the regionals this weekend, Tauranga would be a really bad place to try and go to. So, on the day I ended up with WAM, our (now 180hp) 172R, which I haven't flown since it got the new engine, and we decided Pauanui would be the go. Weather was scattered cloud @ 3500ft, wind approx 060 @ 10kt.

I went out and got current, then came back and put enough gas in to make it there and back with 45min reserve, and drew lines on the map, worked out the heading etc. My passengers and I piled in to WAM and we fired it up. I decided that even though we would only be in controlled airspace for maybe ten or fifteen minutes, that I should call up Control and get clearance up to 5500. I have never done this before, at least like this, so I was keen to try it out - when I called up from the ground and asked for clearance to Pauanui, I asked for that clearance @ 5500. The controller told me he'd sort out a climb for me later. We took off and headed out IAW the departure procedure, and we'd barely levelled off at 1200 ft when we got the go to contact Control. I did so, and we were cleared up to 5500 ontrack. Woo Hoo!!

The flight at that altitude was well above the clouds, and very smooth and cool. The plane went well, and before I knew it we needed to begin our descent. The landing was a little challenging but I think I pulled it off okay - did a bit of a greaser. We all then went to the shops for lunch, and after that and a walk down the beach, it was time to come home. As we were near MAUW I did a max performance takeoff, and we were off with no problems whatsoever. We came home at 4500 ft, and I executed a steady descent pretty much all the way to touchdown.

All in all, this was about as good a flying day as I could have hoped for...

A few photos from Black Sands

2008-11-01T20:20:00.007+13:00

Popped in to the Black Sands Flyin at Raglan today - was pretty windy (15kt xwind) and there weren't too many planes there, but here's a few piccies of them.

Some photos from Avex

2008-10-17T22:02:00.003+13:00

Some photos of the aircraft at the recent AVEX expo here in Hamilton.

Some recent photos

2008-10-16T20:55:00.005+13:00

Here's a few recent photos I thought I'd better post before they get too old. All look much betterer viewed large.

First, a couple of recent visitors..

Now some from the recent club comps...

And finally a couple of shots I took of one of our famous flying instructors while experimenting with my new wide angle lens...

Aero club Annual dinner..

2008-10-14T21:29:00.002+13:00

I should have blogged about this a bit earlier.. Naughty of me!

Anyway, we finally had our annual dinner, which was a roaring success, as usual.. Thanks to fellow blogger Rodney, we hooked up with Rob from the Thunder Mustang outfit.. He couldn't quite swing it to bring the plane down, but he still entertained us!! Brought his certificate from the FIA to prove they have the record for AA-CH, I think he said like 1 hr 45 or something stupidly quick like that! He gave us an interesting talk about the preparations for the record attempt then the actual attempt itself. Facinating stuff, he went down really well with our members.

Here's a couple of crappy photos of the event:

Watch for helicopters when taxiing...

2008-08-16T13:36:00.001+12:00

Not my idea of fun...

2008-08-16T13:13:00.001+12:00

Link: The 50 Hottest Women in the Olympics

2008-08-05T13:36:00.001+12:00

You *know* you need to see this...

Click here

Night flying lesson #2

2008-07-22T21:34:00.002+12:00

Last year I only had time for my first night flying lesson, this year I'm going to finish off the rating. This Monday I had a lesson booked, which looks like it's going to be the only good night this week.
Anyway, I had an Archer booked, and my instructor had to go get current first, so by the time he got back it was well dark. I started up and then found that even with the landing light on, I couldn't see squat in the dark. The aero club has a very bright automatic floodlight that makes it very hard to see to taxi, especially with the windscreen fogging up.

I'd had a joyride last year, so this time we got straight into circuits, and to begin with I was really crap. Thankfully after a solid hour of circuits, lots of orbits (thanks to Air NZ and a certain Rice Rocket), some short approaches, approaches with and without the PAPIs, and lots of landings of various levels of violence, I was starting to get almost good at it!! I found it interesting that the landing technique at night seems to be a case of: raise the nose and wait for the 'arrival' :-) This is the closest we will get to carrier landings, methinks...

I have 2 hours of solo night flying remaining, plus 1 hour of either dual or solo and I'm rated. Woo hoo!

DC-3 at Aeromotive

2008-07-16T11:10:00.002+12:00

As I was arriving for work on Sunday evening at the club with my old Olympus SLR in hand, the Auckland DC-3 landed and parked at Aeromotive so I thought I'd take a photo. The light was fading so I'm quite pleased with it, really.

FAA plan to reduce runway incursions: Install traffic lights!!!

2008-07-15T10:37:00.000+12:00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Aviation Administration announced measures Monday to improve runway safety, including the installation at major airports of lights that signal pilots when a runway is safe to enter.

Acting FAA Administrator Robert Sturgell said at a press conference that severe runway incursions are down.

The announcement by Acting FAA Administrator Robert Sturgell comes amid criticism of FAA officials by federal lawmakers and others over an alarming rate of runway incursions at airports.

"Severe runway incursions are down," Sturgell said in remarks prepared for delivery at a morning press conference. "And, we're putting technology and procedures in place to keep it that way. We're making changes on the runway and in the cockpit that are going to make a significant difference."

Sturgell was also expected to face questions about two near-collisions in less than a week at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

The near-collision on Friday -- involving a Delta Air Lines and a Comair flight -- prompted the agency to immediately change the way takeoffs and landings are sequenced on perpendicular runways.

In December, congressional investigators warned that air travelers face a high risk of a catastrophic collision on U.S. airport runways because of faltering federal leadership, malfunctioning technology and overworked air traffic controllers.

Since 1990, 63 people have died in six U.S. runway collisions. Monday's announcement was aimed at reducing runway incursions, defined as an event in which any aircraft, vehicle or person intrudes in space reserved for takeoff or landing.

2nd possible near collision at JFK in a week
The FAA's previous definition of "runway incursion" did not did not include serious runway errors such as the one that led to the August 27, 2006, crash of a Comair jet in Lexington, Kentucky. The pilots mistakenly traveled down a runway too short for takeoff and the aircraft crashed, killing 49 of the 50 people aboard.

The runway safety system announced Monday involves lighting systems to be installed at 21 airports over the next three years. The lights change color to signal when a runway is safe to enter or cross, according to a description posted on the FAA's Web site.

Airports selected for the program are Atlanta, Baltimore-Washington, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago-O'Hare, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Ft. Lauderdale, Houston Intercontinental, John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Newark, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle and Washington-Dulles

Fun with cross processing

2008-07-10T21:47:00.006+12:00

I've been having fun with cross processing (E6 slide film processed as C41 print film). The colours and contrast go haywire, it's awesome!!!

The first few photos are related to the aero club - the first one is two of our regulars standing in front of the new bar, but I think I should probably post some normal photos of the bar at some stage, it's a bit hard to tell from this !!!

The rest of the photos are just random shit I thought might look interesting.

Enjoy!

Some photos from the truck protest

2008-07-05T19:33:00.004+12:00

Okay okay, so what if Auckland had 2000 trucks and we in Hamilton only had 100 ??? Still was cool to see a line of 100 trucks driving past my work.

All these photos shot at 7:30AM on Friday morning on nice grainy 800 speed film...

Some more random photos

2008-06-27T10:34:00.003+12:00

Scanning in my recent batch of slides, I found some photos that might be of some interest to you all so here you are....

Our pilot's lounge

VH-PIG, an aerobatic champion aircraft that lives nearby

Aerial shot of Hamilton City - click to view large

Cockpit of my fav aircraft, DQV - Piper Arrow II

A local car sales yard's company runabout...

See, even the flowers take maintenance :)

A burned out house near work that I though was photogenic

Just to prove all my photos aren't rubbish :-)

2008-06-23T22:07:00.002+12:00

After a bit of disappointment as to my Barrier photos (still learning how to choose an appropriate film), here's some Velvia I shot at Taitua Arboretum and Hamilton Gardens. They look real nice on a light box, these scans are a little dull by comparison, but here you go anyway...

D-Day

2008-06-23T21:04:00.006+12:00

A couple of weekends back, I drove to Tauranga with Euan for the Classic Flyers museum D-Day celebrations, and I took a few photos. I'm still scratching my head as to which film to use, this was also quite hard to scan in.. These photos are in no particular order. Enjoy!

Barrier photos part 3: Landscape shots

2008-06-21T17:53:00.004+12:00

These are the landscapes that I could get to scan to a reasonable standard - they look better large.

Barrier photos part 2: Claris & Tryphena

2008-06-21T17:40:00.004+12:00

A couple of aircraft spotted at the airfield, the local fire department and the place at Tryphena that we had lunch at

Barrier photos part 1: Barrier Lodge

2008-06-21T17:13:00.006+12:00

Some photos of our newly renovated (well, in 2005) club lodge at Claris. What a wonderful location to have a place at the beach !!!!

Barrier - take 3 - Success!

2008-06-21T15:12:00.003+12:00

After a couple of attempts that we had to abort due aircraft issues, last Saturday we made it to the Barrier finally... The weather forecast looked like it was going to be okay, with only light showers forecast for the afternoon, so we decided to go. The trip up was nice and smooth, and thankfully uneventful. A squall to the west of the airfield didn't look to inviting so I decided to have a crack at a straight in on 28 which worked fine as the wind was completely a crosswind. We were on the ground and stopped in about 400 metres which was nice.

I then told my SLF (Self Loading Freight) that I'd hired a car, thinking that the smallest, cheapest rental car would be a good idea, and then we found out what the roads were like!!!! But still, even though the car felt like it would fly to pieces, it made it, and we got to see the island. We had lunch in a nice place at Tryphena and then fought our way up past Okiwi airfield to Port Fitzroy, which turned out to be pretty uninspiring, then back to Claris. We also had a look round the club's lodge, right by the airfield, which I've stayed at many times but my pax hadn't seen.
We knew that ECT is pretty early this time of year so we raced back to the plane and got going. A friendly GBA pilot told us that Blind Bay was now clear, so we took off out to sea, and once I cleaned up the plane and set climb power we turned around and tracked back over the field and out Blind Bay. I stopped climbing at 1000' as we heard an incoming GBA Islander at 1500 and passed underneath him, which looked pretty cool. Weather was just as predicted, with a few showers around Thames way, but directly on track was completely clear so we had a clear run back to Hamilton.

We switched to Hamilton frequency about 20 miles out and could hear stacks of Fieldays air traffic all buzzing round Hamilton keeping the controllers very busy so I got my radio call in ASAP, about 17 miles out. Our clearance took us right over the city at 1700 which is always fun. On finals, we were told to make for the grass, but an aircraft that wasn't paying attention thought I was lining up for the seal and proceeded to line up for the grass. I think he must have looked out the window and seen an Arrow a few feet away, and all I saw was a flash of white off the left wing and got a hell of a fright when I saw him at what looked like 50 feet away, peeling off to the left!!! I then looked ahead just as we flew through a flock of about 30 birds, which saw us and scattered! The little buggers were swooping and wheeling to the left, right and all over the damn place!! Thankfully we didn't hit any, and the landing was uneventful.

I'll post some photos shortly - the light wasn't terribly conducive to nice photos and my scanner software couldn't cope with the deep shadows, but US$39.95 fixes that problem so I've got some scans finally for you.

AVP2: Don't bother...

2008-06-17T13:15:00.002+12:00

Watched Alien vs Predator 2 the other night.. Man, what a disappointment after the awesome original AVP... The sequel was more like AVP meets Dawsons Creek.
Until this movie I don't think I'd ever watched a horror movie where I was rooting for the monster to win and kill all those dumb and annoying teenagers. I got so bored that I switched it off by Act 4! This a good example of how to make a movie so badly that the audience couldn't care less about the characters!

Oops, another Chinook bites the dust..

2008-06-05T22:08:00.001+12:00

No, I haven't got anything against choppers, but they do crash well...

Chinook ground resonance test gone wrong

2008-06-05T22:04:00.001+12:00

A few more photos from the other day

2008-05-24T22:39:00.005+12:00

Got a few more here from Barrier Trip #2 that didn't make it onto my blog last time.

Hamilton city

Another of Hamilton City

Believe it or not the airport's there somewhere...

Somewhere near Hamilton

Definitely somewhere near Hamilton!

About to touch down...

Darth Vader's latest personal transport - the Death Star (TM)

Ferrari vs Smart car (take 3)

2008-05-22T19:15:00.001+12:00

Geez, something's rotten in the state of YouTube, both the last 2 vids I linked to didn't work..

Shit, crap and bollocks...

2008-05-18T11:26:00.002+12:00

Or words to that effect.

We tried for the second time to get to the Barrier. We is myself, Euan and his partner Susan. Last time we got 200 ft in the air before losing a mag. This time we got halfway there before the engine lost power. We're talking several hundred RPM, and it was surging bigtime. Several minutes with the carb heat hot didn't do a thing so Euan decided we should stop at Whitianga, and I can't say I really blame him. A phone call was made to the aero club instructors, and after a brief powow we decided to take off, see how it went, and try and make it home. Damn thing ran smooth as on the way home!!!

I've made the executive decision that next time, I fly and we take the Arrow. This is really starting to piss me off.

Here's a small selection of photos I took on the day, was very bright so lots of reflections off the windows. I will have a few more when I finish off the roll of film that's in my compact at the moment. Of these photos here, the first town is Morrinsville, the second is Thames. P.S. All these photos taken on a $5 Olympus Trip 35 using film I got free :)

Shameless self promotion (again) !!

2008-05-05T19:24:00.003+12:00

I figure instead of bothering my family and workmates all the time I should just get it out of my system on my blog :)

Found out today that my photo of the F-111 that I entered in the Classic Flyers Museum photographic competition has won the "People's Choice" award!!! This is the photo I entered :

Yay! Published again..

2008-04-29T22:06:00.003+12:00

Finally got a photo of mine published in a place someone's likely to see it... The South African based World Air News' April 2008 edition has a story in it with a photo of mine supporting the text.. Here's a terrible scan of the page for you:

The photo is from my visit to SportAvex 2008 in Tauranga. Original photo is here

Some misc items to catch up on

2008-04-23T09:10:00.004+12:00

Been a little while since I posted, a couple of things have happened. Thought I should post about them.

1) Got my motorbike back yesterday from getting the gearbox replaced, the attached scan of the last registration sticker it had before going in should give you an idea how long it's been off the road. No, the shop hasn't had it since 2006, but they *have* had it since February!!

2) Made a very brief visit to Wellington to coincide with the WN aero club's open day that I had no idea was on, which of course I completely missed.. Oh well...
When I say brief, I do mean brief! I left Hamilton at 3:30AM on Sat morning, drove through the night, got to WN at 9:15AM, went to Armageddon until 1:30 then drove home, via Palmy where I visited someone I have been meaning to visit for a while, then finally made it home at 9:30PM. Slept in.

How to destroy two Columbia 400's

2008-04-06T10:05:00.003+12:00

This link here is a story from the guy who writes X-Plane, about how he's managed to wreck two lovely Columbia 400's without even being near them! Interesting story...

Last Sunday's flight...

2008-04-02T22:26:00.004+13:00

Last Sunday I took a couple of my relatives flying - was my uncle's birthday and he likes flying so it worked out well. Nothing too dramatic to report, was a standard flight to Tauranga in JGP, our 180hp 172. We had a look through the museum, had a drink, I dropped my photos in for the competition the museum's running, and we came home. The reason I'm blogging this, is the hilarity that ensued when the trainee Tauranga controller tried to give me a clearance - for those of you not familiar with the area, Tauranga is pretty much east of Hamilton, and it's 42 miles, which is a nice quick flight. We overfly Matamata halfway there so there's a bit to do. Anyway, I climbed up as high as possible to give me more range on the radio, got the ATIS, and called up 20 miles west of the aerodrome (the control zone starts about 13 miles out, so I gave myself plenty of time) and announced that I was 20 miles west at 3000 ft, and asked for joining instructions. The clearance I got was "Make a Matakana 1 arrival, track to the Mount harbour entrance" (Matakana island is to the north of Tauranga). I read it back and then set about working out how in the world I could arrive from Matakana without flying a massive diversion to the north. A few seconds later the controller called me back. Conversation went something like this:
"Juliet Golf Sierra, confirm you've just passed Matamata"
"Affirm"
"How about we give you a Racecourse 1 arrival instead?"
"That makes a bit more sense, thanks."
"See, we're looking out for you guys"

Of course my passengers heard this and great laughter was heard from the back seat :-)

Another F-111 Dump and burn photo...

2008-04-02T22:22:00.003+13:00

Trolling through my archive of Ohakea photos and came across this one I liked the look of. Enjoy!

Some visitors to the airport...

2008-03-31T19:39:00.003+13:00

Here we have a PAC 750XL, ZK-JDQ, which has been purchased by a company in Berlin to do meat-bomb dropping. Two of them are out here getting NZ licenses and XL ratings and they will be flying it back to Berlin. I forget if they said 12 or 14 legs to get it home. That's dedication!!!!

Also we have an Air NZ Dash 8 I snapped while testing my new (old) lens out... Looks nice in the evening sun.

Waikato Microlight Club Open Day

2008-03-30T08:33:00.007+13:00

One of the two local microlight clubs which has a lovely *long* airstrip and hangar very very close to the city had it's open day yesterday. There were dozens of microlights, helicopters and light sport aircraft, things like Zeniths and Aerosports, the latter being a very sexy machine I didn't get a photo of :-(
A lot of the machines were giving rides, I missed out on a ride in my chosen machine because I'm too tall apparently, but the rest of them were coming and going nonstop, and most of them beating up the strip after takeoff. Cool!

Phil Hooker turned up as well, with his Bell 47 and one of his C152's, in which he did an awesome display that had the crowd gasping at times - he went up a few thousand feet and did an aerobatic display complete with loops, rolls, stall turns, etc, and as he did so he got lower and lower until he was at 500 ft or so, and proceeded to fly down the strip just about sideways - cool stuff! He then climbed to the circuit (500ft) and did his circuit and landed with the engine completely stopped. He then had to restart in order to taxi back :)

Good stuff, I'll be going back next year for sure.

More from Ohakea

2008-03-27T22:59:00.002+13:00

Some slides I shot at Ohakea, just got them back today, these are the good ones

A few more photos from SportAvex 2008

2008-03-27T21:37:00.006+13:00

Here's a medley of photos for you from SportAvex 2008 at Tauranga. These are some that I took on slide film which I was very slack and hung on to until last week. Thought I'd post them anyway, but I got another 3 rolls to go through so they're not in any sort of order. Hope you enjoy them anyway.

2 more F-111 pics

2008-03-27T20:52:00.001+13:00

Looking through my 700 remaining photos from Ohakea, I picked out a couple more F-111 pics for you all...

Woe upon me for using Epson scanner software :-)

2008-03-25T21:31:00.002+13:00

One thing I have found as I'm learning about scanning negatives is how badly my scanner does some films. I've just rescanned one of the frames I previously posted, thought I should put the new version up. Well, it's not quite the same frame but close - I like this a whole lot more. Sorry for the stuffup folks, such is life...

Ohakea: F-111

2008-03-22T20:56:00.004+13:00

And now we have the grand finale - the awesome, mind bendingly loud F-111 from the RAAF. This has to be the loudest aeroplane I've ever heard, I'm very impressed!!

In F-111 language, a fast pass = 980 kph!

Nice and clean under the fuse...

Inverted pass - nice!

We thought he was just going round, but then...

Dump and burn, baby!

Ohakea: Yak Aerobatics

2008-03-22T20:54:00.002+13:00

The Yak's were awesome as usual...

Ohakea: P-3 and DC-3

2008-03-22T14:40:00.003+13:00

Ohakea: P-40, Corsair, Vampire, L-39 and Dragonfly

2008-03-22T14:28:00.003+13:00

Ohakea: Red Checkers

2008-03-22T14:21:00.003+13:00

I wasn't even going to take photos of these guys as they're the same every year, but I think these photos came out alright...

Ohakea Open day - Iroquois photos

2008-03-22T14:03:00.004+13:00

Feels like 1971 again!!!

Bad looking dudes coming...

Scary looking dudes up close...

Does my bum look big in this???

Ohakea Ground display photos

2008-03-22T13:41:00.006+13:00

A very shiny C130!

A long long line to wait for the Herc

Memories from when we actually had an Air Force

I can't quite figure out what the Police were doing there, but they seemed to be having a good time :)

What's this button do?

Very nice MX2 - I want one!

Ohakea Open Day

2008-03-22T11:50:00.002+13:00

Well, I've been very slack, and taken a week to write this - my effort here is going pale in comparison to Rodney's fantastic effort, but at least you get a bit of a story and a few photos - sorry!

Last Sunday would have been a quick trip to Ohakea for the open day turned into a marathon drive because our plane broke down. Typical. Thanks to Euan for offering to drive us down in his car. We left at 5:25AM from Hamilton and arrived at Ohakea at 10:15, just in time for the flying displays. It was great to finally meet Rodney but I am a bit worried of what he thought of me as I was fair festooned with gear :-)

I was most impressed by the Air Force's organisation on the day - the excellent ground displays included a very shiny Singapore Air Force C-130, which had a line at least an hour long all day - I got to get up close to a Skyhawk, which was nice. The flying displays were awesome, there was something going from the moment we got there until the time we left, and it finished with the awesome F-111 display, which was more than enough reason to drive five hours each way!

SportAvex Photos

2008-02-19T20:28:00.005+13:00

SportAvex 2008 mini report

2008-02-19T19:53:00.003+13:00

My first airshow of 2008 was this past weekend's SportAvex at Tauranga airport. I'd been looking forward to going to this for some time, and we initially were going to go over in DQV, the Arrow. This was canned at the last minute as the aircraft was going to be stuck in maintenance, and luckily JGP, our 180hp 172 was free. Myself, Aaron and one of the stalwarts of the club, Mike Cuming, took JGP over, while Euan and Gavin went in FWS. We happened to be ready to go before Euan so I led the way, and it was kind of cool to look back and see one of our aircraft following us. There was confusion over the chat frequency, which we cleared up before the return flight, so we weren't able to talk to each other, but I was able to follow his progress as we both reported at Matamata then Tauranga. On the way in, I got my call in mere moments before some turkey who had no clue how to talk to a tower managed to block the frequency and Euan had the first of several holds on the way in, poor bastard! I was damn lucky with my timing, and were on the ground very quickly. The guy in the Follow Me quad bike buggered off in the other direction so we had to fend for ourselves for parking. Shortly after parking up, the plonker who held up the frequency on the way in decided that he wasn't just going to park in front of us, he was going to see just how close he could get without clipping us with his wingtip.

Anyway, onto the show... The static aircraft were nice, didn't seem to be quite as many as last time, but there were some nice aircraft parked there, including a prototype Falconi (is that right?) on it's first ever public outing. One major benefit of getting in early (we landed 9.15) was we could take our time and look around and not miss the stuff flying past in the afternoon. I felt quite unwell most of the day (headache plus heat plus dehydration) and my heart wasn't really in the photography side of it - by 3pm I just couldn't be bothered, but I did get a few good shots, which was nice. I enjoyed the MX2, flown by the chap who formerly had ZK-NUT - that guy's just crazy!! The Vampire and P51 were just awesome, as you'd expect, and all in all it seemed quite a good show. We lost Mike halfway through - it took him so long to get back to the plane for his folding chair he decided to stay there - smart move there Mike!!

The announcer merits a paragraph - he was a good, talkative announcer, who got the odd fact wrong, talked in the middle of the otherwise silent glider display, and had some odd fixation with "High Intensity Strobe Lights" - seemed like he mentioned it 3 or 4 times for every aircraft, while the rest of us were wondering if anyone's *ever* spotted an aircraft because of it's lights! I got so pissed off with this, that by halfway through, to the lads' amusement, I marched over and told them to tell him to knock it off. That only worked for half an hour and he was again on about the damn High Intensity Strobe Lights! Argghh!!!

The return journey looked to be nasty, with a strong wind on the ground, although the trip back was in fact very smooth. We got going as soon as possible, closely followed by Euan. The guy in line in front of us in a Titan Tornado did the reputation of microlights absolutely no favours at all - he had to be told twice to line up, and after being told twice his clearance and "cleared for takeoff", there was about a 30 second delay then we heard him get on the radio with a faltering call "romeo sierra romeo... is.. ready.." Again he was told his clearance and finally got the message. Thank God he was going a different way to us!!!

A couple minutes after we took off, Euan got going, and we were at last on the same frequency - it was good to know where he was, and that he could see us. Something to do with High Intensity Strobe Lights, methinks :-)
I think that in the climb to 3500 over the Kaimais he caught up to us somewhat, but in the descent back down we managed to get away from him - I think maybe I was just a bit more gung-ho with the throttle.
Presumably just to make up for Euan getting shafted on the way over, a guy in a Beech 1900 managed to screw up Hamilton Tower's best laid plans for sequencing, which ended up with me having to go round and join back behind Euan for a landing on grass runway 25L. I was very happy with both my landings - the one in Tga on the reduced length grass (500m) had us down and stopped in 300m, and back in Hamtown I floated a little bit as I perhaps pulled the power back a tad slowly, but we were stopped in 400 odd metres.

A great day, thanks all for coming, especially to Euan for agreeing to take a second aircraft, that just freakin' rocked dude!

Holy cow! A plane that looks like a chopper!

2008-02-11T19:09:00.001+13:00

This is bloody interesting stuff - a aircraft that looks like a helicopter with wings, is designed to copy what a helicopter does most of the time - slow flight with great visibility. This here:

Is an aircraft with awesome visibility that will fly at 65 kt for over 7 hours!!!!

More crazy stuff...

2008-02-11T18:48:00.000+13:00

This is from Phil Greenspun's blog, well worth a read. Anyway, I found this article so shocking I thought I should post a link to it here..

It begins:

Now the trial lawyers have come for my new helicopter.

Continued here

Got something nice in the mail...

2008-02-09T16:05:00.000+13:00

Opened my mail today and I received an unexpected parcel - three complimentary souvenir books from Classic Fighters 2007, which included about ten photos of mine from the airshow that they've published. Cool!!!!

These are nice books, A5 size, and the full page photos look nice (even the two full page ones of mine!!) If anyone went to the airshow this is a nice way to remember it..

A photo with a story attached..

2008-01-30T20:52:00.000+13:00

This is a Cessna 152 that the club had online for a while. It was the plane that I picked on Dec 17 2003 on the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight, when we decided we just had to go flying that day of all days! Myself and one of the club members had a chat and decided we should do something we hadn't done before. We decided that 10,000 feet in a 152 was a good thing! I remember it was 13 degrees on the ground, so ISA conditions, and I also remember grinding slowly up to 10,000 feet. The controller couldn't grasp why I'd ask for 10,000 feet but not want to actually go anywhere!!!

So, almost an hour after takeoff, after passing the service ceiling for the aircraft many thousand of feet below, and while holding 65kt, nose right up, mixture 1/4 turn from ICO, we made it to 10,050 feet. This was the absolute ceiling, as in it absolutely wouldn't go any damn higher!!! Turning the mixture at all or pulling carb heat out at all resulted in a loss of 100 or so feet, and it just wouldn't go a single foot higher!!

Then we started down the hill, I suppose we could have shut the engine down really - instead we did lazy circles to keep the airflow from turning the prop too much... Finally we landed, 1.2 after takeoff!!!!

Visit to Waikato Microlight Club

2008-01-28T21:04:00.000+13:00

Not to be outdone by Rodney I've got yet more photos to post :)

I was out on Collins Rd on Saturday and ended up visiting the Waikato Microlight Club. This is an airstrip and hangar on a farmer's property that's within the Hamilton control zone, and they've been kind enough to arrange a little piece of class G airspace for them up to 500ft AGL. This is an impressive strip - 750 metres long, which is 100 metres MORE than we have at Hamilton airport!!!! It also runs east-west, so into the prevailing wind, which is handy. It's also got a lovely view of Mt Pirongia.

All photos here taken with a Pentax WR90 point+shoot 35mm camera (donation from one of the WAC members, thank-you-very-much!)

Hangar and a couple of aircraft that live there

Inside the hangar

Looking down the strip (view large is best)

Zenith microlight

Zenith panel

ZK-DXO, C172 with 150hp

Can anyone spot the cardinal sin being committed here?

Inside DXO

New Hamilton terminal building

2008-01-28T20:24:00.000+13:00

Forgot about these when I posted my last entry. These were shot on Saturday in the newly revamped terminal building when I shot over for a looksee - haven't been into it since they did it up. Much nicer, I must say... All shot on Olympus OM40 (or was it OM10?) with a 35-70mm f/4 lens.

Some photos from today...

2008-01-28T18:29:00.000+13:00

These all fly but not necessarily all aircraft...

A visitor from Ardmore

WTF is this little guy doing?

An ATR taxiing out (Yes Euan, I looked this time :)

Same ATR rotating...

Our military's response to the Japanese whalers...

2008-01-26T22:23:00.000+13:00

So, Helen Clark says that if the Japanese whaling fleet comes into NZ waters, the Orion tracking it will... take photos of it. You WHAT??? So we got rid of the Skyhawks and now we're reduced to taking damn photos of them?? What are they going to do.. drop Polaroids onto the Japanese ships??? "Look, we got photos of you"

Maybe we can drop Helen Clark on their ship - the sight of her would have them running!!

Now this dude's got a cool name...

2008-01-25T20:59:00.000+13:00

From stuff.co.nz today:

An unemployed man of no fixed abode pleaded guilty in Wellington District Court today to importing LSD and Ecstasy.

Judge Denys Barry remanded Megatron Eardley-Wilmot [subs correct!!] in custody for sentencing in the High Court on February 22.

The offences were committed between 2003 and 2005.

Alpha Aviation in liquidation

2008-01-23T21:48:00.000+13:00

Which is really really bad news for the whole aviation industry, not just for my good friends who work at Alpha, and of course there is the small issue of spares availability for the three club Alphas. Very sad.

This seems to be the theme with local aviation companies - I've worked for two, and got laid off at one and was on the list at the other when I resigned. This is the sort of shit they pull, with everything apparently rosy until one day the doors are closed.

Slightly belated 2007 roundup

2008-01-23T09:31:00.000+13:00

Now I’ve finished entering my hours from last year in my pathetic excuse of a computerised logbook, and inspired by reading Aaron’s year end roundup of his hours and highlights, I now present my year end summary (only a month late !!!)

Hours in 2007: 39.7 (Total Time: 222.6)

Time per aircraft:
DQV (Arrow) 11.5
FWS (Archer) 9.0
JGP (172) 14.9
UFS (Archer) 3.1
WAM (172) 1.2

Time with each instructor:
Ash: 1.2
Marie: 0.7
Roger: 3.0

Highlights for the year:
• BFR passed
• Arrow type rating
• Intro Night flight (the plane broke down halfway through the lesson and then we ran out of time to do more)
• South Island trip (Classic Fighters)

Goals for 2008:
• Lots more Arrow time
• At least one Barrier trip
• Alpha rating
• Aerobatic rating

I know I probably won’t get all that done but it’s good to set goals in aviation..

Not nice...

2008-01-22T21:41:00.000+13:00

Well, supposedly we were off to Waiouru on Sunday to visit the museum along with a couple of other clubs. This sounded like a bloody good idea to me, how often do you get to land at a military base?

So, the morning of the trip rolls round and we hear the other clubs can't make it, so the lads (Aaron and Euan) decide to head off somewhere, and who am I to avoid a trip in the back of a plane??? The destination chosen was North Shore, and I was chosen to fly the first leg. As it turned out the 35kt @ 2000 ft from the east made the trip pretty uncomfortable, and as we approached Ardmore and needed to descend to enter the Victor lane (our request to transit Auckland airspace having been declined) the turbulence started to become a lot worse, to the point where one of my passengers requested to stop at Ardmore, which I quite happily agreed to. As we were just passing the extended centreline all it took was a quick left turn and we were on early downwind. I thought we should get on the ground ASAP before my passengers went from uncomfortable to sick, and I decided to do a short approach, which required a decent bank onto finals and full flap, throttle closed and nose right down @ 80kt for a hell of a rate of descent with a 20 plus knot headwind, then for a solid landing. After parking we stopped for a rest and a drink then slowly made our way back to the plane. Euan flew us home, and did bloody well in the conditions!!!

Thanks to all for a jolly good day, even if we didn't get to our first 2 destinations, and the weather was damn nasty, but we still got to go flying and we brought the plane home in one piece.

Cheers chaps

Today's history lesson...

2008-01-18T22:48:00.000+13:00

From Wired.com:

Jan. 17, 1966: H-Bombs Rain Down on a Spanish Fishing Village

1966: A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber collides with its refueling tanker jet in mid-air over the Spanish coast. Its four hydrogen bombs fall to earth near the fishing village of Palomares.
The bomber collided with the KC-135 tanker at 31,000 feet. Exploding fuel completely destroyed the tanker, killing all four crew members. The B-52 broke apart, spilling its payload -- four Type B28RI hydrogen bombs equipped with 1.45-megaton warheads. Three hit the ground near Palomares while the fourth fell into the Mediterranean Sea.
Three members of the bomber's seven-man crew were killed in what became known as the Palomares hydrogen bombs incident.
Although the conventional explosives contained in two of the four bombs detonated, there was no nuclear holocaust. But there was radioactive contamination around the crash site, with plutonium scattered over 2 square kilometers. Around 1,750 tons of earth was excavated and shipped to the United States for disposal.
The bomb that landed in the sea went missing for 80 days and became the object of an intensive search by the United States, which was afraid the Soviets might try to recover it.
A local fisherman, Francisco Simo Orts, had seen it hit the water and was enlisted to help the U.S. Navy establish the basis for its search operation. When the bomb was finally found, Simo Orts turned up in New York with an attorney, demanding the salvage award he claimed was due him in accordance with maritime law.
The U.S. secretary of defense said the bomb was worth $2 billion. Simo Orts asked for $20 million, or 1 percent of the bomb's value, again in accordance with the custom of maritime law. The Air Force eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

747 runway over-run caught on security video...

2008-01-17T19:30:00.001+13:00

Oops, forgot a picture...

2008-01-16T21:28:00.000+13:00

Here's one for you Evan!! TYS in forground, Thunder Mustang in background...

Some interesting visitors to the club on Saturday...

2008-01-15T22:48:00.000+13:00

Thunder Mustang & Citabria...

Blocked sink causes 747 emergency...

2008-01-10T13:49:00.000+13:00

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

THE potentially disastrous power failure on a Qantas flight carrying 344 passengers above Bangkok was caused by a blocked sink in a galley, the agency investigating the incident said yesterday.

Flight QF2 - a Boeing 747 travelling from London to Sydney - lost power from all four of its main generators 15 minutes from the airport, and the pilot was forced to switch to battery back-up for the landing, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said.

The passengers arrived safely in Sydney yesterday, three days after leaving London.

The bureau confirmed last night that the power cut was the result of faulty drainage in the first-class galley of the 747-400, which resulted in water entering the generator control unit - the aircraft's central electrical distribution system.

Water from the blocked drain collected in a drip tray under the floor. A crack in the drip tray caused the water to leak into electrical wiring.

Each of the plane's four engines has its own generator, but the water shorted out the aircraft's power supply. A backup battery system was immediately activated.

The cabin crew on the flight will be interviewed as part of the investigation.

In a statement issued yesterday, Qantas's executive general manager, John Borghetti, said the aircraft's pilots had "handled this unusual situation in line with their training".

However, a spokesman for the Australian and International Pilot's Association, Colin Adams, said that those on the flight were "very lucky" the incident had occurred close to an airport.

"In that situation you have a minimum of 30 minutes before you lose power to the flight instruments," Mr Adams, a Qantas pilot, said. "After that the only idea that you have of airspeed and where you are in relation to what's around you is what you can see out of the window. There is no written procedure for what happens in that situation - it's the pilot and his wits.

"If you were a long way from an airfield at night it would be an extremely hazardous situation. If you were in cloud you would not know where the ground was and you could end up in an extremely dangerous situation."

Mr Borghetti said Qantas had inspected its entire fleet of 747-400s after the incident, with all aircraft cleared to fly.

However, Mr Adams said the fleet was nearing the end of its useful life. "These are 15-, 16-year-old aeroplanes that work 16, 17 hours a day. It's a bit like a car - a new one is always going to function better and be safer than an old one."

The director of aerospace at RMIT University in Melbourne, Arvind Sinha, said that a total failure of all four generators on a Boeing 747 was "unheard of".

"The engines have their own independent power source and the steering is operated by a hydraulic pump system, but the critical issues are the navigation and communication systems that you need to find your way to a runway to land," Dr Sinha said.

As news of the incident broke yesterday, the Herald received a number of reports of other technical problems on Qantas flights.

James Vozzo from Eastlakes said the take-off of his Qantas flight from JFK Airport in New York on January 3 had been aborted twice, due to a faulty cabin lock and a problem with the plane's braking system.

"We ended up sitting on the runway for 5½ hours and then they eventually had to cancel the flight," Mr Vozzo said.

Another Qantas passenger said that his flight had experienced power-generator problems that caused sweltering cabin temperatures

LWN visits Hamilton

2008-01-08T22:25:00.000+13:00

The same aircraft that visited Rodney visited me a week or two back (been slack uploading photos aye). thought I'd post a photo.

Some visitors to the club on Sunday

2008-01-07T21:35:00.000+13:00

A good number of fantastic looking aerobatic machines..

And a ME108. The sign in the back says it was manufactured in 1944 in occupied France, rebuilt in 1984 using a 300hp IO540 Lycoming

First casualty of the new year...

2008-01-01T19:45:00.001+13:00

My most used and most useful lens, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8. I was trying to extract my car keys from an armful of camera and lenses and down she went! 4 feet onto a hard floor and it just exploded!

I am quite gutted about this, really, as you might imagine. She served me well in her short life :-)

Some photos to start your year off

2008-01-01T01:14:00.000+13:00

Happy new year all..

Here's some photos to get you started this year - all taken on Sunday, developed in my bathroom cum darkroom tonight. I could have done it earlier, but what can I say - I'm lazy :-)

ATR lifting off... Photo credit: Euan Kilgour

An Archer, a Harvard and some Cessna in the way

A couple of likely lads...

Harvard 078

Closer shot of the engine + prop

My normal 172.. The Millenium Falcon

Short airplane landing Piper Cub

2007-12-28T21:59:00.001+13:00

Beer Tree: The Ultimate Christmas Project

2007-12-24T21:04:00.001+13:00

I feel very priviledged....

2007-12-20T10:13:00.000+13:00

Tauranga in the Arrow

2007-12-16T21:53:00.000+13:00

On Saturday myself and a couple of the lads ventured over to Tauranga in DQV, our Arrow. I hadn't flown for a month so went and did some circuits first, to make sure I was sharp, then by the time I got back they were there waiting for me.
We checked the weather again at ten, and it hadn't changed from the 7am weather - Tauranga's METAR was showing broken at 2500, forecast to increase to 3000 ft, with wind 040 @ 15 kt, although Hamilton was showing showers in the vicinity, which we could see to the north east, steadily moving south, so we decided to go while we still could. Some dodging of showers was required near Mt Ruru, then it was clear straight to the Kaimais. The gap was more than enough to fit over the hill, and we could see the Mount, so over we went, and got clearance straight to the city, and a short time later we were landing and taxiing round to the museum. We wandered in to the museum and had a look round, and since nobody asked us for money, it was nice and cheap :)
After a look round the museum we jumped back in the plane and shot back to Hamilton. Not much to report except for an average ground speed close to 160 kt. The good news was the whole trip was only 0.8, so it was nice and quick, not to mention cheap, and this is why I like going to Tauranga as it's far enough away (43nm) to get a good bit of speed up, but still quite a quick trip...

Anyway, enough from me, I think the lads enjoyed themselves and we returned the plane undamaged, so it's got to be a success aye!

When work sucks, watch some Happy Tree Friends to brighten your day!

2007-12-15T12:22:00.001+13:00