New Site for this Blog

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...

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!

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

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

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

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.