A photo with a story attached..

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

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

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...

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...

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...

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

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.