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

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

"Fly Better" part 1 released

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

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

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

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..

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

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