Yay! Published again..

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

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

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...

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...

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

Some visitors to the airport...

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

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.