Friday, March 23, 2007

Bye bye Tupolev

The Polish Tupolev TU154M left Wellington earlier today. As with its arrival, there was a lot of noise [awesome!] and a fair bit of excitement on the ground also. Quite a few people turned out and lined the fence to get a look at the departure.

The first shot is not a great picture, but does show the amount of dust kicked up by the blast from those three engines as they spooled up! The next one is just after takeoff, and then climbing out [with the undercarraige still retracting]. Enjoy!

Tupolev TU154M
Tupolev TU154MTupolev TU154M

Thursday, March 22, 2007

More Dornier DO228 pictures...

After my initial post of a couple of days ago, here are some more pictures of the Air West Coast Dornier DO228. As in my last post, this is the only DO228 in the country at this time, although apparently there were some around a few years ago.

This aircraft is very very nice inside. There are only 14 passenger seats installed [down from a maximum of 19 that could be put on], so there is heaps of leg room. The seats are comfortable also. I'm not sure what the noise levels would be like with a couple of Garrett turbo-props just outside the windows [and it is extremely noisy outside when it starts up!], but I'm told it's not too bad.

Outside, it has a huge nose [baggage compartment] and is quite square, but still a really nice looking aircraft.

Enjoy the pics!

Dornier DO228
Dornier DO228Dornier DO228Dornier DO228

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Neico Aviation Lancair 320

Here are some pictures of a Neico Aviation Lancair 320 at Wellington. This is a stunning example, with a fantastic finish and a good VFR setup inside. The Lancair website has plenty of good info on this, and other Lancair products - http://www.lancair.com/Main/. Nice!

Neico Aviation Lancair 320
Neico Aviation Lancair 320Neico Aviation Lancair 320Neico Aviation Lancair 320

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Tupolev TU154 of the Republic of Poland visits Wellington!

Wow! This is a bit different to the usual run of Boeing and Airbus [and a range of smaller type] airliners to visit Wellington.

Earlier today a Russian built Tupolev TU154 of the Polish Airforce landed at Wellington. I only went to the airfield in the morning to go for a short flight to Martinborough airstrip [a privately owned strip in the Wairarapa - the owner is very friendly, just give him a call before hand if you want to visit!], but I'm glad I stayed until a bit after 3pm.

It's noisy, reasonably ugly and spews forth vast quantities of contaminants into the air - those attributes in and of themselves qualify this as a Russian designed and built plane :-) As usual, for details of this aircraft, check out Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-154.

Anyway, here are some pictures of this event. The first one is just there to show the smoke trail being left behind on final approach. The rest of them give a better view of the aircraft itself. Note the Polish titles on the left side fuselage, and the English on the right. Enjoy!

Polish Tupolev TU154 - smoke trails!Polish Tupolev TU154Polish Tupolev TU154Polish Tupolev TU154

Monday, March 19, 2007

Dornier DO228

This Dornier DO 228 [registered as ZK-VIR] is a one-of-type on the New Zealand register. In fact, according to the operator's website, it only came "on line" today.

Details are available on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_228

Dornier DO 228
Dornier DO 228

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Light stuff at Wellington

My digital camera is back from the repair shop. Strangely, although they say that it was tested and they found nothing wrong with it, it is now working better than ever. Awesome....?!!

Anyway, here are four pictures of some lighter types at Wellington. Top to bottom are:

ZK-HKP - Robinson R44 Raven on a private trip back to Taupo
ZK-TSD - Piper Seneca II on an air ambulance flight
ZK-EIF - Piper Arrow III just back from a private flight
ZK-JNE - Piper Tomahawk - one of the Wellington Aero Club basic trainer fleet

Enjoy!

ZK-HKP - Robinson R44 Raven on a private trip back to Taupo
ZK-TSD - Piper Seneca II on an air ambulance flightZK-EIF - Piper Arrow III just back from a private flightZK-JNE - Piper Tomahawk - one of the Wellington Aero Club basic trainer fleet

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Vought Corsair F4U

I'm waiting for my digitial camera to be repaired [under warranty] at the moment, so I have not got any images from my recent flying. I did however pick out these beauties from my Wings Over Wairarapa trip.

The Vought Corsair is [in my arrogant opinion!] one of the most impressive looking aircraft ever built! Not the prettiest, just impressive.

Top to botton are the aircraft taxying, just after takeoff [notice the gear is still retracting], an in flight turn, and lastly, one of the better shots I took on the day, during a high speed pass.

Enjoy!

Vought Corsair
Vought CorsairVought CorsairVought Corsair