Remembrance Day 2008 # 1: Got there and Initial Pictures

In my last post, I indicated that the weather was not too good for the trip to Masterton/Hood Aerodrome for the Remembrance Day flying display. The Wellington ATIS* was reporting a surface wind of 340 deg, 25 knots, gusting to 35 knots and the 2000' wind was 330 deg, 32 knots. This may not sound too bad, except that Wellington consists of, and is surrounded by, a multitude of hills. Also, due to cloud, we had to travel south of the ranges positioned to the east of Wellington, so we anticipated getting a hammering.

Not the sort of day to take the uninitiated up for a pleasant scenic!

At this point, I should mention my passenger. Rochelle is a forecaster with the Metservice, has a CPL and made me promise not to say anything mean about her on this site [paranoid, perhaps??? :-)]! So I wont! No need to anyway - it's hard to beat having a decent pilot who also understands the weather really well, sitting next to you on a day like yesterday! :-) Thanks for coming!

With some help from ATC** we were given a higher than normal altitude to depart at and surprisingly missed all of the really big bumps on the way out. There were just a [fairly] gentle series of ups and downs once we headed north from Palliser Bay to Masterton. Masterton itself was a lovely day, with the wind sitting around 5-10 knots, occasionally gusting a little higher.

All in all, a good flight. Arrival at Masterton consisted of a Standard Overhead Rejoin*** procedure [when I say Standard Overhead Rejoin, I realise no one outside of New Zealand will know what that means... oh well!], a passable landing, then parking up for the day.

Anyway, on to the pictures. Here are a series of pictures of the aircraft on the flightline. These are not all of them, and I'll have some more up in later posts, including a large number of aerial shots. I just have to finish sorting through the 190-odd that I've kept!

Top to bottom are:

- Stampe SV.4

- The flightline, DH82a Tiger Month followed by Pfalz DIII, then 3 Fokker Dr. 1 Dreidecker then others

- Fokker Dr. 1 Dreidecker

- Nieuport XI

- Bristol F.2B Fighter

- Sopwith F.1 Camel Scout

- Se5a Scout Experimental

* ATIS - Aerodrome Terminal Information Service

** ATC - Air Traffic Control

*** Standard Overhead Rejoin - [usually] the preferred joining procedure in New Zealand for an unattended/unfamiliar airfield, especially if the circuit in use is not clear [ie, no existing circuit traffic] or there are a large number of aircraft in the circuit.