A "new" Jetstream and other airliners...

It was yet another awesome weather day at Wellington, so I headed out to get some photos. I wasn't disappointed with some pictures of a "new" British Aerospace Jetstream J32, a Beech C90A and a Boeing 737-8FE.

The Jetstream J32 is ZK-VAH and is registered to Vincent Aviation. I understand that this aircraft is used on charters for Eagle Airways when one of their Raythean B1900D's are not available... I'm sure that Vincent Aviation would be happy for you to charter it also :-) This aircraft was formerly ZK-ECN, and more recently, VH-OTH.

The Beech C90A, ZK-FDN, is registered to Garden City Helicopters, and is used as an air ambulance.

Lastly, the Boeing 737-8FE, ZK-PBM is registered to Virgin Australia Airlines (NZ). I imagine that it won't be long before the bright red paint scheme disappears, as the aircraft are gradually re-painted in the Virgin Australia scheme.

Four airliners and a rescue chopper

It was another day of fantastic weather in Wellington today... juts a pity that I could not afford to go flying, but my time will come :-). At least a number of other Club pilots got to go and commit aviation and have a lot of fun! As for me, I'm saving for a holiday, so I'm being just a wee bit careful with the expenditure, but I'm hopeful to have some photos from the other side of the world at the end of September :-)

Pictured today are the Westpac Rescue Kawasaki BK117 B2, ZK-HLF, registered to Helilink, followed by 4 airliners:

Raytheon 1900D,  ZK-EAH, registered to Eagle Airways

Boeing 737-33A, ZK-NGR, registered to Air New Zealand

Boeing 737-8FE, ZK-PBL, registered to Virgin Australia Airlines (NZ) - 2 pictures

Airbus A320-232, VH-VGQ, registered to Jetstar Airways

Enjoy!

Mainly lighties

It's easy to see the difference between the weather today and what we had last weekend! Last weekend was grey, gloomy and raining, today has been bright and dry.

Needless to say, there has been a lot of Club flying today, including Piper PA28R-201, ZK-EIF, which hasn't been flying for a couple of months. Also, we had a Canterbury Aero Club visitor, in the form of another Piper PA28R-200, ZK-DUY. The difference between the -200 and -201? The -200 has the slab wing [sometimes also called the Hershey wing, because it's shaped like a chocolate bar!], and the -201 has a more complex shape.

Other aircraft included Cessna 172R, ZK-NAD from Nelson Aviation College, and lastly, something a little bigger, Aerospatiale-Alenia ATR72-212A, ZK-MCP, of Mount Cook Airline with its plain white rudder.

Enjoy!

Flying the BAe 146 with Vincent Aviation

What follows are a couple of really neat videos from the cockpit of the Vincent Aviation BAe146-200, ZK-ECO, and includes from footage from New Zealand and Australia. These are awesome videos, especially the arrival into and departure from Queenstown!

The first of these was shared with me a few weeks ago, and I really enjoyed both of them. I hope you do also!

Windy and Wet in Wellington

The weather forecasts for this weekend were accurate [unfortunately]. Windy and wet is the order of the day. The temperature is at the forecast high of 15 degrees, and the surface wind at the airport has been up around 45-50 knots at times.

In short, a nice winter day :-)

Clearly there was not going to be much in the way of light GA flying happening today [although I did see a Cessna 208 Caravan take off], and Wellington airport, being rather dead on a normal weekend, was certainly fairly quiet today. However, to give you a flavour of what it was like, here are a few photos of aircraft that were operating.

Top to bottom are:

Boeing 737-8FE, ZK-PBJ, registered to Virgin Australia Airlines (NZ)
Boeing 737-838, ZK-ZQC, registered to Jetconnect [part of the Qantas group]
Bombardier DHC-8-311, ZK-NEQ, registered to Air Nelson
Aerospatiale-Alenia ATR72-212a, ZK-MCJ, registered to Mount Cook Airline
Airbus A320-232, ZK-OJF, registered to Air New Zealand [2 pictures]

and lastly, a picture of a Boeing 737 emerging out of the gloom on short final.

BTW - I should mention - these photos were taken early-mid afternoon today - yes, it really was that dark and gloomy!

Qatar Boeing 787 video

For something a little different, here's video of a Qatar Boeing 787 validation flight at the Farnborough airshow. What makes this different is that it includes imagery from a FLIR setup. What struck me was the lack of heat emanating from most of the aircraft, except the engines and APU, cockpit windows, pitot [or other] sensors and what might be one of the emergency exit doors on the right side [near the end of the video].

Thanks to Flightglobal for sharing the footage. Awesome!

Airliners at Wellington

It has been another fine day at Wellington with lots of aero club flying  happenning [including another successful PPL flight test]. The weather today has been pretty much perfect with little wind - just a bit of a chill in the breeze which is expected for mid winter :-)

Here are a couple of pictures of various airliners. Top to bottom are:

Bombardier DHC-8-311, ZK-NEC, registered to Air Nelson
Airbus A320-232, VH-VQT, registered to Jetstar Airways
Aerospatiale ATR72, ZK-MCC, registered to Mount Cook Airline

Enjoy!

Another good day for flying

Today was another good day for flying, with the Aero Club busy all day. I didn't get up myself, but it was good to see the rest of them enjoying themselves [especially a certainly student pilot who scammed a couple of rides in the back of Nanchang CJ6. I have a photo of him looking "guilty", but I promised I would not share it... we'll see :-)].

Pictures today are:

Cessna 172S, ZK-CTZ, registered to CTC Aviation Training
Piper PA28R-200, ZK-DJA, registered to a Nelson address
Boeing 737-3U3, ZK-NGD, registered to Air New Zealand