BFR. Done.

I managed to do my BFR [Biennial Flight Review] today! I took up the Wellington Aero Club's Piper PA28-161, ZK-MBG since that is what I have been flying most recently.

Somewhat surprisingly, the weather was good enough [and that's surprising given the howling gales of the past few days!], although far from perfect. In some ways though a bit of turbulence, wind and rain just made for a better check ride.

As for the manoeuvres, it's fair to say I was put through just about everything the instructor could think of: Short field takeoff, slow flight, medium turns left and right, steep turns left and right, compass turn, basic and advanced stalls, FLWOP, low flying [including steep turns left and right, precautionary landings and coastal reversal turns left and right], return to Wellington for circuits including short approach, flapless landing, precision approach and an EFATO. The air was lumpy enough to keep me on my toes, and a wee bit of crosswind to keep me awake on short final.

Lastly, was a few pages of paperwork, including general and aircraft specific knowledge and decoding TAFs for Wellington and Nelson [why did I get the day with loads of "BECOMINGS" in it?? Arrgghh!!]. Lastly a few oral questions [yes, I know that Va increases with an increase in weight] and I'm done.

Now, if you don't understand all the aviation-geek terminology... never mind. Let's just say it was 1.5 hours of work, occasionally funny for the instructor and mostly fun for me! Now to find some fun places to fly to over the next two years. Ideas anyone? :-)

Windy, quiet and no BFR flight

The past few days have been very windy. Yesterday we had wind gusts over 100Km/hr [60 miles/hr for those of you who haven't yet got with the rest of the world :-)]. Nothing unusual in that for Wellington, as it happens many times every year. It does make for interesting times in aviation though with flight delays, cancellations and hairy rides in and out of certain airports.

The other impact is that it pretty much closes down aero club operations... even lighter winds than what we have right now can serious hamper our operations. This is mainly to do with the fact that we have a lot of terrain around, so with strong winds, maybe big crosswinds [crosswinds were up around 30 knots at one stage earlier today], it's just too dangerous. Oh well. Better safe than sorry!

The only downside for me was that I was going to take my BFR [Biennial Flight Review] flight today. I need to do this every two years [yet another regulatory requirement], but if the weather is nice enough I'll do it Monday instead... otherwise, sometime next week.

Being a long weekend even the airline schedules have been significantly reduced. I did manage to get a few photos of this Air NZ/ Mount Cook Airline ATR72-600 [ATR72-212A on the CAA website], ZK-MVB. Hopefully I'll have more photos over the next couple of days!

Air Chathams Convair

There was no flying for me today, but parked up outside the aero club is this Air Chathams owned and operated General Dynamics Allison Convair 440/580, ZK-CIF.

Masterton and back

I was not expecting to fly today, but when the opportunity came up to head over to Masterton with another pilot and to fly back, I decided to take it. We headed over in Wellington Aero Club's Piper PA28-161, ZK-MBG.

Masterton itself is is a "large" rural town about 45 minutes flight time [in a light aircraft] to the north-east of Wellington and is a great place to visit for often un-congested skies, a nice airfield and with the possibility of seeing some fairly exotic aircraft from time to time. Nothing exotic was seen today but it was a nice flight anyway.

Photos are [top to bottom]the Rimutaka Ranges [including the Rimutaka Hill Rd] as we crossed towards Masterton, a couple of Masterton aerodrome as we joined to circuit and one of the aircraft. The final photo is of a Cessna 172S, ZK-NAV, registered to Nelson Aviation College, which was visiting Wellington.

Peter Jackson's Gulfstream G650 and my flying...

... no, not me flying in the G650 :-)

Today's picture is my first of Peter Jackson's new Gulfstream G650, and the latest aircraft to carry the ZK-KFB registration marks. The aircraft is registered to Execujet and is based at Execujet's Wellington facility. The photo's not the greatest, but I'm sure I'll get better in the near future.

In other news, I went flying today in the aero club's Piper PA28-161, ZK-MBG. Today was just a chance for some dual [ie: with an instructor] practice at the manoeuvres I'll need to demonstrate for my BFR [Biennial Flight Review] which is due next month. Manoeuvres included turns, stalls, a forced landing, low flying and some circuits. Awesome fun!

Mid week update: something a little different from Japan

Here are a couple of photos of an Airbus A320-214, JA808P, of Peach Aviation, a low cost carrier based in Japan. These photos were taken at Osaka and Naha Airport, Okinawa [ICAO: ROAH] earlier this year in August.

I think you'll agree that the livery is pretty awesome - especially compared to the some of the more common liveries we tend to see in New Zealand. Thanks to John for sending them in!

Extra post: RAAF and RNZAF Boeings

A big thank you to Jack G for sending me this picture of an RAAF Boeing 737-7DF (BBJ) and an RNZAF B757-2K2 parked up at Wellington last Thursday [3 October 2013].

The identity of the B737 appears to be A36-002 and the B757, NZ7572 [thank you Roy for the update].

Central Hawkes Bay Aero Club visitors

In addition to the Australian Falcon 2000EX in my last post, there were some light aircraft visitors to Wellington today.

The two most interesting one were from the Central Hawkes Bay Aero Club, a Cessna C172P, ZK-FGJ
Cessna A152, ZK-ETJ. These two aircraft and the six occupants came for a visit including some airport facilities.

The last visitor was a Piper PA28-151, ZK-TGF, which is registered to an Auckland address.

Australian Falcon visitor

Today's exotic visitor was this Australian registered Dassault-Aviation Falcon 2000EX, VH-KRW and registered to a company called Brenzil Pty Ltd of a Queensland, Australia address.

I can't seem to find anything much out about the company [google search etc], except they are involved in finance and investment services and maybe some loan brokerage, so if anyone know anything more or why it was here, I'd love to know.

Anyway, here are the pictures. Enjoy!