Lifeflight Air Ambulance

What follows are my first pictures of the Life Flight Air Ambulance, a British Aerospace Jetstream J32, ZK-LFW, since the Vincent Aviation receivership. The aircraft has recently had some additional decals applied, saying "Life Flight - Saves time. Saves lives" since I last saw it.

According to the CAA website, the aircraft is still operated by Vincent Aviation (in receivership), but in reality the crews are supplied by a company called Air Freight.

Big, noisy and wet!

Wellington Aero Club is based at Wellington International Airport. As such, the airport is required to provide fire/ rescue services and as part of that, the airport has a couple of brand new fire trucks. One of these was brought over the the Aero Club today, for members and families to take a look over.

Without going into all the details, these Rosenbauer fire trucks are made in Austria, designed especially for airport fire fighting, exported around the world, and Wellington has two of them! 0-80 km/hr in 30 seconds is quite impressive for a vehicle of this size [9.5 tons of water, plus foam, dry powder, hoses, pumps and other bits of kit, plus the truck and engine itself!]

Scott, the fire fighter who brought the truck over for us to look at, showed and talked us through much of the equipment on board. We were allow to look through the cab, before he gave us a demo of their ability to spread a lot of water around in a very short time. Many thanks to Scott for doing this for us!

Anyway, here are a few photos. They are all fairly self-explanatory... and yes, one of these is me sitting in the cab, wishing that I was allowed to press a few buttons!

Boeing and Airbus

Today's pictures are of a rapidly disappearing type, the Boeing 737-319, ZK-NGI. It won't be long until all of Air New Zealand's B737's are sold off or scrapped. Following that is a Jetstar operated Airbus A320-232, VH-VGA.

Apart from this, it was a bit windy today, so a little quiet on the GA-front with just a few flights, Tomorrow's weather is not great, so probably not so many aircraft photos tomorrow either. Having said that, all going well, I do hope to have something interesting to show you tomorrow. :-)

Not For Operational Use!

During a general tidy-up at the Aero Club a couple of weekends back, we discovered this old [out of date!] page called "Ground To Air Emergency Visual Signalling Code", published by the "Civil Aviation Administration".

Before anyone asks, this is well out of date, but good for a laugh! I especially like the symbol for "Require Firearms and Ammunition"!!! I still can't quite understand what use that might be in civil aviation... ? :-)

Different colours, different grass

I went flying again today, with a couple of other Wellington Aero Club members. We headed up to Otaki airstrip, which is a nice grass airstrip just south of Otaki township. It is plenty long enough - even with the displaced thresholds, the landing distance is 730 meters with a very gentle slope.

I hope to have some photos in the next few days from a passenger. When these arrive, I'll put them up in another post.

From the photos I did manage to get today are a couple of Airbus A320's, with slightly different colours.

First up is a Jetstar Airbus A320-232, VH-VGF. The livery on this one is quite different to the standard Jetstar livery. The two photos show both sides of the aircraft.

Last up is an Air NZ Airbus A320-232, ZK-OAB. It looks as though the nose has been replaced, but no black paint job as yet. As has been suggested by others, a nice red nose in time for Christmas could be a good idea!

Another windy day... hopefully better tomorrow

It has been another windy day in Wellington with up to 50 knot gusts at times, so no light aircraft flying today... I am booked in for a flight tomorrow, so we'll see what that is like.

Photos today are just three. First up is a Gulfstream G650, ZK-KFB, which is registered to ExecuJet, but is better known as Peter Jackson's plane.

Next up is a Sounds Air Cessna 208, ZK-PDM and last is an Air Nelson/ Air NZ Bombardier DHC-8-311, ZK-NEG. Both of these are departing into the strong, gusty winds.

China's President Xi Jinping departs Wellington...

... on an Air China operated Boeing 737-89L, registered B-5342.

As it turns out, I have seen this aircraft at Wellington previously. In June 2010, then Vice-President Xi Jinping visited Wellington.

Anyway, here are three of the 50-odd photos I took this evening. Unfortunately, these are about the best of the lot. You can probably tell that there is a lot of glare this evening...

RNZAF Boeing 757-200

I happened to be out at the airport this evening on Aero Club business and arrived in time to see the arrival of this Boeing 757-200, NZ7571, operated by the Royal new Zealand Air Force [RNZAF].

For my overseas readers, the B757 is one of two operated by the RNZAF and is the largest aircraft that they operate. It is also the largest aircraft type to regularly operate into Wellington.

US Air Force and RNZAF at Wellington

Today's special visitors at Wellington are a US Air Force Boeing C40C/ B737-7CP, registered 05-0730 and an RNZAF Boeing 757-200, NZ7571.

I'm guessing that the B737 is here after the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia. Maybe the B757 is the same. I'm also going to keep a quiet eye out over the next few days, as there have been a few foreign leader's aircraft visiting New Zealand recently. It would be interesting to see if any of them are planning of coming to Wellington.

Anyway, here are the photos. Fairly self-explanatory really.

Overnight at Wellington

Just one photo from today. This time a Cessna 172M, ZK-LQA, operated by Airline Flying Club of a Papakura address [based at Ardmore AD].

My understanding is that the aircraft had a hurried move into the engine run-up bay [which is relatively sheltered] late last night due to the stormy weather which hit Wellington overnight and today.

As an aside, I saw the Wellington METAR indicating surface winds with up to 60 knot gusts this morning, although it may have died down by the time I got out there.

Homeward bound

Last up on my trip home to Wellington was another flight in an Eagle Airways operated Raytheon B1900D, ZK-EAE. Like the trip north to Taupo, there were only about 5 passengers on board for the flight home. Unlike the trip north, the views were somewhat more impressive.

Three simple photos here. Firstly, the aircraft, send and third are two views of the eastern side of Mount Ruapehu as we headed south. The photos of Ruapehu are black and white - they seemed to look better that way.

Meat bombing and more at Taupo

While waiting for my trip home to Wellington, I took the opportunity to capture a few pictures of the local happenings.

Taupo is well known for its sky diving and so it is little wonder that most of the flights were associated with people deliberately falling out of a perfectly good aircraft [fools! ha ha ha]. Top to bottom in this set of photos are:

Pacific Aerospace 750XL, ZK-JQK, operated by Tandem Skydiving Ltd
Pacific Aerospace 750XL, ZK-SDT, operated by Skydive Taupo Ltd
2 x GAF N22C, ZK-SNZ, operated by Tandem Skydiving Ltd
Lastly, tandem jumper about to land

 

In addition to these, were a couple of other interesting pictures to be had. First up is a local rescue helicopter, a Eurocopter AS350B2, ZK-HZJ, operated by Search and Rescue Services Ltd. Next is a Cessna U206F, ZK-RPM, operated by TAM Flight Ltd of a Mt Maunganui address. lastly, it's great to see an airport that provides for GA pilots as well as the airlines :-)

  

My first visit to Invercargill!

At Invercargill
I had the privilege of spending last week working at a couple of my employer's more remote worksites. This trip saw me fly firstly into Invercargill and then up to Taupo.

I had never been to Invercargill before, so I was interested to see what the airport was like. The terminal itself was pretty basic, but mostly functional. It is also undergoing a major revamp, to the extent that the baggage collection point is currently in a marque outside the main terminal.

The following pictures are from Invercargill airport [ICAO code: NZNV] on the day of my departure. Top to bottom are the terminal, the baggage claim area and the control tower.

In additional to some local light aircraft, there were two commercial flights that came and went. The first is an Air Nelson Bombardier DHC8-311, ZK-NFB and the second is the aircraft that would take me to Christchurch, an ATR-GIE ATR72-212A, ZK-MCU, operated by Mount Cook Airline:

Flights to Taupo
The flights to Taupo [Invercargill - Christchurch - Wellington - Taupo] were reasonably eventful.

We were flying abeam Christchurch when the ATR72 was struck be lightening. I did not see anything, but it was one very loud bang. One of the flight attendants just about jumped out of her skin... hardly surprising!

The flight from Christchurch to Wellington was in a Boeing 737, and we got "moved around' a wee bit. Nothing frightening at all, actually, just a bit of fun.

Wellington to Taupo in a Raytheon B1900D was less eventful, although we did get to land, and de-plane in a fair amount of rain. Fun times!

I only have a couple of photos from this part of the trip - the first is looking out at the clouds below us in the cruise towards Taupo and the second is the inside of the mostly empty plane. More pictures from Taupo will be in my next post.

Night flying last night!

Last night was my first night flight after gaining my night rating. The weather was absolutely perfect with hardly a breeze [variable direction, 2-3 knots most of the time], no cloud and very little other traffic. Just perfect for a newly night rated pilot flying a Cessna 172N :-)

What was even better was that Saturday night was the night of the Wellington Guy Fawkes night public display. I swear I only found that out on Saturday morning :-) but who could resist the temptation? There was a NOTAM covering the display, and we [Amy, Rhys and I] would be flying well clear of the display area.

After takeoff on runway 16 we flew via the harbour to Lower Hutt/ Petone and flew around there for a while [sorry for keeping you awake Glenn B! :-)] and after the display started we came back for a few circuits.

Anyway, here are some photos from Amy and Rhys. It's hard taking photos on cameras at night, but I think they did a good job.

First up is a picture of the departure from Wellington. It was only a few minutes past ECT, so there's still plenty of light around.

This was what greeted us as we circled over Lower Hutt for 30 minutes or so. What the picture doesn't show are the many small fireworks being let off in backyards all over Lower Hutt and on the beach. It was a great sight from above!

This picture is of Wellington City as seen from Lower Hutt. Before the display, obviously! :-)

The display has started as we headed back for some circuits. As good as the photos are, they don't really do justice to what we saw, but such is life! There's a reason I think the three of us had the best seat in the house!

At this point we are left base for runway 16, and the display continues.

This is one of the best photos we got. Please remember we are using phone cameras, which is why there is nothing too detailed or close up [that and I was keeping my distance!]

Last, but hardly least, it has been a busy few weeks of flying. The top sticker is from October's strip flying course at Marlborough Aero Club and below that, the all-important night rating sticker!

[Many thanks to Rhys and Amy for sharing their photos!]