More Nanchang flying

Last Saturday afternoon I had the opportunity to go flying in the Nanchang CJ6A, ZK-MAO. The weather was nice enough, but a bit lumpy in the Southern Wairarapa with mild and fairly consistent turbulence from Turakirae up to Lake Onoke.

Still, it was a fun flight of just over 30 minutes. We're still running the engine a little harder as part of the run-in, so I was cruising at 270-280 km/hr [around 145-150 knots]. Still, fuel consumption was about normal for a slightly lower power setting [mind you, I did lean the mixture], so I can't wait to see what it settles at when we are back to normal power settings in a few hours.

Anyway, a couple of photos. The first is looking north over Lake Wairarapa. The second is looking to the east. Both of these photos were taken at around 1,100' AMSL. The photo was taken on my phone, hence the artefact from the prop interacting with the camera sensor...

Cessna 182 at Wellington

Today's photo is of a Cessna 182T, ZK-JLR, which is operated by Ragged Point Ltd of a Nelson address. This was seen at Wellington on Saturday afternoon.

I think a Cessna 182 would be a really nice aircraft to learn to fly... maybe one day!

Cessna 182T, ZK-JLR, operated by Ragged Point Ltd

A couple of rides on Sunday afternoon

Last Sunday afternoon I was able to go on a couple of quick flights, both times as a passenger. The first was a ride up to Paraparaumu with Vincent flying the Cessna 172N ZK-EKE.  The ride home was in a Piper PA28-161, ZK-KAT, courtesy of Pete.

Both of these were fun and as always, it's great to be able to sit back and relax while someone else does the flying 😁

I've got just a couple of photos of the flight back to Wellington as we raced the daylight to get home about 15 minutes before ECT [evening civil twilight... or night time].

PA28 at Wellington

Today's visitor was this nice Piper PA28-151, ZK-DBW. This aircraft is registered to the Canterbury Warrior Syndicate, and has been upgraded to a 180hp engine. Good to see you this afternoon Andreas! 😀

Piper PA28-151, ZK-DBW, operated by Canterbury Warrior Syndicate

The carburettor!

It's been a few weeks since I posted - mainly weather and general busyness, but I hope to fix that in a couple of days.

Meanwhile, here's a very very interesting video on the fascinating subject of carburettors! Most of the aircraft I fly have a carburettor, and while the basic concepts always made sense, this video from Smarter Every Day takes it to a new level.

The explanations are interesting enough, but the use of high-speed footage just blows my mind as it shows fuel and air being mixed and sucked along toward an engine. The video is almost 25 minutes, but if you have even a passing interest in aircraft engines with carburettors, or small engines in lawn mowers etc for that matter, this is a compelling and very interesting video!

Enjoy the video!

BTW - while not covered in the video, it's easy to visualise how carb icing occurs and why it's important to be on top of it.