Wings Over Wairarapa # 14: Microlights

Masterton has a healthy range of homebuilt and microlight aircraft. While the airshow did not appear to be designed for showing off these aircraft, I did get a few photos of these types. There were also a couple of gyrocopters and various other "lighties" on display, but I was too busy photographing on the flightline and resting in the shade to get the others :-).

Good websites for looking in to the New Zealand microlight and homebuilt aircraft scene are the Sport Aircraft Association and the Recreational Aircraft Association of New Zealand.

Top to bottom are:

Jodel D.11, ZK-EER
Tecnam P96 Golf, ZK-TSC
Alpi Aviation Pioneer 300, ZK-CJN
Taylor Monoplane U/L, ZK-FNR

Something a little different

Here are pictures of some distinctly civil aircraft at the airshow. As promised in my last post, I've included what must be the ugliest aircraft in existance [surely not even it's designer could love this one!]!

First is the ugly one. ZK-AMW is an Aeronautical Corp Aeronca 100 Ultralight. Its engine is a massive 36hp [wow!]. Apparantly it still holds the record for the lowest powered aircraft to cross Africa. You could probably run faster :-) Oh yeah - that ugly thing sticking up is part of the aircraft. Having said all that, it would probably be fun to fly anyway!

Anyway, the rest of them are:

EDR is a Jodel D.11
EEF is a Gardan GY-20 Minicab Ultralight
PKT is an Alpi Aviation Pioneer 200
NDI is an Airborne Outback trike