Been a while... Sim time?

A couple of weekends ago I went down to Christchurch for the Flying NZ AGM and Conference. That was a lot of fun - a great opportunity to catch up with fellow aviators from around the country, to help set the direction of the organisation for the next year and to learn a lot, especially on the conference day.

Amongst all the business, there was time for a bit of fun. One bit of fun was taking a look at the IAANZ/ Canterbury Aero Club simulator facility. More than just a chance to take a look, but to have a "fly" in their A320 simulator. I understand they are open for bookings, even if you don't fly and just want to have a go.

This is not some home-built bit of kit, but a professionally built masterpiece. For my turn, we took off to the south and did a rather large figure-eight pattern to end up back on the ILS for runway 16. Pleased to say I didn't break anything! Taxiing was perhaps the hardest part, but as you see here, I did manage to park it at one of the gates. Fun times!

I guess there would only be a couple of more fun ways to fly an A320, and nobody is going to give me a full motion sim, or the real aircraft, so this is it for now! 😂

Flying NZ Regional competitions at Paraparaumu

Today was the day for Flying NZ's Cook region, regional flying competitions. This year they were hosted by Kapiti Aero Club, just up the road at Paraparaumu airport.

Competitors came from aero clubs in Wellington, Paraparaumu, Whanganui and Hawkes Bay and the weather [perhaps surprisingly] was about perfect all day! The morning session was mainly the circuit competitions and the afternoon, mainly the liferaft and bombing competitions.

I did compete, in the bombing competition ["Rotorua Trophy"], which involves dropping some 500 gram containers from 300 feet, into a target. I'm still awaiting the results, but I was rather inaccurate [although fairly accurate flying], so I'm not expecting to win!

Anyway, in this first post, here are a few photos from the event. First up are two photos of a few of the aircraft, and third is the Kapiti Aero Club rooms.

Competing Aircraft

Competing Aircraft

Kapiti Areo Club rooms

There will be more photos in the next few days, I didn't get out to the landing grid this year, but I do have some more photos of the competing aircraft.

Low flying competition practice and a video

Today I got to go out and practice the manoeuvres for a Flying NZ nationals low flying competition coming up next month. The weather was not ideal in the area around our low flying zone, so I stayed a bit higher and practiced at another location. This was followed by some circuits. The short story is that I need to do a lot more practice :-)

I'm hoping to record one or two of the practice flights, but I need to get a decent mounting kit for the recorder [it will need to be a suction mount so I can mount it on a window]. If I do get this sorted, I'll be sure to post some video.

In other news, a decent video of landings at Wellington on a wild weather day has been produced and released by Airside TV. This is much better than some other Youtube videos - still one is all Wellington and decent resolution. You can see the Airside TV channel here, or watch the one of the videos below. Enjoy!

Flying competition - Working together and the results

I have just gotten back from the FlyingNZ Cook area regional competitions, hosted by the Wanganui Aero Club at Wanganui airport [NZWU]. We all had a great time, and it was well organised and run by FlyingNZ and Wanganui Aero Club.

First surprise was the chance to be driven over to Dannevirke aerodrome [NZDV] with some of the Hawkes Bay team to collect some aircraft they had left there due to the weather on Friday. I got to fly back a Piper PA38-112, ZK-FTP to Wanganui :-)

Lance [the other Wellington Aero Club competitor] and I then got to use the Hawkes Bay & East Coast aero club C172N, ZK-EKG in the low flying and liferaft drop competitions, and Lance got to use ZK-FTP for his bombing comp.

I nice bit of working together between competitors - thanks heaps to the team from Hawkes Bay & East Coast Aero Club!

As for the results, Lance and I got 3rd in the Liferaft drop [my fault, screwed up the first run in really badly] and I got 1st place in the PPL Low Flying comp! Awesome, so now I'm making planes to go to the Naionals in February next year!

Anyway, here are the photos. First up is Piper PA38-112, ZK-FTP, Cessna 172N, ZK-EKG and a quick picture from the evening dinner and prizegiving. The last photo is a picture of Lance and myself looking for stuff [clouds, team mates and aircraft - maybe you had to be there to understand this :-)]

Australian Light Aircraft Championships - Kiwi Domination

The ALACs were held ealrier this year, but I've only just seen the video.

I didn't realise that the Kiwi team had done so well in the comps [as well as bringing home the Wings trophy], so perhaps a bit more promotion next time someone? :-)

Anyway, here is the video:

An awesome day of aviation

I had an awesome day of aviation today!

The best part was going up for some dual practice at low flying, in preparation for the FlyingNZ regional competitions at Wanganui next weekend. A flight of 1.1 hours, most of which was in the low flying zone, practising coastal reversal turns, steep turns, constant radias turns and general low-flying handling was a lot of fun and a fair amount of work.

The second flight was as a passenger with another Club member. Both of these flights were in the Club's Cessna 172N, ZK-FLT. The first couple of photos are from this second flight.

The remaining photos are of a Cessna 208B, ZK-MYH, registered to Air2There.com, a General Dynamics Allison Convair 440/580, ZK-CIB, registered to Air Chathams and lastly 2 photos of New Zealand's only British Aerospace BAe146 Series 200 Whisper Jet, ZK-ECO, operated by Vincent Aviation.

A cracker of a day!

It has been a fantastic day in Wellington today! Bright blue skies and little wind.

I spent a few hours out at the Club this afternoon watching to comings and goings. It was good to see an almost empty hanger with all of the Club's aircraft out earning their keep. Lots of flying makes for happy planes and much happier people :-) I'm hoping that the Cessna 172 will be back next weekend... I've booked myself in for a dual flight to get back into it (Kia ora Mrs Rudman!).

Photos today are of several of the fleet coming in or getting ready to leave. First up are 3 of the Piper PA38-112 Tomahawks, ZK-JFE, ZK-WAC and ZK-ESG. This is followed by Piper PA28R-201 Arrow, ZK-EIF and finally the Nanchang CJ6, ZK-MAO.

BTW - did you know, that if you're in Wellington and want to see if flying is for you, you can call the Club and book in a trial flight. They are lots of fun, and make great birthday presents also! Call on 04 388 8444, or take a look at our website - click here. Aero clubs around the country offer similar experiences so look them up and give them a call (more info)!

Flying and not flying

It looked like a good day to go flying today - a bit of cloud hanging around in places, but gentle winds. The club got a fair amount of flying in which is great after several weeks of "on again, off again" weather.

Unfortunately, I was earth-bound for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there was no Cessna 172 available this weekend - the previous C172 left last week and the next one is due this coming week - I'm booked for next weekend though, so here's hoping for good weather!

The second reason is that the RNZAC/ FlyingNZ annual meeting was held at the Wellington Aero Club. It was great to see and hear about some of the things happening around the place, and to catch up with a few people.

One day I really must get a photo of the people I manage to get crammed into my car. It really was funny to see Kevin, Daryl, Tony, Liz and I squashed into the car, front seats all the way forwards, knees up around our ears [well, almost!], then me getting out my hammer to give the engine a little "encouragement" to start! On the other hand, the next person who says there's more room in the back of a Seneca can walk to their plane!!!:-) Seriously though, good to see you guys again!