Military and Civil visitors

Today's photographed visitors consist of two military and two civil aircraft.

Firstly from the Royal New Zealand Airforce [RNZAF] are a Beech B200, registration NZ1883 soon after takeoff, then two pictures of Lockheed Martin C130H Hercules, NZ7005 after landing.

Next is an Air New Zealand Boeing 737, ZK-NGH landing on runway 16 and finally a Jetstar Airbus A320, VH-VQD taking off.

New camera, new photos

Well, I finally did the deed and went out and purchased a new camera. Yippee!

While guaranteed to have some people scratching their heads ["Why didn't he get something better/ bigger/ smaller/ whatever?"], the purchase was always going to be the best compromise of functionality, quality and money, and I think that I've done OK.

What I've got is a Canon EOS 450D [or click here for quick specs], twin lens kit with 18-55 IS and 55-250 IS lenses. The shop was doing a reasonable deal including a 4Gb SDHC card, camera bag and a couple of other goodies thrown in for free.

I've spent the last couple of days playing with it. The first thing I have learnt is that I have a lot to learn [!!], although even in the past few days I've become accustomed to some of the basic functions.

Today was the first day to have a decent play while pointing the camera at aircraft. I'm very happy with some of the results, although clearly I need to get a bit more comfortable with the general handling and stuff.

Anyway, on to some pictures. Here are eight of the better pictures taken today. These have been severely reduced [they expand to 19% of original size if you click on them]. Top to bottom are:

2 x Air New Zealand, Boeing B737, ZK-NGM
Cessna 172RG, ZK-NPM, registered to a New Plymouth address
Nanchang CJ6, ZK-JNA, registered to Wellington Aero Club
Piper PA28R-201, ZK-EIF, Registered to Wellington Aero Club
3 x Jetstar, Airbus A320, VH-VQD

Pilatus PC12 and Jetstar A320

The weather today was cold and dreary, so not much fun trying to get photos. Despite that, spotted today were another Jetstar A320, VH-VQD. Unless it was extremely late :-), I believe that this was the Auckland-Wellington aircraft and that it arrived on time. If so however, it still managed to leave around 15 minutes late. I guess that's a risk when you are planning on 30 minute turnarounds in a 177 passenger aircraft.

I'm not sure if Jetstar have their third aircraft operating on domestic sectors yet, but if not, I might have just managed to photograph the entire fleet :-) ha ha ha

In other news, an unusual visitor was an Australian registered Pilatus PC12, VH-VTF. This aircraft has been seen making a number of arrivals/departures into Wellington. Rumour has it that it's here conducting demonstration flights and that an air ambulance operator may be taking a look. This particular aircraft is registered to Poolhurst PTY LTD, of a Brisbane, Australia address.