JNA no more, another Tomahawk and air ambulances

More on the catch-up pictures. This time I have a few pictures from last weekend.

The first is of Nanchang CJ6, ZK-MAO [think about it...]. This is not another aircraft, but simply a re-registration of ZK-JNA. The second is of Piper PA38-112 Tomahawk, ZK-TAW. This aircraft is temporarily with the Wellington Aero Club in place of one of the other Tomahawks.

Next is a picture of the NZ Flying Doctor Service Cessna 421B Golden Eagle, ZK-KBF, registered to Garden City Helicopters of a Christchurch address. Lastly we have Fairchild SA227-AC Metroliner. ZK-POB is covering for ZK-LFT which I understand is in for maintenance.

Enjoy the pictures!

More Wellington shots on the new camera

It's been another awesome weather day at Wellington today [I wonder how long this will last??!]. No flying for me today, but I did get to take a few photos - mainly just practicing with the new camera. As I mentioned last time, there's a lot to learn, but I'm learning a lot.

With good weather, the aero club was busy with the trainer aircraft busy most of the day, along with the Nanchang and a number of other flights. Ok, now to the pictures. Top to bottom are:

Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, ZK-MYH, registered to Air2There.com
DHC-8, ZK-NEZ, registered to Air Nelson [part of the Air NZ group]
Nanchang CJ6, ZK-JNA, registered to Wellington Aero Club
Beech BE77 Skipper, ZK-ESC, registered to Wellington Flight Training
Cessna 421C, ZK-MFT, registered to Skyline Aviation of Hastings * see below
Cessna 172N, ZK-ETK, registered to Mainland Air Services



* I've photographed ZK-MFT before, albeit with a completely different paint scheme. Click here to search for this aircraft.

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

Nanchang startup

I finally got a good series of pictures of the smoke generated by the Nanchang CJ6, ZK-JNA, starting up outside of the aero club. It's not always this smokey, but it looks good when it is :-)

Nanchang CJ6 Solo

Congrats to Pete from the aero club who got to fly solo in the Nanchang CJ6, ZK-JNA!

Here's a couple of photos of the momentus occasion:

Nanchang CJ-6 now based at Wellington

As from a few days ago, a Nanchang CJ6, ZK-JNA, is now based at Wellington, owned by a syndicate. It will be based in the Wellington Aero Club hanger. As I understand it, it will initially be available to syndicate members only, with perhaps some wider availability some time after that.

The aircraft went on a couple of flights today - here's a picture of it preparing for a flight.

New camera, not a better photographer!

I purchased a new digital camera yesterday and have been testing it out. This one of an Olympus SP-500UZ. It's main claims to fame are 6 megapixels and 10 x optical zoom. Here's a few sample photos I've taken. Most of these were taken from my home (big optical zoom really helps).

Just keep in mind that if you click on the images you get a bigger sample. These bigger samples are still only 29% of the original size!!! Anyway, here they are, in order:

Qantas B737 after landing
Air New Zealand B737 lifting off, then after take off
Air Nelson ATR72 during gear retraction
Wellington Control Tower (note top left you can just make out the SSR head)