Strip flying... the wrap up

Well, that's it for the strip flying course.

What an awesome weekend! Did I mention that any other time?

Now for a couple of "administrative" things. With the weather the way it is this time of the year, we made the sensible suggestion to fly between Wellington and Blenheim on Sounds Air. It turned out to be a great day both sides of Cooks Strait, but I reckon this was still the best way to go. It's quick, cheap [cheaper than I have seen on Air NZ], relaxing and meant we could have a beer at the end of the day :-) The pilots are friendly and the windows large.

I'd never been to Woodbourne aerodrome before. It's combined military/ civil and I was surprised how busy it was on a Sunday evening. Aside from "our" Cessna 208 Caravan [ZK-SAA, Sounds Air], there were two Eagle Airways/ Air NZ B1900's, an Air Nelson/ Air NZ DHC8-Q311 as well as a Fokker F27 Mk 500 Friendship, ZK-POH of Airwork Freight Operations. In the back you can also see an RNZAF C130H Hercules.

Would I recommend this? Yes! I'll probably do some more some time early next year [still summer in NZ for all your Northern Hemisphere types :-)], and I'd definitely recommend it, even if you just want a quick introduction to this type of flying. You can get the MAC contact details here.

Anyway, a couple of photos from Woodbourne, plus a repeat of my landing at D'Urville Island... after all, that's what it was all about :-)

New Zealand Post Fokker Friendship

Here are two pictures of a New Zealand Post Fokker F27 Friendship departing Wellington. I think that this is the first time I have captured an F27 at Wellington. It was a bit of a fluke seeing this one, as I was only at the airport to see if I could see the Civil Defence warning chopper.

Auckland Quick Visit #5: Auckland International: Postal

A visit to Auckland would hardly be complete without a visit to New Zealand's largest airport and a few photos. What struck me most was that during the time I was photographing [approx 1500 - 1645 hrs], the vast majority of the traffic was Air New Zealand [and subsidiaries], with very few others, including Qantas, Pacific Blue and others. Of the others, this and the next few in the series will show the highlights.

Like last time, most of these were taken from the next parking building in front of the domestic terminals.

The following pictures are of ZK-POH, a Fokker F27-500, registered to Airwork Holdings. This aircraft is used to transport mail/freight around the place for NZ Post [that's the NZ Post logo on the tail]. What was surprising was that the first of the photos is from its departure and the second after landing about 10 minutes later. No fire engines out, so I suppose it must have been a test flight or similar.

I remember flying from Wanganui to Auckland on an F27 many many years ago. Noisy is probably the best thing that could be said :-). They have been known as The Converter due to their advanced ability to convert jet fuel into noise!