Here's something a little different!

These are not my pictures [unfortunately!], and I know that they have been around for a while, but they still look amazing!

This is the airport at the French Savoy ski resort of Courchevel. The slope is 18.5% [!!!] at the steepest part of the 535 meter long runway. That's incredible! The first shot is during summer, and the remainder are rather more chilly. Thanks Mother Goose for sending these to me. Enjoy!

The Cessna and the Duchess

Here are two photos. The first is of a Sounds Air Cessna U206G. Nothing particularly unusual in that except note the handle and step, presumably for skydiving operations.

The second is of a BE76 Duchess visiting from Ardmore Flying School in Auckland. The Duchess is good as a twin engine and IFR trainer, but not particularly fast or with great load carrying capabilities [not that I'm rated on it or anything].

Both of these photos were taken at Wellington Airport.

Really Jolly Good!

Here are a couple of pictures of ZK-RJG, a Cessna R172K that is owned and run by the Bulls Flying Doctor Service. Dr Dave Baldwin [the flying doctor] is a NZ aviation medical examiner grade 1, and also has a commercial pilot licence. He has a number of offices around the country that he flys in to on a regular basis.

Check out Dr Dave's website for all the details: http://www.flyingdoctor.co.nz/

Apart from the sponsor's decals [probably the wrong time/place for jokes about how his plane gets up], note the "L plate" in the rear window!!!!!

More odds and sods...

Here are a three pictures I took over the last month or so. The first is of an Air China B767 parked on the military apron at Wellington on 25 March 2007, and the other two are of an Australian civil registered Canadair CL-604 Challenger taking off on 26 March.

The Chinese plane had delivered Chinese government officials to Wellington.

American Bombadier BD-700 at Wellington

It's been a while since I have posted [for the story, check this out: bye-bye Telstraclear].

I'm back now and so here are some pictures of an American registered BD-700 prior to departure on 1 April. You may notice the airport fire engine in one of the pictures - apparantly the result of a small fuel spill or similar.

Bye bye Tupolev

The Polish Tupolev TU154M left Wellington earlier today. As with its arrival, there was a lot of noise [awesome!] and a fair bit of excitement on the ground also. Quite a few people turned out and lined the fence to get a look at the departure.

The first shot is not a great picture, but does show the amount of dust kicked up by the blast from those three engines as they spooled up! The next one is just after takeoff, and then climbing out [with the undercarraige still retracting]. Enjoy!

More Dornier DO228 pictures...

After my initial post of a couple of days ago, here are some more pictures of the Air West Coast Dornier DO228. As in my last post, this is the only DO228 in the country at this time, although apparently there were some around a few years ago.

This aircraft is very very nice inside. There are only 14 passenger seats installed [down from a maximum of 19 that could be put on], so there is heaps of leg room. The seats are comfortable also. I'm not sure what the noise levels would be like with a couple of Garrett turbo-props just outside the windows [and it is extremely noisy outside when it starts up!], but I'm told it's not too bad.

Outside, it has a huge nose [baggage compartment] and is quite square, but still a really nice looking aircraft.

Enjoy the pics!

Neico Aviation Lancair 320

Here are some pictures of a Neico Aviation Lancair 320 at Wellington. This is a stunning example, with a fantastic finish and a good VFR setup inside. The Lancair website has plenty of good info on this, and other Lancair products - http://www.lancair.com/Main/. Nice!

Tupolev TU154 of the Republic of Poland visits Wellington!

Wow! This is a bit different to the usual run of Boeing and Airbus [and a range of smaller type] airliners to visit Wellington.

Earlier today a Russian built Tupolev TU154 of the Polish Airforce landed at Wellington. I only went to the airfield in the morning to go for a short flight to Martinborough airstrip [a privately owned strip in the Wairarapa - the owner is very friendly, just give him a call before hand if you want to visit!], but I'm glad I stayed until a bit after 3pm.

It's noisy, reasonably ugly and spews forth vast quantities of contaminants into the air - those attributes in and of themselves qualify this as a Russian designed and built plane :-) As usual, for details of this aircraft, check out Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-154.

Anyway, here are some pictures of this event. The first one is just there to show the smoke trail being left behind on final approach. The rest of them give a better view of the aircraft itself. Note the Polish titles on the left side fuselage, and the English on the right. Enjoy!

Dornier DO228

This Dornier DO 228 [registered as ZK-VIR] is a one-of-type on the New Zealand register. In fact, according to the operator's website, it only came "on line" today.

Details are available on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_228

Light stuff at Wellington

My digital camera is back from the repair shop. Strangely, although they say that it was tested and they found nothing wrong with it, it is now working better than ever. Awesome....?!!

Anyway, here are four pictures of some lighter types at Wellington. Top to bottom are:

ZK-HKP - Robinson R44 Raven on a private trip back to Taupo
ZK-TSD - Piper Seneca II on an air ambulance flight
ZK-EIF - Piper Arrow III just back from a private flight
ZK-JNE - Piper Tomahawk - one of the Wellington Aero Club basic trainer fleet

Enjoy!

Vought Corsair F4U

I'm waiting for my digitial camera to be repaired [under warranty] at the moment, so I have not got any images from my recent flying. I did however pick out these beauties from my Wings Over Wairarapa trip.

The Vought Corsair is [in my arrogant opinion!] one of the most impressive looking aircraft ever built! Not the prettiest, just impressive.

Top to botton are the aircraft taxying, just after takeoff [notice the gear is still retracting], an in flight turn, and lastly, one of the better shots I took on the day, during a high speed pass.

Enjoy!

Now this is just waaaaay to close for comfort!

Here is a picture of an Adam Air [Indonesia] B737-300. The visible damage appeared during/after landing. Ouch! This is the same airline that lost another B737 a few months back...



This is the link to the original Dominion Post article: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/3970887a12.html [please advise me if this link goes dead for any reason...].

It's been quiet recently...

It has been really quiet for the past couple of weeks. Apart from not too many things to report, my camera has been out of action [it's almost 3 weeks now since I took it back to Dick Smith, who passed it on to Olympus for a warranty repair], so no new photos.

I did get to take up two people for a quick flight recently as part of the Flying NZ Young Eagles programme [http://www.flyingnz.co.nz/youngeagles.html], and went for 3 circuits last weekend just to ensure I maintained a level of currency.

I am looking forward to a trip around the South Island in a few weeks time, so all going well [and assuming I get my camera back...!], there'll be a few photos to show after that.

The Russian Knights

This was a video that I could not ignore! It is on YouTube and the link was sent by a friend... this is an awesome display of formation flying in high powered jets. The soundtrack is pretty neat as well. Enjoy!