Another 2.7 hours flying - the scenery

During today's "epic mission" Jason [passenger on the last leg] and I managed to get a few pictures of the local scenery.

All of these pictures are within [roughly] 1 hour flight time, which shows just how much the terrain can change in a short time. Top to bottom, the images are:

Just south of Pukerua Bay [northern Wellington area]

Paekakariki township

Lake Horowhenua [Levin township in the background]

Coastline looking south

Kapiti Island

"Central" Wairarapa area, looking east

"Central" Wairarapa area, looking south-west

Lake Wairarapa looking south to Palliser Bay

Another 2.7 hours flying!

After several weeks of rubbish weather, this past week has been fantastic! After flights on Monday and Wednesday in Piper PA38-112 Tomahawks, this time it was the club's Cessna 172N, ZK-FLT.

The flights was planned to be Wellington [NZWN] - Wanganui [NZWU] - overhead Foxton [NZFP] - Masterton [NZMS] - Wellington. I had to get to Masterton to pick up another club member [Hello Jason!] who was ferrying a PA38 to Masterton. Because of this and some slightly complicated weather [cloud between me and Masterton], I cut Wanganui out of the flight, did a touch and go at Foxpine and headed the long way to Masterton.

Along the way I spotted a number of aerodromes including two unregistered strips. The pictures follow. Top to bottom they are:

Paraparaumu [ICAO: NZPP] which is about 25 nm north of Wellington.

Foxpine [ICAO: NZFP] north-west of NZPP [aerodrome is the strip in the very centre of the image]

Unknown - an unregistered strip just north of Pukerua Bay

Unregistered strip at Kaitoke, north end of the Hutt Valley

Masterton [NZMS] runway 24

Wellington [NZWN] runway 16 [note the B737 taking off just ahead of us]

3 Cessnas

Wellington weather is getting back to what we wanted, with another day that was just perfect for flying. Long may it last!

After two PA38 flights this week, I stayed on the ground, but it's looking good for a bit of a Cessna mission tomorrow - more on that tomorrow if the weather holds up :-)

Today's notable visitors were 3 Cessnas.

The first is a C172M, ZK-DWO, registered to a Takapau address. I have to say that this is one of the dirtiest aircraft I've ever seen, with the empennage and tail covered in bird droppings... must be parked up somewhere convenient for a lot of birds...

The second is a C172K, ZK-DEP, registered to a Martinborough address. I didn't get up close to this one [it arrived later in the evening], but looked quite nice from across the apron. Lastly is R182 [retractable], ZK-EKL, registered to Kapiti Districts Aero Club of Paraparaumu. This has had a recent paint job and looked really tidy.

Enjoy the pictures and hopefully a few more tomorrow evening!

USAF Gulfstream C20-F [G-IV] departure

After today's flight I got back to the club and saw that the USAF Gulfstream was being prepped for departure.

Here are a few pictures of this aircraft departing.

Another flight today

In case you hadn't noticed, I am on holiday this week :-), and so I've been hanging around the aero club a bit more than usual. Today dawned with low cloud and a mixed-bag of a forecast. In the end it turned out quite nice enough. the cloud base was above 2000 feet and the winds were a chilly, but reasonably gentle 15/ 16 knots [just under 30 km/hour].

Like a couple of days ago, I took Piper PA38-112 Tomahawk ZK-TAW up. Rhys [a student pilot] came along for the ride, and the following photos are some of those he took on my camera.

The flight itself was a quick scenic followed by a couple of circuits. The scenic photos are from the south-west corner of the North Island - around Karori Rock and Ohau Point. The aerodrome photos are of Wellington International Airport. Apologies for some of the image quality - next time I'll ensure the windscreen is cleaner...

Enjoy!

Finally!!! Some flying!

After 6 weeks of not flying, mainly due to weather, today was [finally] good enough!

I was going to take an aircraft to Masterton [and leave it there], but that didn't work out. Instead, I took Piper PA38-112 Tomahawk, ZK-TAW, around to the southern Wairarapa area [Palliser Bay] for a quick play - a few turns, a simulated Forced Landing With Out Power [FLWOP] and a bit of a look around. After this I returned to Wellington for some circuits.

Once in Palliser Bay things got rather lumpy due to the nor-westerly winds. In fact it only really settled down when I got to the other side of the bay, or when I was below around 1000' feet, therefore the photos are not much good.

Anyway, here they are. The first photo is heading out east just past Baring Lighthouse looking to the north. The second is on the eastern side of Palliser Bay, then Lake Onoke. The final picture is looking across to the snow-capped mountains of the South Island. One day I'll head out on a really nice day and get some decent pictures :-)

Enjoy!

Interesting visitors/ first flight today

I saw two interesting visitors today and one "first flight" as well!

The first photos are of a US Air Force Gulfstream C20-F [G-IV], 91-0108 parked up on the western apron. Following these are two photos of Air Chathams General Dynamic Allison Convair 440/580, ZK-CIB.

Following this are two photos of Magni Gyro M-24, ZK-MWR. It was this aircraft which had its first flight today. This would be one of very few "first flights" at Wellington, and also one of the smallest aircraft to fly from Wellington in a long time.

The observant among you will notice that the weather looked better today... more on that in the next post :-)

More bad weather today...

Well, I didn't get to go flying today - more bad weather with a mixture of rain, wind and cloud. There was just one flight at the aero club today, and that was an IFR flight...

It has now been 6 weeks since I last flew, so I'm really itching to get back in to the air! Oh well, better to wait until the weather improves a little - after all, it is the middle of winter in this part of the world!

Pictures from the airport today are, top to bottom:

Jetstream J32, ZK-ECI, registered to Air National Corporate
Cessna 208, ZK-TZR, registered to Sounds Air
de Havilland Canada DHC-8-100, ZK-VAC, registered to Vincent Aviation
2 pictures of 4 Bell UH-1H Iroquois helicopters from the RNZAF [sorry, no regos]

My understanding is that the DHC-8 is back off to Australia tomorrow, and the Iroquois' are conducting exercises in the Wellington area.

Air China departure

After yesterday's quick night shots of the Air China Boeing 737, I popped out to the aero club today, half expecting to be flying [nope... weather... again!], but I did get some photos of the Air China aircraft taxying and departing.

Also, by special request, an updated photo of the Cow Turd [no, that's not the official name!] departure gates that the airport company are building. Clearly they are not finished yet.

Air China Plane with Chinese Vice President visits Wellington

After arriving in New Zealand yesterday, the Chinese Vice President and his entourage arrived in Wellington for a number of official visits. I wasn't there to see the arrival although I did get a couple of photos of the aircraft parked up this evening.

Of particular note for this visit was the "roughing up" of a New Zealand Member of Parliament, Russel Norman, by the Vice President's security detail, on the steps of Parliament! I know that the Green party can be somewhat obnoxious, but this is completely unacceptable! On the other hand, it is not the way to treat guests in this country and if the MP had been in China, he would likely be much worse off...

A few news examples are:
News Com Au, Stuff, NZ Herald, Yahoo News

Shame on the Chinese Government for doing this...

Anyway, on to the pictures. The aircraft is an Air China Boeing B737-800, registration B-5342. Apologies for the image quality. It was night, cold, with a gentle breeze and no tripod! I'll try and get some better photos tomorrow, if I get out to the airport prior to departure.

Weather to fly?

After several weeks of bad weather and other disruptions, I had another flight booked today in a Cessna 172.

I arrived at the Club at about 12 noon and all was looking good. The various aircraft were flying, winds were a fairly light southerly and everyone was happy to be in the air.

The only slight issue were the clouds off to the south of the aerodrome. Needless to say, it didn't take long. By around 1:30pm, the thick dark clouds were over the aerodrome, it got noticeably colder and the rain started falling. Oh yeah, the winds picked up :-)

That was the end of any flying for the day. Darn!

Here are three photos from today. The first looks over the Club apron and includes a couple of Club Piper PA38-112 Tomahawks. Notice the vertical development in some of the cloud and the dark layer underneath.

Enjoy!