Trip to South Island

pclancy

Great days flying last Sunday, perfect blue skies and very little wind (which is a change for Wellington!) So about 5 planes flew down to Omaka flying club which is a lovely grass strip near a town called Blenheim surrounded by some mountains and vinyards. Met a great bunch of pilots and friends including a bloke who had a share in a tiger moth and a guy thats restoring an old Bristol Freighter! I got two circuits in the Tiger Moth for about 15 euros It felt amazing to fly, so smooth and only requiring tiny amounts of stick and rudder to control. The landing was cool as well as he performs a crab/slip approach to be able to see the runway and slow down as there are no flaps.

We spent the day doing spot landing, precision circuit, non-instrument circuits and a quick air golf game that was great! I also managed my first landing We were doing the non instrument circuit game so I had all instruments covered and had to judge correct circuit height, speed and rpm settings. All I had was the stall warning to tell me I was too slow!! The instructor only realised afterwards that it was my first landing! I missed the spot by a good bit but flared and touched down nicely

Then a nice flight back over to Wellington and the poor old tower controller had a hard time for about 20 minutes as 5 of us arrived back one after another and had to be slotted in with all the commercial traffic. Only one go around due to wake turbulance from a Qantas 737 and we were home safe and up to the club for a cheap beer.

Crossing the strait


Mountains of the South Island


Late base turn to land at Omaka


Have more photos but i cant upload them right now in work so i'll add em later.

Heres a stolen photo of the Tiger I was in though



If anyone ever gets a chance to go up in one I strongly encourage it. I also got an extra .3 hours for my logbook which was cool as the pilot was an instructor too! Looks good having DH-82A in the middle of all the Piper and Cessna entries

jmayo

If you get a chance get down to Queenstown or Wanaka.
Take in Warbird museum in Wanaka.
Then fly around taking in Fjords, Doubtful and Milford. You get to see Mt Cook in the distance and get to see some of the places around Glenorchy where they filmed some scenes from Lord of the Rings. The landscape is fantastic and nothing better than mountain flying.

pclancy

Yeah a lot of time will be spent down there once i get some time off work. I've driven through most of Queenstown and Wanaka (Haast pass was incredible and the lakes amazing) but didnt make it do milford...

More photos

Mr Benevolent

Was the Traumahawk's prop actually bent? I know that digicams tend to show rotating props as bent, but it doesn't look like it's turning...

Edit: Might be a Beech Skipper now that I look more closely.

pclancy

No it was just starting up I think. Its only a sony camera phone, doesnt like props at all, the interior shots always look crap where it cant pick up the prop correcty. Its a tommy allright, I have a very hard time distinguishing them from Skippers which i'd never actually seen before I came to New Zealand. They're practically identical!