A Flight to the SAANZ 2014 Flyin at Bridge Pa

 I was delighted to get a call from David Wilkinson offering me a ride down to the 50th Anniversary AACA/SAANZ Flyin at Bridge Pa Aerodrome at Hastings in his new Vans RV 8.  I accepted immediately!

The much anticipated day came on Thursday 6 March and we all met up at North Shore Airfield in perfect weather (which was a miracle as the previous day I had been in Wellington in driving horizontal rain with a wind chill factor which took the temperature down to near zero).

 Our wings, RV 8 ZK-WLK with around 50 hours on the clock.

 We were flying down as a matching 3 aircraft group with Don Wilkinson and DCM in their twin Corby Starlets ZK-TOY and ZK-TNT (that's one engine each!).  

Here they are unleashing the Corbys from their hangar.

 All three aircraft in the sunlight ready to go.

 A final top-up at the pumps (with reflections from the inside of the RV 8's canopy).

 The Corbys left first and we shot by them abreast of Auckland.

 On past the Islands of the Gulf - you can see what a beautiful day it was.

 And 1 hour, 10 minutes later we were in Taupo, with a dusting of snow on Mt Ruapehu.

Lunch and a catchup with others at Taupo.  There were aircraft from Whangarei, Dargaville and Hamilton also heading for the flyin.

Bruce Cooke taxyies out in his Avian Adventurer ZK-CKE for an adventure crossing the Kaimanawas to Hastings.

All the aircraft lined up on the ground outside the Hawkes Bay and East Coast Aero Club clubrooms at Bridge Pa.  It was a great flight!

SAANZ 2014 Flyin Grand Champion

The SAANZ judges must have had a tremendously difficult time deciding on the 2014 SAANZ Flyin Grand Champion aircraft because of the huge variety of impressive aircraft attending the 50th Anniversary flyin at Hastings over the weekend, but they eventually made their decision.

The Grand Champion aircraft was Chris Schoen's immaculate Vans RV 7 ZK-SHN.  Here is Chris with his aircraft this morning 9/3/14.  Chris designed the colour scheme and painted the aircraft himself.

And ZK-SHN is seen here taxying out to head home to Hawera.

Tauranga today

Grayson Ottaway has kindly forwarded these shots as taken at NZTG today.

 Six autogyros parked out in the sunshine.

In the back row we have Heinz Kitzhoefer's AutoGyro Cavalon ZK-MKH (c/nV00062), then the Cavalon ZK-AVL (c/n 00115) of David Church, and on the right is the Mike O'Rourke Europe MT03 Eagle ZK-MOR (c/n NZ006).

The front row has MT03 Eagle ZK-RGG (06NZ001) from Gyrate NZ. The red one is the Cavalon ZK-DJW (c/n V00135) from Gyroflight, and in behind is the Darryl Goodwin Calidus ZK-DCF (c/n C00272).

 

Also out was the Boeing Stearman E75 ZK-XAF (c/n 75-5907) from the Bay of Plenty Classic Aircraft Company.

Just hanging about.

I spied this Robinson R22 in the Hunting and Fishing shop in Ashburton on Monday.

It is marked as "FA". Which it isn't.

Any clues to its actual ID ??

Early Colour Photo of Cassutt Racer ZK-DHJ

In case readers of this blog are not aware! - I  have recently been posting a series of early colour photos of homebuilt aircraft of New Zealand as a prelude to the 50th Anniversary AACA/SAANZ flyin at Hastings being held on the 6th to the 9th of March 2014.

I now post this early colour photo of Cassutt Racer ZK-DHJ from the Don Noble collection.

I originally posted on this, New Zealand's only Cassutt Racer at:  www.nzcivair.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/cassutt-racers-of-new-zealand-only-one.html

I have gone back and added this photo to my original post.

ZK-DHJ at AACA flyin at Gore, 13/1/79.

This will be my last post before flying down to the flyin in some style!