On Good Friday, I used my Dad’s ANZ staff discount privileges to grab a cheap flight down to Wellington, getting a quick walk around air side at the Auckland domestic terminal before my flight left at 5.30pm. I sat in the same row as All Black Jerry Collins and enjoyed the free food, drinks and window seat views for the 45 minute flight before recording this video upon landing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mublzIebOl8
ZK-NGG after disembarking at Wellington:
I’d booked myself into a motel right around the corner from the terminal for the night, so after dropping off my bags, I wandered around the airport in attempt to do some planespotting before the sunset, but Wellington lived up to it’s windy nickname and was blowing so strong that I couldn’t hold my camera straight at the fence without blurring my pictures!
The next morning, I woke up at quarter to six, planning to walk under the airport tunnel to the western apron to catch my next flight, but got completely lost and ended up paying $16 for a taxi to get from one side of the airport to the other! Once there, I met up with Alister (aka Albatross) and Tom (aka Victor_Alpha_Charlie) to climb on board Vincent Aviation’s Dash 8 that would be making a charter flight to Wanaka aerodrome for the airshow later that morning.
Takeoff from Wellington Airport (Alister has the jumpseat):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxwImaOVEwE
There was pretty thick cloud all over the South Island, but I still managed to snap this picture of the Seaward Kaikoura Range poking through the ceiling:
Arriving at Wanaka:
Peter, Tom’s Dad and captain of the flight, then dived down into the mountains to reveal the beautiful central Otago scenery, before making a very short landing- not even using up half the 1,200 foot runway length before parking up on the grass.
Landing video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bfmhXc7K6w
We met up with Chris Donaldson (aka Aviation) and wandered around the many static displays, including a USAF LC-130 Hercules with ski–wheels, ZK-USM and an Aussie Socata TBM 700:
At 10am, the two Vampires came roaring in the from east, very low across the crowdline, with two large explosions and loud techno music stating the show with a bang! I didn’t catch a photo of the mentioned aircraft, because they took everyone by surprise, but it really got the excitement flowing, which continued for the rest of the day.
After getting some hot food and sticking around inside the tents for a while (I’d ignorantly expected the weather to be the same as Auckland and dressed in shorts, but it was freezing!), we walked down to the far end of the crowdline and watched some of the display aircraft taxing out from their parking paddock.
ZK-ADI, the 98th and last Fox Moth to come off the production line in England and delivered to Air Travel NZ Ltd in early 1935:
The very sleek looking Beech D17S Staggerwing:
Jurgis in his custom build Juka:
Air Bandit’s flyby (I’ll leave the rest of the aerial pictures to the pro’s- my camera has a terrible zoom!):
A Pacific Aerospace Cresco, which demonstrated its incredible top-dressing handling during it’s performance, as well as dumping quite a few gallons of water onto the runway!
My favorite aircraft, the Warbirds DC-3 on which I’ve flown many times, including a flight to another airshow last weekend at Ohakea. ZK-KAG managed to score a ride on this yesterday, I’m sure he will tell us more about that when he gets back from the South Island!
The Warbirds' other ‘heavy metal’ aircraft:
A Nanchang on takeoff, first time I had ever seen this type of aircraft:
Award for the most boring display goes to the RNZAF Bell 47 ‘M.A.S.H’ helicopter, including a high speed past at the astonishing speed of 80 knots…
The Huey’s were far more impressive:
But the Red Checkers were average, even with the a few new moves this season, this was my third time seeing their display this month – tilted in the style of Alex’s Ohakea pics:
Not that I’m complaining, the pilots are very, very skilled men to do what they do!!
The Herc doing the full powered flyby was far more my thing:
And nothing could top the F-111:
Seeing as the RAAF C-17 couldn’t make it in under low cloudbase- although I thought they had fancy million dollar avionic systems for that sort of thing…?
Yawn- another dump and burn
I wish they could have kept that running all day, the heat felt from the fire was actually very pleasant down on the ground!
Now on to part two...
, love the comments on landing at Wanaka 
