🛩️ Autumn Skies & Airfield Buzz: Flying Into Fall at CHB Aero Club

From aerobatics and gliders to motorbike roadies and club upgrades — your March 2024 roundup from the hangar.

Hi all, Autumn mornings, a couple of light frosts and Easter around the corner. Things on the flying front have been a bit mixed. 152, ETJ has been reasonably busy with students and also Gill Phillips, practicing for her first National Aerobatics champs. Report attached. First solo congratulations to Dave Wright from Akatio way. Dave is very committed as it’s a 1hr 20 min drive to Waipuk. He tries to tie in lessons for when he’s coming our way on other business which is working well. FGJ and KSS, have been doing reasonable hours but Rans CHB has hardly been out of the hangar. A real shame as this is a fun aircraft and is considerably cheaper to fly than the Part 61 machines. Those wanting to start tailwheel operations would be well advised to start with her. Cheaper, more performance and a bit more testing on the ground which makes transitioning onto heavier machines much easier.

We recently hosted a weekend fly-in for AOPA. This was a very fun weekend. The weather forecast put off some from further afield who may have been worried about getting home however 16 aircraft assembled on the Saturday morning for a fly around 12 local strips. It is hoped that this may become an annual fly-in to Central Hawkes Bay. It was wonderful to have as participants in the fly-in, Ex Patron, Bob Gunson, who flew in his C180, DXA, with son Jamie, and also long time club member, Harvey Beetham, who flew in his C185, NRC, with son Charlie. Harvie was a member of the original “Kittyhawke Club” which became AOPA NZ.  

Back in February, I ticked off a bucket list item by riding my  motorbike to Invercargill to attend the Burt Munroe Rally. This was a real adventure with over 3000kms covered, 3 days to get there, 3 days to get home and 3 days staying in Invercargill. 1 wet day out of the 9, 1 speed camera fine, and no frights. The SI roads are wonderful. Hardly saw a pothole on the whole trip. The new road through Transmission Gully into Wellington is wonderful. Cuts a good 20 minutes off the trip to Wellington I reckon and when the new road over the windmills at Woodville comes on stream, I doubt I’ll ever go to Wellington via the Wairarapa again.

Next event on the calendar is our Dawn Raid on May 12th. Yes, Mother’s Day again. We’ll need some helpers in the kitchen so mark your calendars please.

We also hosted the Central Districts Gliding competition again towards the end of February. 24 Gliders were entered and they had a great week with good thermal soaring conditions on most days. This is normally a biennial event so we’ll see them again in a couple of years. The airfield was mown prior to the gliders coming, to make their operations  easier and since then it’s been pretty dry so the grass is still nice and short. The ground has gone very dry and hard and particularly at the southern end, where it has been very wet for the past 2 winters, is very rough. The runway gets rolled from time to time with the heavy roller and I also roll the taxiway areas that I mow. If you stick to the runway and the old taxi areas you’ll find the ground a lot smoother.

We are getting a digger and operator in to do some maintenance in the next few weeks. This will involve some drain cleaning and the continuation of the driveway behind the hangars. The plan being that vehicles will access the hangars from behind, rather than drive on the grass in front. With those previously mentioned wet winters, that area became very soft and vehicle ruts and light aircraft taxiing do not mix. 

The committee has been discussing modernising the interior of the clubhouse. This started with the kitchen up grade and ladies loo spruce up.. The full list will include, painting, flooring and curtains. One of the visiting glider pilots commented that he had been looking at some photos from a gliding competition in 1971 and the curtains were the same ones as now grace the windows. I’m not sure if that is completely accurate however they are very old and dated. These kinds of renovations are very expensive and will not happen all at once. We are facing another end to our financial year and the flying  hours will be similar to last years record low total.

The committee is also looking at some minor changes to the constitution in line with some law changes to the incorporated society’s rules. These will have to put to an AGM to be approved .

We are still using a fuel trailer for avgas on the field. We do not advertise that we have fuel for sale but won’t see anyone get stuck. Go Fuel are working towards having a Jet A1 facility up and running by the end of April and then the Avgas facility will follow.