✈️ July 2024 Winter Wings & Hangar Happenings: Your Mid-Year Flight Briefing from Waipuk

From frosty circuits to gyrocopters and gear upgrades — here’s what’s been buzzing around the club this July

July already, winter is upon us and the shortest day behind us. We’ve at last had some rain and because it’s still been relatively warm, the grass is growing. The runway is a little wet at the southern end and the cones are out which mark the displaced thresh hold for take off and landing on 02. This has been notammed.

The southern and hangar windsocks have been replaced . We now have 3 Downunder Pilot Shop windsocks which are slightly different shape to the old locally manufactured ones. I think they are a great improvement and the colour seems to last a bit longer.

As mentioned in previous newsletters, we have had some drainage and drive maintenance done. The open drains have been cleaned out, a new driveway has been formed behind the hangars to prevent vehicles driving across the grass in front of the hangars when the ground is wet. A large gate will be inserted in the fence behind the hangars to afford access and this will be left open most of the time and only closed when stock is being herded into the back of the stock yards. A new red metal track has been formed in front of the stock loading race. The front entrance has been cleared and grass sown down. This is a great improvement over the previous overgrown version. The main driveway needs some shingle on the stretch in front of the hangars where the potholes form. Things are looking pretty tidy.

Our annual Dawn Raid on Mother’s Day was very well attended as we expected. The weather gods were looking favourable all week so we catered for over 100 people in anticipation. We were right on the money with in excess of 60 visiting aircraft and over 100 people well fed for breakfast. Congratulations to Wendy and her team. Wendy has the system for feeding that number of people in a short time, down pat. Several visitors remarked on how well it was done. A couple of weeks ago 2 plane loads of us attended Feilding’s Dawn Raid and last weekend we sent one plane to attend Dannevirke’s one as well. Unfortunately the  weather gods were not so kind and only5 aircraft managed to get through the drizzle to DV. Several people drove from the Manawatu and Hastings and we had a wonderful breakfast though.

.Our student flying has been pretty steady. New member, Mike Fitzgerald, a local CHB equine vet, went solo a couple of weeks ago and Sam Barry enters the “Watch this space” for his impending first solo. Jacques Vanrooyen , has also been making progress in the circuit and enters the “Watch this space”   Ross Hill-Rennie is working away on the advanced dual exercises and is enjoying the IF stage, under the hood. He is also studying the books and has his first exam sit coming up. Dave Wright is working through his solo consolidation and Jet Hapuku is about to enter the circuit. Ellen Boyd is in the circuit also and is making great progress. Sam Strachn has pretty much completed his solo consolidation and will soon move out of the circuit. Sam is in his last year at High School and may well be heading to Hastings next year to take up full time training. Tom Tully has had a couple of lessons and has really enjoyed the experience.  Stuart Brown continues his eternal student journey. One day he’ll move his training to the top of his busy list and then he’ll be away. He has recently replaced the wooden top on the outdoor table by the BBQ. Thanks Stuart.

The Bushcat, owned by the 3 ANZ pilots, is back on the field until their hangar is completed in Hastings. They were keeping her in another hangar in Hastings but that spot has disappeared in the meantime. They are really enjoying their wonderful STOL microlight. It participated in the AOPA fly-in we had back in March, piloted by Woody Foster and he must have told Craig Riley, one of the other syndicate members, what a great time he'd, so I went with Craig a few weeks ago and we did some of the strips visited and then the next day, went to the beach. Fantastic that these guys who fly the  big tin, want to fly the little stuff on their days off.

The recent committee decision to lower the hourly rate on Rans CHB, has been well received. She is busy for the first time for ages. I’m not sure what the committee will decide to do after the trial period ends at the end of July. The bean counters on the committee will have to crunch some numbers and see if it can be sustained. Come and fly this wonderful aircraft while the price is right.

We have no update on the fuel installation at the airfield. Hopefully this changes in the near future. In the meantime the trailer tank is working adequately although anyone with a current DG licence would be quite handy for us.

We have fitted a G5, digital instrument in FGJ. This is identical to the one fitted in ETJ and replaces the vacuum gyro instruments, namely, the Artificial horizon and the DI (gyro compass) They are an extremely useful instrument when one becomes used to them. They are connected to the GPS in the ADSB transponder and therefore show both groundspeed and track. Airspeed is also shown so a headwind/tailwind can be worked out at a glance. We also replaced the original Cessna radio with a modern Garmin comm.  radio. At the same time we removed the unserviceable  ADF and VOR nav instruments. The centre panel looks a bit bare now so perhaps room for a tablet mount in the future.  We replaced the worn out turn coordinator as well which will make it much easier for basic panel IF training. All in all, that amounts to a considerable cost for this aircraft which is really not doing a lot of hours however if you add up the students under training in the earlier paragraph, hopefully when these pilots progress onto FGJ, they will have a more modern fitted out aircraft to fly.

On the subject of FGJ, we have recently repaired, again, the alloy tow handle  The problem is quite obvious when one understands how the Cessna front oleo steering works. When the oleo is slightly depressed, the nose wheel is free to turn either by depressing the rudder pedals or manually turn the wheel with the tow handle. When fully extended, as in flying or pushing up on the spinner when pushing out of the hangar, the nose leg is locked in the straight ahead position. No amount of leaning on the tow handle will turn the leg. All that will happen is that the bloody handle will be bent or broken. Pull down on the spinner to slightly compress the oleo and the steering will be unlocked. If this seems like a complicated explanation, ask for a practical demonstration.

As you can see above, we have a number of students who are about to,

 or have started, studying for their exams.  The club has some txt books , some which are out on loan.  Anyone who has some club books and who aren’t using them, please return them. Any other club members who have current txt books that they have no further use for, and would like to loan them to these new students,  please let me know. As previously mentioned,  one the current VNCs has been borrowed from the white cupboard and not returned.  This is disappointing as they are quite expensive.  We have any number of old expired ones if people want them for nav  practice . Just ask

The AGM will be this month. Date to be notified.  The members will need to pass a revised Club constitution, in line with new requirements from the Incorporated Societies.  They are not huge changes but every Incorporated Society will have to approve these changes which will then come into force next year.

There may also be some vacancies on the executive committee so if you have an interest in the running of your club, please consider standing.

We have a new aircraft on the field.  New member, Paul Coker has a Dominator 2 seat gyrocopter residing in the ex gliding hangar. Paul is working his way through his gyrocopter training and at this stage has an intermediate certificate.  It’s certainly something new on the Waipuk airfield and is very interesting.  Who knows,  Paul’s machine may generate interest from others to this rotary branch of aviation.

The Frogley Cup, interclub landing competition is scheduled for Saturday August 3rd with Sunday 4th, the backup day. This hotly competed for trophy presently resides in the Hastings trophy cabinet and it’s time it came home to Waipuk.  Let’s start some practice.  I’ll put out some smaller cones and while going about your weekly circuits, you can start aiming at something.  Two normal powered approaches and one glide approach is the procedure. The competition will be held at Hastings. 

I hope you are all following and watching the “Kiwi Tales” interviews by Craig Anderson. There are now 11 of these wonderful inspirational interviews. They are quite long but can be watched or listened to in 2 or 3 sessions. The latest one I’ve recently seen is an interview with Ewan Smith who started Air Rarotonga .  They are on You Tube and as podcasts on Spotify.

For those with a mechanical bent or who would like to learn the finer points of efficiently and safely operating aircraft engines, look no further than the Mike Busch webinars and videos, also on You Tube. Search for “Savvy Aviation” 

Mike is the Guru when it comes to busting the myths about aircraft engine operation.

Here’s a link to a service you may interested in if you ever visit Las Vegas.

Mind you, we could probably start something similar here. Might need to check out the demand.

 https://lovecloudvegas.com/

That’s all from me this time.

Take The Spoon Out Of The Sink.

Regartds

Ross Macdonald