I arrived back in New Zealand exactly a week ago, the total travelling time was around 40 hours door to door and it has taken a full week to be completely free from the effects of jet lag and dehydration.

The eight weeks that I was away were fully occupied and although the UK suffered the wettest July on record I was able to complete  most of the tasks on the list.  Four some ten years I have enjoyed the use of a local Farmer’s 12 acre field to operate gyroplanes but due to a change of ownership I was now required to move my hangar and mowing equipment.   Fortunately I had another suitable site available but the transporting of a 30 foot (10 metre) by 10 foot (3 metre) high aluminium container requires special skills.

This is the sort of task Kiwi chaps would leap at but in Somerset it took a good deal of encouragement to achieve a result.

With some skill a sling was eased under the centre section and with the power of modern hydraulics the whole assembly was positioned onto a low trailer that normally carried hay bales.  The trailer was too short and so the ramps had to be extended and by overhanging at the front transportation was just achievable.

I enjoyed the social life in our Somerset village including a pig roast and Jazz lunch organised by the local Rotary Club, a catch up with a flying mentor who trained me to fly DC8s back in the seventies and in whose shadow my career followed until retirement came to us both.

The trip to Austria was interesting and no doubt will be repeated as the Arrow gyro develops but I guess the week in Germany was the more significant.  Following on from that I am registering four AutoGyro aircraft in the around New Zealand Safari starting on the 23rd March.  One of these will be a Calidus shipped from the factory for the event.  Another is the Eagle Sport just ordered by Mark Humbke which is being prepared with a Rotax 912s as I write.   Mark was at solo standard when he departed for Yeman last March but will need to brush up and qualify appropriately when he returns this October.   If there is anyone out there who would like to join the Safari either with their own aircraft or as a passenger then do get in touch.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Gyrate Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.