What a fantastic flying season, warm blue skies before Christmas just hasn’t happened  since I started training in New Zealand but this year is different.  If this is global warming then it has some good points for aviators.  This of course is my excuse for not writing blog pages for so long, I have been flying full-on and when on the ground the  pressure has been to organise the Safari for March, get insurance for third party liability, Air displays not to mention a new school Eagle to replace the one sold to Hub Hall.  Did I mention that on top of all this there is a 40ft HC container being packed with gyros and spare parts being packed as I type, this is scheduled to arrive with only hours to spare before the Tauranga Airshow on the 7th February.  With luck and hard work we will then be able to show the first Calidus to the New Zealand public – exciting stuff.

Well all this flying activity has resulted in some first solos in Gyrate Eagles, a few weeks ago Mark Humbke ticked this box in YOG and this week we were able to enjoy the same success for Hub Hall in his newly acquired MTO.  To make life easy for Hub we flew the machines over to Matamata for a less intense radio regime but we encountered significant gliding activity and numerous visitors arriving with circuit training on their mind.  Weather conditions were near perfect as were Hub’s solo efforts despite the audience.  To celebrate we departed in formation with Mark to Waihi Beach Airfield and generously allowed Hub to buy the tea and cakes!  The picture includes our new trainee instructor, Elton Haakma, who was coaching Mark from the back seat of YOG and setting the scene for the year ahead.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 10:06 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.