How good it felt for me to see my first training aircraft back in the air after many months, for the owner, well the grin say’s it all! ZK-RGG suffered a slow speed roll-over after landing some months ago and has taken what seems like an age to get back in the air. SoloWings released the aircraft and I did a little test flying to iron out any handling issues, with the usual minor snags sorted Bruce was back in the front seat and coming to grips with aviation after his forced lay-off. Despite a typical Tauranga cross-wind all went well and for RGG it is back to normal operation.
Brian Murphy has now qualified as an advanced local pilot and his ELA 07 is making its way to all the airfields within a 50 miles radius, watch out New Zealand he will be going National very shortly! I have moved down to Wairoa for 10 days, this is a small town on the East Coast with tidy airfield boasting a tarmac runway and very little traffic. There is a regular air-taxi flight bringing staff from Hastings to man the town hospital and an Air Ambulance comes in when patients need to travel away for treatment.
My sojourn in this quite backwater is aimed at training a local farmer who has recently purchased a Calidus with a Rotax 914 turbo. The long term plan is for him to operate it from his own land, 14k from a sealed road, way down on the Mahia peninsular. Dieter had travelled five hours each way to Tauranga for many months taking sporadic lessons on the Eagle but to reach a satisfactory standard on his new machine he clearly required more intense training. I positioned his aircraft last week and enjoyed one of those clear but cool winter days where the sky is clear blue and the air was so still that ground mist still hung around the valleys at 10.00am.
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I had set a gps course that lead me through the wild ’Tiger Country’ East of Galatea and West of Lake Waikaremoana . There is a long, deep river course that runs through the bush and I was hopeful that it would provide a route through when the hill tops were shrouded in cloud. No better day to check it out than when its calm and sunny. At 500ft agl the hills towered up on either side and the river twisted through the deep gourge around outcrops that demanded concentrated navigation and tight flying. Wow was I surprised when out of nowhere appeared a large white helicopter darting underneath me to check the registration! A police spotter I believe but not hunting gyros!
Wairoa sits on the East Coast halfway between Napier and Gisborne, and the town straddles a river just inland from the estuary. I was interested to note that the Queen had opened the new town bridge in 1990, the previous one had been destroyed by some particularly wild weather! Training here works well with little local traffic but controlled airspace only 30 minutes away for formal radio procedures. The Mahia peninsular is rugged with little space for aircraft operations but it is photogenic and Calidus can be seen cruising at 4500rpm and 100mph.
AutoGyro’s Cavalon makes its U.S. debut.Just weeks after the unveiling of the AutoGyro’s two-seater at AERO 2011, the Cavalon debuted in the United States at Oshkosh this year. The German company has one of the most complete autogyro portfolios on the market, ranging from the classic open-tandem, two-seat MTOsport to the elegant and fully enclosed tandem Calidus, and now the fully enclosed, side-by-side Cavalon. Autogyro as a category is braving the general economic downturn and not only holding market share but also growing in popularity.AutoGyro was established in 1999 and has already delivered more than 1,000 gyroplanes, manufactured at a rate of 10 per week in Hildesheim, Germany. According to Guido Scheidt and Tim Adelmann, CEO AutoGyro U.S., it is impossible to stall and spin the autogyro, and they report the machines have spectacular takeoff distances (10 to 70 yards) and can land almost like a helicopter. The ability to fly at extremely low speeds, easy ground handling and storage, plus low operational costs make these desirable recreational vehicles.Currently, there is a strong interest worldwide in autogyros, especially from military operations and public safety departments. Since 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice has been operating an aviation technology program to evaluate low-cost aviation assets for law enforcement, and after initial interest in powered parachutes and fixed-wing airplanes, it’s now examining autogyros. The MTOsport has been in field evaluation since 2010.AutoGyro manufactures and delivers ready-to-fly aircraft all over the world, but the U.S. market will be served initially with a kit version. Currently, ASTM standards for light-sport aircraft do not allow for ready-to-fly autogyros, but discussions between FAA and the LSA standards committee are ongoing.
What a great year this has been for flying, I know there is no snow for the skiers but it was their turn last year. Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty has been an oasis for aviators with any weather or cloud backed up West of the Kaimai hills leaving the coastal area clear.
I was very pleased to be back in the air with ZK-RGG which is the MT03 with which Gyrate started training. It now boasts the latest ‘sport’ frame and bodyshell over its original working parts. Final rotor adjustment and some electrical work is in hand and Bruce Watson should be up and away again this week.
