Canterbury Recreational Aircraft Club

Rangiora, New Zealand

Well the Open Day was a washout but not a total loss. A few brave people braved the rain and came for a look and had a sausage. Thanks to those who had their hangars open and to Mike Kindon for bringing his Neiuport and Sky Ranger to display. People were interested in the progress of the Sky Ranger and its progress will be eagerly watched.

The new club Rans S6 has at last been dispatched from the states and should be with us in 6 weeks.

On the flying scene, the club has been active in Organising flying runs to various place but turnouts have been disappointing. A count of Micros on the airfield was made recently and up to 50 were identified, so how is it we can only muster 4-5 for a fly. C’mon guys get the dust brushed off and come flying!!

The Ice-cream run was held on October 19^th with 4 aircraft.

Grahame Fletcher, Neville Paintin, myself in the Hawk and Brain in the Gyro headed off the model airfield first and landed into a westerly for a change .While the micro’s carried out conventional landing, Brian did his version of a Harrier landing by coming down almost vertically and stopping almost as soon as he touched the ground. The modelers were most impressed at its performance and the "bravery" of Brian! After a bit of a chat with the Kaiapoi guys were went off to the Ice cream factory at Cust. There was a stiff southerly blowing right down the model cross wind strip (which is about 70 m long) Neville was encouraged to take off on that. "Move your planes out of the way and I’ll have a go" he said confidently. He gave the Thruster full noise and was off the deck in about a third the strip. Very impressive performance. I took of next to the East so that I could take advantage of the beautiful mown strip. Once airborne I circled overhead to watch the antics of Brian getting the Gyro airborne. One trip along the model strip, turn around and come back, the rotor was starting to pick up speed at this stage, turn again and go for it. The gyro lifted off easily and made a right turn over some large pine trees. Watching this all from above was like watching a film and it is surely a great thing to be able to do and is one of the joys of Microlighting - just being there and seeing all this beauty around us is really great.

Brian seemed to be stationary and was pulling very steeply over the trees. This gyro sure has an impressive performance, vertical landings and almost vertical take off capability. After Brian got to circuit height I watched Grahame take off in his Challenger. It was a real picture seeing his yellow plane skimming over the beautiful green strip and then being enveloped by the deep blue sky. We are so privileged to be able to do what we do where we do it. Let’s not take it for granted. That’s why all those micro’s on the ground and in hangars should be in the air, you know what you are missing!

The little formation headed west and found the Ice cream shop and landed in the paddock next to it. This landing was a little disconcerting as we had to cross some HT wiring on the side of the road. After following Neville in I watched as Brian performed on of his vertical landings then we all watched as Grahame seemed to fly under the HT wires and land half way up the strip. We mentioned how close he seemed to the wires but he was totally unflustered and was amused by our concern. He was in complete control.

The ice creams were great and we shared the sunny afternoon with Dave McPherson who had just finished serving sausages at the Ford rally.

Neville and I decided to head for Ivan’s next and had a beautiful flight over the rolling green hills and paddocks. Tea was taken at Ivan’s while we inspected the progress of the Fisher Tigers. Russel’s and Ivan’s are almost ready to cover while Jim’s has a lot of catching up to do ,but his is living in NZ again and should catch up with a little help from his now experienced mates.

We headed back to Rangiora after this and put the planes away.

This was a most enjoyable flight and what microlighting is all about. Getting away on a beautiful day with some mates and enjoying all the sport has to offer.

The Winery fly was a little disorganized and didn’t eventuate but Brent and I went for a little jaunt to Cust then to Sefton before the threatening rain started to fall.

So, what’s happening Out There?

VSI is back and can be used by anyone with a rating. Have a word with you friendly instructor to get current again on her.

Wayne Wilson is well on the way to having his new Siminni single cylinder engine fitted to his Pentenpol Air Camper. I had a look at the installation recently and it is a very nice conversion Wayne.

Brent Thompson is now resident at Rangiora during the day time and is available for instruction, just give him a call and arrange a time.

Doug Anderson is going overseas for a couple of months soon, so if you need to order your new Trike do it now.

Ross Marfell is at present getting the engine for the Merlin rebuilt. He is fitting the plane with new hydraulic brakes as well.

Bevan Chamberlin has finally moved back to Pines Beach and will be seen a lot more around the field. Welcome back Bevan and we hope to see you in the air soon.

Summary of Committee Meeting

-- James Sleeman (Secretary)

The committee meeting was again attended by a number of general members, and the main topic of discussion was the forthcoming open day.

I won't go into details about the open day preparations as they are pretty much beside the point now, however suffice to say that we were well prepared with everything from parking to the price of sausages having been decided.

We heard that VSI would be flown over from Hokitika at the first available opportunity, and as you will be aware this has now happened (the pictures Ross took of the trip were quite spectacular).

A number of events were in the pipeline, including flying into the Cust ice-cream parlour. In respect to popularity of that location, Dave McPherson is going to find out if we could place a windsock there, Noel Vallance happens to have one spare.

Noel Vallance gave a report of the CAA instructors seminar that he had just returned from (literally just walked in the door). He felt that the seminar was excellent and came away with a lot of material to soak in, mostly about the human factors in teaching people in general. The seminar was notably well attended by microlight instructors including a number from our club (Noel Vallance, Ross Marfell, Peter Small, Mike Small and Brent Thompson). The attitude towards the microlight contingent was very positive, with hints coming from the CAA that a modified CPL (Commercial Pilots Licence) may be in place as early as next year to finally enable microlight instructors to charge for their services.

The next meeting is scheduled for the 19^th of November, and as always an invitation is extended to any interested members to attend at Robbie’s Bar & Bistro, Clarence Street, Riccarton, at 7:30pm sharp.

All Welcome.

Membership Details
-- James Sleeman (Secretary)

The president and I have recently gone through the membership list, I'll post a copy on the notice board in the club rooms next chance I get, if you are not on the membership list then you are not a member! If you see a problem please phone (0800 021 029) or email (james@gogo.co.nz) and I'll correct it.

Some of the membership details are not very complete, notably some of you have only provided a post box address (we need a street address as well), we probably don't have everybody's cellular phone number (a good idea to give us this, especially for flying members), we probably don't have everybody's email address (if you have one please provide it and note if you would rather receive the newsletter by post), in some cases partner details are unknown, and occupations may not be up to date (the companies office requires this one). It's also a good idea for flying members to provide a Next Of Kin contact that is different to your own phone number.

During the event's surrounding the loss of CMC, those present on the night, myself, and the police had trouble locating Richard's cell phone and his next of kin resulting in a delay in determining where he was and what had happened. This clearly illustrates the importance of supplying these details in that event it wouldn't have changed the end result in any way, but it could save your life one day.

For Sale

Z- MAX

Phone Kim Twentyman for details