June 2007
Welcome to the June newsletter. May was a busy month with the 1000hr party, and a lot of training happening. Unfortunately the weather didn’t behave for the flyaway to Darfield. We will try again this month. Thanks to those who have sent me articles, I really appreciate them. This month we have one from Anita Van Der Velden (AKA Mrs Haveachat)
What’s on.
We will try again for the Darfield flyaway on Sunday 17th. Briefing at the clubrooms at 10.00am.
There will be a site meeting at the Woodside site in Oxford on Sunday 29th. Meet at clubrooms at 10am
Unsung Heroes
Bob Boyce Has put a non-return valve on the fuel pump for the club aircraft. That has made life a lot easier for those fuelling up JOL and JOR. Also for looking after the clubhouse garden.
Colin Marshall keeps our lawns mown around the clubhouse. Between him and Troy the place looks spick and span.
Troy Glover has attacked the carpet with the rug doctor. It is not a new carpet, just been cleaned.
Ross Marfell keeps an eye on what needs to be done around the clubrooms and makes a list for Troy. He also makes those great maps on the clubhouse whiteboard before our flyaways.
Brian Munns, thanks for the donation of a water tank for the events field at Oxford
Thanks also to our club instructors. They are rostered on and do their turn each month, but they also do instructing through the week getting our students up to speed. Don’t forget a little something in appreciation for what they have done for you as a pupil. Remember they instruct on a volunteer basis.
1st solos
Carolyn Trevalla went solo on the day of the 1000 hr party in JOR
Buzz Harvey has gone solo in JOL
John McCaul has also been let loose on his own as well
Buzz arrives back after his first solo!
Clarkville School Visit
On friday 25th of May 80 or 90 excited primary school children, along with a good number of parents and staff, turned up at the airfield with an air of expectancy. They were in for a treat.
Firstly they were welcomed onto the airfield by Mike Small and given some safety guidelines. Then they were divided into four groups and sent to the different stations that had been set up.
Dave Mitchell took the first station. This was a lesson on the theory of flight and involved the children making paper planes and testing them to show how the theories worked in practice.
Mike Small took the second station. This was in the Kiwi Karatoo factory and showed the children about aircraft construction. Mike pointed out how the materials for aircraft construction are light and strong. He had the children sitting up on a bench and eating out of the palm of his hand. Very impressive.
Ross Marfell took the third station. Ross had the children sitting on mats on the floor while he explained about the instruments in an aircraft. Then they got to look at the instruments in his Pioneer aeroplane. Robert Stubbs also helped Ross showing the kids around the aeroplanes.
Finally the forth station was taken by Brent Thompson. Brent explained how he made his props starting from the gluing process right through until they were ready to go to the customer. It was very interesting and was enjoyed by the adults as well as the pupils
Pat
Scotter did a low flypast in the Cub, and Dave Mitchell tossed
out some lollies for an aerial lolly scramble, which finished off the
day. It was an excellent day held in great conditions. Thanks to all
those who helped out on the day. Perhaps one day some of these kids
will come and join the club or become involved in aviation in some
other way.
JOL 1000hr Party
May 12th we had a party to celebrate JOL getting to 1000hrs. 26 members attended a great afternoon complete with a cake that had a green coconut runway and miniature JOL and JOR. I suspect that Troy Glover had a lot to do with that. Also Troy and Ross decorated the clubrooms with balloons and banners. It looked a treat. Thanks!!!!
Mike Sheffield presided over events, handing out certificates to different people. (Thanks to Ross for organising the certificates). Certificates were given to Ross and Troy for being in JOL when it clocked up the 1000hrs, to Paul Woodley for all the work he has done in constructing and maintaining JOL, Brent Thompson for the propeller, construction work and instruction work on JOL, Dave Mitchell for looking after JOL as aircraft manager and instructor, Mike Small for all the instruction he has done in JOL.
Carolyn Trevalla got the certificate for the funniest hat, Brent Thompson got the runner-up certificate for the funniest hat.
(In my opinion, Ross should have got the prize for the most novel hat. It was a bowler type complete with firing party poppers. Very cool. ed.)
All enjoyed a fabulous afternoon tea.
Ross Marfell
Club
President Mike Sheffield cutting the 1000hr party cake.
It was a
banana cake complete with a runway and miniature JOL and JOR.
JOL has been given a new engine. The committee decided to get a new engine after it had a water pipe come off and she suffered overheating. This means we now have a spare engine that can be put into either JOL or JOR when the need arises.
What’s happening out there?
Airways Corporation has given the club some money for a transponder. We have ordered a microair transponder to be fitted to JOL
Les Eade has ordered a rans S6
Mike Small has ordered a Rotax 912S for the Karatoo
Stuart Bufton’s Zenair 701 has had it’s 1st flight at the hands of Mike Small. By all accounts it flies very well. A nice aeroplane
Rod Webb has flown in his Corby Starlet
Roger Ward’s Titan Tornado (the orange roughy) is nearly ready to fly
Colin Marshell has sold his Texan and is waiting for his Sportstar to arrive.
Geoff Bannister will have the Shadow back in the air very soon.
The 2nd Sigma (the flying egg) is nearly ready to fly. The 1st Sigma has been sold.
The Taylorcraft has been brought down and is being worked on in the Karatoo factory
The rumour is that 2 more Karatoos are being built in the Karatoo factory
One happy thruster.
I JUST NUDGED A FENCE
by Anita Van De Velden
I have decided recently to become a member of a "POP" group. No it doesn’t have anything to do with music people. POP stands for "Partners Of Pilots" and I am definitely one of those! Although maybe we could add a few more letters and get a little more descriptive about the whole thing. Maybe "PWHHEOBP" (Partners Who Have Had Enough Of Bloody Pilots!) or the PWWTPTSLTWTBP Club (Partners Who Want Their Pilots to Spend Less Time With That Blimmin Plane!). But names like that wont fit on the peak caps I have ordered (So the Machinist reckons anyway) so POP will have to do!
Seriously though, we partners do have a lot to be annoyed about sometimes. Our darling Pilot Partners (PP’s) or in my case MPP (because he is a Microlight pilot) have a really bad habit of underestimating how long they spend with their Significant Aircraft. This also applies to how long they intend to spend and how much they intend to spend on their SA. This applies even more so if your PP decides that it would be a great idea to build his own Significant Aircraft (Brian’s Heath has been taking shape in the garage for a few years now)!
I work afternoons at the weekend because it is good pay and so I am at home through the week to spend time with the children. So it happens that PP gets up in the small hours while we are all still asleep and zips off to see his SA. Takes off her wrapping, gives her a good looking over and something to drink (all done with great love and care) climbs into her embracing cockpit and trundles off down the runway to spend as much time as he can with her before he has to carefully clothe her, kiss her goodbye and come back home to the three screaming kids, the mad little bitzer dog and the madly screaming wife who is about to be late for work!
I get a little jealous actually. I get to stay at home with my three lovely boys yes, but lets face it, after spending all week with them on my own the last thing I really want to do is spend all my time before work with them snivelling at me! I want backup! I have a husband and that is what he is there for. He is the one who is supposed to be there to pull the kids out of harms way when I am about to break that ridiculous new "No Smacking" law (and don’t even think about getting me started on that one!). But he is not there a lot of the time because my darling PP has a mistress (Thruster single seater) who demands a great deal of attention! Well actually I should say did because recently he had a little mishap and now his best beloved SA is in several pieces in the back of Bevan’s shed.
Now, I did feel slightly sad to see his darling SA in pieces but there was also that little part of me that thought "Great, now maybe I will see a bit more of him!" But I should have known better being a veteran POP.
Listen to what happened and you will see what I mean. Every year in our house we plan to go away at Easter time as there is always some air show or fly-in to go to over that time. 2007 was no exception apart for the fact that Brian’s preparation for the weekend began well before Christmas! I kid you not! He pestered me for months with all the details about how he was going to get everything down to the field at Woodbury (this years chosen destination) what he needed to take and buy, what I could do to help etc etc. It was very full on and of course SA had to have some extra care and attention given to her before the big weekend (also some warm up runs whenever Brian got the chance!).
Finally the BIG weekend came. Brian was at Woodbury on the Wednesday, as he wanted to be sure he and his beloved SA didn’t miss out if the weather turned nasty. I was going to my brothers with the three screaming children and the mad dog on the Thursday as my brother lives in Temuka and has enough room for us all.
Thursday morning there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and as I dashed around trying to get everything ready for us to leave and make sure the house sitter knew where everything was etc I couldn’t help thinking that it would be a lovely day for a flight.
Having a cell phone is great and of course I phoned my lovely PP in the morning to let him know that so far I had resisted the urge to damage any of the kids or shoot the dog and that all going well we would leave around lunchtime. I also remember him saying that he hadn’t had much sleep (not surprising in our old mickey mouse caravan I thought).
Anyhow, I knew he was off for a flight. Wished him luck and suggested he take it easy since he was tired and carried on getting ready.
Around 1000hr I got a call from him. Now these are the words every POP dreads but when they come from your MPP himself at least you know he is reasonably alright. "I crashed the plane." "You what!" "I crashed the bloody plane!" (Hey if I called it a bloody plane there would be hell to pay!).
Of course I asked him how he was and he said he was fine but rather shaken so the next question was about his beloved SA. "It’s buggered! I am so pissed off with myself!" "What happened?" "I nudged a fence!"
Now lets stop here and explore this little sentence shall we! This is how he has described the incident to a few people now but after seeing the photos, the aircraft and the crash site for myself I do believe that it maybe just a little of an understatement!
I wasn’t too worried about the crash in fact until I HAD seen all of these things. Bevan was the one who encouraged me to look at the site on John’s farmlet (much to Brian’s dismay). While we were there looking at where it all happened Bevan was saying things like "What were you thinking man!" and "You are lucky you hit that fence, look at the size of those trees you would have hit if you hadn’t stopped when you did." Thanks to Bevan my relief that Brian was OK turned into "Oh my God! He could have been killed!”
You see when he told me he had misjudged the landing and "Nudged a fence." I imagined a nice smooth field and that he had simply landed too far down it and gently hit the fence at the end but it was a little more complicated than that.
There was a lovely smooth strip but at the end of the strip was a field that was far from smooth with a creek running through it and some rather good-sized trees directly in the flight path. Brian HAD landed too close to the end of the strip but this was the only part of my assumptions that were correct. Brian powered up to take off again but his tail wheel clipped the fence at the end of the strip, which slowed the plane down just a WEEEE bit! When the wheel came free the plane had just enough momentum to clear all the jagged rocks and rough creek bed that would have certainly damaged more than just Brian’s ego and touched down just before the fence that was in front of the rather large trees. So the plane slid into the reasonably forgiving structure of the wire fence and crunched to a halt. Brian ended up almost encased in the machine as the whole structure had pretty much collapsed. Poor John probably thought Brian was really hurt as he rushed to help him, as evidently Brian let out a loud prime-evil yell of frustration. but he was very lucky and only had a small graze on his leg where one of the wires had caught it.
Well at least I will see a bit more of him in the next few weeks eh! No.
First of course was getting the now rather sad looking SA back home and trying to figure out what to do with her. Then there was all the other gear that needed to go back to Christchurch. Then there was the $1000 worth of plane parts that were purchased with the intention of using them to repair the broken mistress only to find when they arrived that they were of no use at all and would need to be taken back down to Riverdale (that was a two day exercise in itself!). Then there have been flights in the club plane to "Keep my hours up honey." and if that isn’t enough, then when he is at Rangiora all his flying buddies kindly offer him flights in their SA which means he is away from home even longer!! (on Mothers Day and all!).
Now I actually like flying myself but give me one or two flights a year (preferably in an open cockpit, Trikes are my favourite!) then I am truly satisfied and don’t require any more adrenaline rushes for some time thanks. but it is different for our MPP’s. They need as much as they can get and still want more! I know this and would never think of asking Brian to stop his flying, but you other POP’s know what I mean when I say that sometimes we feel that we would get more attention from our pilots if we donned wings and started to make engine noises!
Brian has now sold his broken SA to Bevan who is keen to rebuild her and Brian is trying to get over the loss of his dear Thruster.
I (like I said at the beginning) intend to join a POP group so I can air my grievances. Don’t think it will make any odds though. These plane-obsessed pilots that reside at Rangiora and other airfields about the place are not going to change anytime soon!
P.S.
Brian ended up with at least one trophy after all he went through,
the one that says "Hardluck" on it! It has pride of
place on a shelf in the lounge and Brian does his best to ignore it!
He does admit that being tired probably contributed to the crash but
haven’t we all driven or flown at times when we are tired? So
Brian made a mistake but as they say, mistakes are just that,
mistakes. Nothing more and nothing less. The important thing is that
we learn from them.
One sad looking Thruster.
Oxford Airstrip Progress
The new airstrip being formed on Dave McPherson's leased land alongside Woodside Road at Oxford is progressing well. Dave and Mike Small, assure the club it will be ready for the RAANZ Easter 2008 Fly-IN.
Since the club working bee last March the area has been transformed. All the major holes have been filled in and the ground worked up ready for the grader. Wire fences, fence posts and tree trunks have all been removed. Working the ground and rolling will be the next priority ready for a spring sowing.
Dave with the help of his son Peter have spent many spare hours getting the strip to the stage it is in now.
The strip is roughly 510 meters long with the vectors approximately east/west. It has a superb area for camping just off the strip to the north and many sheltered areas for tying down aircraft. It even has river close by for swimming or fishing. (Sorry there are no fish in the river Ross. Ed)
From the strip to the West Oxford Hotel, which is the closest pub at the western end of Oxford, the distance is 1.7km on a sealed road. To Joe Seagers famous restaurant, which is in the centre of town, the distance is 2.4km from the strip.
Dave, Paul, Pete and Mike (the ‘A’ team)
The strip has not been officially named yet and if you have any suggestions let Dave or Mike know your thoughts.
Suggestions so far: -
Woodstock
Woodside
Oxford
Oxford on Eyre (the strip runs alongside the Eyre River)
Checking the site works
Another working bee will be organised before spring and it will be 'all hands to the pump' to ensure that this ambitious project is a resounding success. Watch this space for a time and date.Ross Marfell
New members
Welcome to Simon Adams, Andrew Phillpotts, Tony Scarlett and James Cassels
Here is the latest Pixie picture with the cockpit lining installed. Lining is an army surplus sleeveless quilted jacket. One jacket perfectly on one side of the cockpit. Other side uses another jacket and both button up in the middle. Cockpit sides will be covered in soft rubber tube then covered in leather. Seat is being upholstered in medium grey imitation leather.
Next step is to fit metal coaming and strip and renovate engine.
The Poby pathfinder cockpit
FOR SALE
EA81 Subaru engine. 115+ hp
Plans for the J6 Karatoo and spacewalker
See Mike Small (027) 436 2609
INFORMATION FOR MEMBER
If you hold a RAANZ or SAC licence you can request a free copy of the CAA vector magazine. There is a heap of good information in this Magazine. Go to the CAA website at www.caa.govt.nz to order a copy
Weather Station, Computer, Web Cam Update
The issues with the club computer going offline periodically seem (touch wood) to have been resolved now. Don't ask what was wrong, or what fixed it, because nobody seems to know.
The weather station (see the Current Weather
link top left of this page) now reports to the website every 30
minutes, I've been told that you should take the wind direction
reported with a rather large grain of salt for the time being. The
station gives out a LOT of information if you're interested - the full
details can be viewed at http://rangiora-weather.recwings.com/
You
will also note on that page that a web camera has been added pointing
out of the window to the runway and the bit sky above, it will update
on that page every 5 minutes during daylight hours. Here's a link to
the last 20 images from the webcam: http://rangiora-weather.recwings.com/gallery.html
Contribute!
Please send any articles, stories, “I learned about flying from that” or any thing else of interest to dbmcp@xtra.co.nz
Safe Flying
Dave McPherson