TARMAC



The Official News Letter

Of The









July 2001


Your Executive Officers

El Presidente Andrew Parr 479 3235
Vice El Presidente Chris Todd 833 5841
Secretary Martin Seay 525 6505
Treasurer Peter Cole 473 0130
Committee Anton Lawrence 813 6404
Committee Willie Morton 025 901 796
Chief Flying Officer Willie Morton 025 901 796
Safety Officer Niol Lockington 817 5959
PPAB Peter Nicholson 625 4010
PPAB Gordon Swan 827 5089
PPAB Vern Booth 360 4016
Editor Anton Lawrence 813 6404



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Next Club Meeting, 3rd Tuesday of the month.
July 17th
At the Pikes Point Airpark Clubrooms 19:00

Committee Meeting at 18:30 Sharp.

Editorial
Jon Farmer has delivered yet again with an article, he can't be the only one out there flying, if you've been doing some lets hear about it.

Chris Todd will have another video for us to view at the next meeting.
He has requested a video titled Momentum and drag. Something that includes the pitfalls of stepping from a cherikee or similar, into a microlight and related subjects.


This is the new site of the New Zealand microlights list.
It is a good list to keep up to speed with what is happening around the country.

Anton Lawrence


Anyone interested in some GA flights contact Ross Glover 576 6884

Prez Sez
Well continued from last month you will all know that the club bantam now has new wing covers, unfortunately only 1 week hold and some minor damage happened to them in the way of a fault with the exhaust muffler causing a burn hole big enough to put my fist through. Speedy work by the boys managed to have the muffler/covers removed, repaired and replaced ready for flying by the following Saturday afternoon, thanks go to Peter Cole and Barsal for there efforts.

We also extend our welcome to new members who are all products of the ARMAC training scheme,

As yet a date for the BBQ is stilled to be confirmed, but will be advised by way of a phone around.

IMPORTANT Please read and cascade In line with current thinking here are some announcements from the P.P.A.B
(Hanger owners should have received their own letter)

1/ Visiting aircraft will be charged $10:00 a night, up to a maximum of $50:00 for 5 nights.

2/ The board has decided to charge a levy of $200:00 on all aircraft exceeding 2,000 lbs (907 kgs) based at the airfield. This fee will be over and above any other rents that the owners of the aircraft may be paying.
Hanger owners providing hangerage to these aircraft will be responsible for registering them with Vern Booth so that they can be invoiced.

3/The board is also interested in information on any visiting aircraft which may be using the airfield regularly with the point of asking them for a donation to the P.P.A.B (the size of the donation would be determined by the number of times the operator uses the airfield.

4/ T he board decided not to go to any lengths to collect landing fees other than to install an honesty box adjacent to the clubrooms. These have been set at $7:00

5/Members are asked to assist in collecting these fees, levies and donations as they all help to ease our burden of maintaining the field.

p.s. If anybody has any queries about the above, please contact a p.p.a.b rep for clarification. These may be published at a later date
Andrew

KAUKAPAKAPA


Logan McLean's airstrip. Saturday & Sunday 28 - 29th July. It was great last year and will be even better this year. BBQ lunch on Saturday for $7.00. Evening meal at the Kaukapakapa Hotel. Logan reckons the food is real value for money. Two course meal $27, three courses $35. Great country pub atmosphere. Accommodation available for only $15 pp and there are 10 rooms that sleep 4 people per room. Please book early through Logan. (Ph 09 4205356 or 025 901553) Campervan and caravan sites at the strip but bring an extension lead with you. Road transport will be available for those who fly in and 96 + 91 octane fuel will be on site too. Sunday we will go to Kaipara Flats airfield for lunch. The vintage cars will be attending too, so there should be plenty of things to do and to look at. Both airfields are pictured below and details of them can be found at the site above. If you drive, pass through Kaukapakapa village heading north and just as you start at the bottom of the hill, turn right into Kanohi Rd. It's only a kilometre or so on the left to Logan's topdressing base.

Mount Ruapehu, now you see it, now you don't.

By Jon Farmer


The great 'Brass Monkey' mid Winter fly-in to Raetihi was postponed from the 22 nd to the 29th June due to forecast bad weather. One good outcome was that we could go to the Matira Microlight Club's fly-in on Robin Hanson's strip on the 23rd. About a dozen aircraft had arrived by lunchtime and everyone enjoyed the choice of two soups, meat patties and coffee. However, by 3PM it was obvious that rain was coming from the North and most aircraft left for home. Some made quite a big detour out to the Firth of Thames and had a clear but long trip. Those who chose to return to Pikes direct had to dodge the showers.

On Friday the 29th June the forecast was for improving weather so Gunter and I saddled up and made an early start towards the South. (Well the truth is that we got away before lunch!). Down the Tamaki to Musick Point then a round turn over John Granger's farm at Whitford, over Clevedon and Hunua, follow the power lines down Happy Valley and out onto the Hauraki Plains, where the weather was clearing, and on to Matamata. There we landed and used our swipe cards to get fuel. After a light lunch and 3 bucks in the honesty box we took off and set course for Wharepapa South which is a farm strip about 7 miles SW of the Arapuni hydro dam. It seemed like about a thousand sheep had been on the strip earlier and we spent some time trying to clean our shoes before climbing into the aircraft.

From Wharepapa South we flew down the Western shores of Lake Taupo with increasing cloud coming in from the West and obscuring the mountains. I went up to nearly six thousand feet to see if there was a way over it and Gunter stayed low to see if there was any chance of getting under. By the time we got to Turangi, it was clear that we would not get round the North and Western sides of the mountain so we set off along the Desert Road to see if we could get round the South. After a while the Eastern flanks of the Mountain came into view and we had hopes of sneaking round the South side but there are a lot of 'danger ' and 'restricted' zones in the way and, anyway, both the cloud and the Sun were getting lower and so we backtracked from Waiouru and landed at Turangi.

After picketing the aircraft we set off on the quarter hour walk to the Farmer family batch and opened it up. By this time it was gone teatime so we walked into Turangi where we picked up some bread and milk then carried on to the truck stop on the far side of town. It was well worth the walk because for $11.50 we had five rashers of bacon, two eggs, chips and salad plus a mug of coffee. During the night, snow fell on the high ground round about, we thought it was cold but we didn't know about the cold we were going to experience the next night!

Saturday morning dawned fine and clear and we were up soon afterwards, well, fairly soon afterwards, had breakfast then went into a flight planning huddle as we realised that our trip down the Desert Road had been unplanned and we were lucky not to have transgressed any of the many rules regulations and procedures for that trip. In the end, we decided to go to Taupo for fuel but via the Boyd airstrip, which is deep in the Kaimanawa Mountains. From Turangi this meant climbing to about 6,000 feet to clear the peaks then dropping down to around 3,000 feet into a valley. The Boyd airstrip is about 500 m long between the side of the valley and a stream. A path winds a few hundred metres up the valley side from the airstrip to a DOC hut for hunters and trampers. Gunter actually touched a wheel on the strip but we had been told it was very rough so elected not to land. In any case, it was all so remote that any accident would have been a major event. After a couple of runs each down the strip we flew down a valley, following a stream to Lake Taupo.

Taupo is an MBZ (mandatory broadcast zone) with a ' Unicom' officer who is not in the tower but in the terminal building. His main job seems to be collecting landing fees and giving the odd radio check. The parachute traffic is like confetti continually falling from the sky. A Cessna Caravan and a modified Fletcher with a big door into the hopper were working flat out, they didn't even stop their engines on the ground, and three other jump aircraft were on standby. We filled our aircraft with fuel and ourselves with freshly ground coffee from a very sophisticated machine when Stuart Parker, one of the fly-in organisers, rang to say that he was at the Mountain Air strip and would wait for us. Ten minutes later we were taking off and weaving our way out through the cloud of brightly coloured canopies. It was a pleasant trip down the Eastern side of the lake with the mountains in full view and magnificent in a fresh mantle of snow.

After flying past Turangi we crossed the Tokaanu saddle and followed the National Park road to the Chateau turnoff where the Mountain Air strip is situated. A nice young lady driving a Cessna 206 responded to our radio calls and told us our friends were waiting on the ground so in we went. It is a long grass strip, sloping up towards the mountain and one way but no problem for us, as there was only about 5 knots of wind. After a quick chat and thank you to the Mountain Air staff our four aircraft, Trike, Bantam, Cavalier and Pelican set off for National Park. The old airstrip between the railway and the township was abandoned some years ago but we were told that there is another strip on the Eastern side of the highway. In fact we did find a strip but inspection from the air seemed to indicate that there were several small streams crossing it. We decided not to land and set off to follow State Highway 4 towards the South. From National Park the trip to Raetihi was smooth with magnificent views of Mount Ruapehu, however, we did note that, apart from the highway, there wasn't anywhere to land.

Raetihi air strip is very long, the gliding club used to winch tow off it, but it is a bit neglected with varying surface from loose stones to packed pumice, rough grass and a reasonable length of smoothish grass. We were made welcome in the clubrooms with hot soup or coffee and shown the bunkrooms and ablutions. Niol Lockington came in a little later having done the whole trip from Pikes Point in one go, about four hours I think he said. As we picketed the aircraft in the crystal clear evening air the Sunset bathed Mount Ruapehu in a lovely pink light.


Some eight of us sat down for fish, chips and bangers followed by fruit salad and ice cream, all washed down with a fair number of bottles of home brew. The conversation got quite animated and very interesting when one of the locals revealed that he was a retired aircraft designer and that his father had been apprenticed to Bleriot !!! At one time he had been technical advisor to the British Microlight Association and had been responsible for getting some microlights through section 'S'. I went outside, rather reluctantly, because I had forgotten to tie my control stick back, and found my windscreen was white with frost. One of the others went out and came back with a handful of ice crystals scraped off his wing.

We watched the 10:30 weather on telly and then retired to the bunkrooms. Niol caused some consternation when he placed the seat cushion from his aircraft onto his bunk but it turned out the padding was an ex German army sleeping bag complete with arms, leg holes and a place to put your rifle supposedly suitable for sleeping in the snow!! Gunter translated the label sewn into the bag and now Niol knows everything there is to know about dry cleaning his sleeping bag!!! About the most we took off were our shoes before climbing into our sleeping bags and pretending it was great fun going to 'Brass Monkey' fly-ins.

In the morning we peeped out and saw the Mountain was looking a bit sullen with cloud swirling around the peak. By the time we had breakfast it had disappeared under the cloud and a gusty SEly wind was blowing. Pulling the pickets out and wiping the frost off the wings was very cold work and we had to retire into the clubhouse every now and then to thaw out our fingers. An angry noise like a supersonic wasp heralded the arrival of Trevor Barret's Titan Tornado, which throttled back from 120 knots to land. Soon afterwards an almost inaudible purr announced the arrival of Logan's Technam Golf, which also had to slow down from a hundred odd knots to land. He was on his way back from Nelson where he had been on a sales mission with Giovani. Late in the morning we all took off into rather turbulent conditions, two aircraft proceeding back to Hamilton and six of us going to the Mountain Air strip.

By the time we reached National Park we had left the cloud and turbulence behind and the Mountain was bright and clear. It was almost calm on the Mountain Air strip. A phone call got Chris airborne from his farm strip, near Arapuni, in his KR2, ZK-KRG, to meet us at Turangi. He led us to his strip and talked us in. Real slow over the power lines, the road and the trees then let down quickly and get the wheels on because it is a one way field and a thousand FEET long NOT a thousand METRES long as we understood him.


Chris fed us on toasted sandwiches and gave us a talk on deer velvet. He produced several specimens of antlers for us to examine and stroke. Very sexy. Two hours passed very quickly then we were on our way, Günter and I to Matamata for fuel, Niol to Mercer to have a chat with Jim Liver and Trevor and Logan for their respective home strips. Back at Pikes Point, Niol produced a welcome cold beer for each of us, and that rounded out a very interesting weekend.

Trade And Exchange.
Private owners only
Contact the Editor to place an add
813 6404hm 025 354 998wk
kirstant@orcon.co.nz

Trike, FXN, current air cert, plenty of instruments, long range tank, rainbow wing a pleasure to fly, low engine hours, $3,800.00 neg contact Alex; 09 5366815 h or 09 5342190 e-mailmailto:autocollision@paridice.co.nz

Koenig  "Pagojer" 18 Hp 3 Cyl radial engine, with prop, cage, and  harness for powered 'chute. In good condition, reconditioned a few hours ago. $2000. Further details from:  BRODIE ANDREWS, ph. 8175433"

Warpdrive three blade 58"-60" left hand ground adjustable prop. Older type with two sets of hub plates to suit either standard Rotax 75mm or 4" bolt pattern for VW or Subaru. Moulded-in metal leading edge protection.
Never been used. $900

Icom A22 handheld radio, 760 com: channels plus VOR navigation readout.
Alkaline battery pack. Brand new in box
$950

Two quality Peltor headsets, intercom with cables for connection to Icom radio and push to talk switch. All new. $650 the lot or I can fit the headsets with standard GA plugs and sell them separately.

Helmets with clip on peak and Peltor earmuffs. Fully adjustable for size. Wear a beanie underneath in cold weather. Either red or blue. $180
I can customise these helmets with speakers and microphone to suit your requirements.

Contact Jon Farmer, ph (09) 520 0641.