Parakai Airfield Newsletter-Aug10

Parakai Airfield-Newsletter-Jul10

HAWERA AeroClub July101

HAWERA AeroClub Aug10

To see the recent additions to the Vintage Gallery just click here

]]> http://www.aerohub.co.nz/?feed=rss2&p=2032 0 http://www.aerohub.co.nz/?p=2432 http://www.aerohub.co.nz/?p=2432#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:08:14 +0000 graeme http://www.aerohub.co.nz/?p=2432 WARBIRDS OVER WANAKA INTERNATIONAL AIRSHOW:
6, 7, 8th April  2012,
Hours: 7 – 4pm
Fax:     03 443 8627
Phone:  03 443 8619
Free Phone:  0800 496 920
Email: info@warbirdsoverwanaka.co.nz
Web:  www.warbirdsoverwanaka.com
Physical Address: Wanaka Airport, Wanaka, New Zealand
Postal Address:  P.O. Box 593, Wanaka 934, New Zealand
Notes: Tickets available at www.warbirdsoverwanaka.com
Photos from the previous airshow are in the gallery click here

Gadzooks, zounds, egad and forsooth Aerohub browsers. I trust that you and yours are in very fine fettle. Have been ‘Beavering’ away on a long and wearying magazine project on the dear old DHC-2 Beaver. It can be a somewhat lonely life in one’s home office so it is a pleasant break to be able to say g’day to some of the troops on my Contact list. Sometimes, when working on a serious task, I feel a strong attack of “Drivel” coming upon me; hence the arrant nonsense you observe below. “Drivel is as drivel does” is what I say! Therefore,
Merrie cheers and chocks away,
Feeney…driveller extrordinaire.

“World Thumbs-up and Chocks Away Day”
(Above is the official ‘Thumbs-up’ image and a little-known historic photograph of a mid-1900′s Y.O.B.B.O. (Youth Operated Basic Bi-winged Omniplane); with technical notes)

This notable aeronautical event will be celebrated on October 25th, 2010, which is Mike Feeney’s 70th birthday. Mr. M.J. Feeney, T.A.S. (Tedious Aviation Scribe) is believed to be the holder of the world record for the longest routine daily user of the ‘Thumbs-up’ hand signal and the voiced expression of “Chocks away chaps”. He began this engaging and jovial practice in 1950 after being given, for his tenth birthday, the well known aviation adventure book by Captain W.E.Johns, titled “Biggles, Bertie, Ginger and Algie Fly United”. Mike’s thumb greetings and merrie ‘Chocks Away’ utterences have endeared him to generations of aviation chums and readers of his writings which have become notable for their practiced, packaged, pallid, pilloried, paradoxical, parochial, parsimonious, patronising, peripatetic, persistent and, above all else, pedantic phraseology.
So let’s all cheer up by more use of these universal visual and verbal signals of jollity, good fellowship and airpersonship. “We few, we happy few; we Band of Brothers!”

Footnote for young readers:

The historic and little-known 1956 photograph below shows Mike doing a sizzling 39 knot flypast and thrilling ‘zoom-climb’ along runway 32 at Rukuhia aerodrome; now Hamilton International. The training biplane is a ‘Scruggs Thunder-blaster Mk.XIX’. This variant was powered by a 750 cubic-inch, four-cylinder in-line Pratt & Stratton ‘Hamster’. This model ran on 65 octane white-spirit (cleaning fluid and fuel for camping lamps and stoves) and was de-rated to 23 bhp at a red-line rpm of 1,150. This was in order to exercise some measure of control over what was then known as Y.I.K.H.E.S. (Youth Induced Kinetic Hooliganistic Exhibitionistic Syndrome). Some of we young lads used to jokingly refer to this training machine as the ‘Chunder-blaster’. By joves, we were a merrie bunch and got up to all manner of jolly japes!

Click to enlarge

Greetings again all. I was so taken by this photograph which I spotted on “Flight International” magazine’s website  www.flightglobal.com  that I found myself scribbling some brief notes on the amazing Me-262. There are whole books devoted to this type, but if you just Google “Me-262″ you will find plenty of easily digestible information. F’rinstance, did you know that an Eastern bloc country built and operated the 262 after WWII?
Cheers troops; remain alert…the world needs more ‘lerts’!
Mike Feeney of Hamilton, New Zealand.

A recent shot of The Collings Foundation’s B-24 Liberator and two-seat Me-262 replica over the coastline of Washington State. This Me-262 uses the axial GE J-85 instead of the original axial Junkers Jumo 004 which had a static thrust of 1,984 lbs but a life of only 25 hours before an overhaul was required. The J-85 has been around for a very long time. I think the thrust rating of these is up to about 3,000 lbs (without an after-burner). The WWII Me-262 had a maximum level true airspeed of 470 knots as compared with the 380 knots of the North American P-51D; the 262′s only opponent, during deep penetrations from the UK by B-24s and B-17s of the USAAF’s 8th Air Force, from the Summer of 1944 until fuel shortage severely restricted operations of this most effective air superiority fighter which was superior to the WWII Gloster Meteor and even the post-war Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star.

Whilst the Me-262A-1a could have been put into production from August 1942, this was delayed until Hitler authorised production in November 1943; and then only as a bomber until, due to subterfuge by the development team, the fighter variant was issued to Luftwaffe fighter units and flew their first combat missions in October 1944. Their four nose-mounted 30mm cannon proved to be devastating against the USAAF bombers so it was fortunate that, of the 1,100 built, only about 200 were actually flown against the daylight bomber forces. Of course it was vulnerable to the P-51D during take-off, approach and landing, but had the machine been widely dispersed and operated from bunkers straight out onto roadway ‘airstrips’, the 262 could well have proved to have been a most serious threat to the Allied strategic air offensive. Once again, the ignorant and stupid decisions made by the evil, but pathetic ‘little corporal’, saved great numbers of Allied aircrew and ensured that a sustainable daylight air offensive could continue against Germany’s crucial strategic resources; such as fuel. Hitler was not only an evil mass-murderer, but he was stupid and a coward as well. How disgusting that a so-called national ‘Leader’ would cower in his funk-hole Berlin bunker and take the easy path of a cyanide capsule instead of facing up to the advancing USSR army alongside his defending troops; many of whom were just boys! Sort of reminds you of that more recent sadistic torturer from Iraq who was discovered in another funk-hole…….

ON this site you will find information of aircraft that have disappeared in New Zealand and never  been found. Many theories abound of where they disappeared to, and yet, many years later they still have not been located. As communication and technology increase there becomes a much greater chance of locating these aircraft if we can utilize and co-ordinate this into a combined effort.
For more details on this fascinating subject and to place an order for Gavin’s book,

TRACED….yet still missing

please click on the link below.

http://www.findlostaircraft.co.nz/

♥

Chris with his Cessna 188 Agwagon when a much younger aviator

A popular image of earlier New Zealand agricultural pilots has been that they tended to be of a somewhat exuberant, extroverted and party-loving disposition. And, thinking back, I would have to concede that there was more than a grain of truth in that belief. Certainly, when the weather prevented flying, some of we younger single chaps behaved as though it was our last night on earth…and for some; it was!

However, there were many others who exercised moderation and just got on with the job in a professional and modest fashion. Our comrade Chris Iremonger is one of that sensible, yet drolly humourous breed of ag. pilots.

On Saturday evening on the 10th of July, some 160 folk gathered at Te Kuiti’s Waitomo Club to enjoy time with Chris and Sibyl Iremonger. From around the region and the North Island came long-time friends and old work-mates. It was an interesting mix of loader drivers, farmers, truck operators and some venerable pilot chums, retired and current.

Chris was born at Stratford on March 19th, 1944 and nearly did not pursue an aviation career as, after completing his secondary education at St. Patricks, Silverstream, in 1961 he underwent three years training to become a priest.  After a rethink, he returned to the family farm and joined the Stratford Aero club. Whilst learning under Brian Doyle he also joined Rural Aviation as a loader-driver and was teamed up with the late Sam Bickerstaff of whom he has fond memories. He later loaded Fred Ewing and Don Erceg on Cessna 180s and 185s. This experience convinced him to attend the Wanganui Commercial Pilot School, passing his CPL flight test in late 1966. He was cleared to do some ferry flying in the Rural aircraft and saved enough to pay his way, with some help from his father, through the 50 hour course at Bereck Dalcom’s Wanganui Agricultural Flying School. He learned much from Bereck’s realistic training in Cessna 180, ZK-BUG, an excellent training type for the role.

Chris got his chance at some topdressing ops. when, in July 1968, Don Erceg was out of action following a car accident. A big change in his future occurred when, in early ’69, Rural bought out the Te Kuiti operator, Northern Air Services. Chris was moved to Te Kuiti with 480 hours in his logbook. He gradually established himself in the region where he was to remain up until the present time.

From late ’71 Chris had sufficient experience to carry our spraying operations on the forests of the central North Island and a variety of farm work. In 1973 he had the pleasure of picking up a brand new Cessna C-188B Agwagon, ZK-DJZ, which he enjoyed flying until 1986.

In 1994, Rural Air Services (1986) Ltd sold the Te Kuiti operation to Wanganui Aero Work so Chris’s Agwagon years were over and he flew a FU-24-400 until 2000 when Cresco LTS was allocated to Te Kuiti. Chris liked the FU-24 and Cresco because of their better visibility, clean windscreens, high-lift wing and much larger cockpit for pilot and loader-driver or farmer. He speaks highly of Wanganui Aero Work’s maintenance and the presentation of their aircraft.
With 28,000 hours of ag. flying, 19,000 of them on Cessna Agwagons, Chris decided to move to an area rep.’s job with the company thus providing the chance for long-time loader-driver, Grannt Lennox to get a pilot’s seat. So from 2007, Chris eased Grant into the area and provided mentoring and much support until just a few months ago. Forty years of continuous ag. flying operations is a splendid achievment.

A particularly significant event occurred in 1971 when Chris and Sibyl married and proceeded to add considerably to the district’s population and to the nation’s human resources thus:

Shaun (36), a RNZAF C-130 Hercules Captain; Matt (34), flying Beech 1900Ds for Eagle; Jane (32), busy mother to a daughter, son and two step-daughters; Jessica 31), a District Nurse in Auckland and twin to Robert who is a Paramedic in Auckland; James (27), also a pilot with Eagle; and finally, Kate (21) who is studying physiotherapy at Otago University.

Sibyl has bee married to Chris for nearly 40 years, most of them during which Chris was actively flying. There is a degree of mental stress placed on ag. pilot’s wives due to the accident rate; very high in earlier decades, not so bad now. To the best of my knowledge, 140 pilots have been killed whilst engaged in ag. operations within New Zealand and many other New Zealanders have died when ag. flying overseas. So I asked Sibyl if she would care to reflect on aspects of being married to a 28,000 hour ag. pilot. She sent me these thoughts:

“Dear Mike,
A good aspect of being married to my topdressing pilot was that he loved his job. It certainly makes life easier when your man likes going to work to earn the money to keep the household going. It was also great when the children were pre-schoolers and he was around on wet or windy days to entertain them when I was really busy. When I returned to work it was a real bonus that Chris could mind the children on non-flying days.
The children had wonderful experiences flying down to Feilding with Chris when the aircraft was on a maintenance check. The downside was that who wants to go to to the beach or on a picnic when it is raining or blowing, or both! All the good days were taken up by flying. There are only so many times you can disappoint little kids who don’t really understand the importance of flying from marginal airstrips in the best and safest conditions possible. I guess I developed a great measure of independence as I found that I had to get used to going without him.
I could go on and on. The waiting for the plane to come home from Feilding on bad weather days because that was when most of the maintenence was done. It would be getting dark. You knew what time he left because he phoned for a weather report. It takes only one hour from Feilding, so where is he? Like all ag. pilot’s wives, I’ve had Chris dead and buried many a time!
The dreaded phone call re. an an accident; be it your husbands, or someone elses…it never got any easier….but I mustn’t bore you Mike; you know all this anyway.
But through it all we have made a great life for ourselves. We have seven wonderful children who are working at jobs they love and Chris and I are still together. We have wonderful friends, many of whom are from the aerial topdressing industry…real characters with whom we have shared many wonderful, and not so wonderful, experiences. I hope this explains a little.”

How nice it is to be writing about an ag. pilot friend who is still alive and knew when it was time to make the break from flying overloaded aircraft from hill-country airstrips. We must all hand over to younger men, but the current Wanganui Aero Work pilot, Grant Lennox, still confers with Chris on aspects of flight operations in the region. And the quiet, modest understated achiever tells me he is quite content to have his memories as he cruises around at low speed on the local golf club’s lawn-mowing tractor.

Rick Harding of Wanganui Aero Work made a presentation to Chris and Sibyl who both spoke of the memorable decades and of all the friends they had made during nearly 40 years of marriage and Chris's long involvement in the agricultural aviation industry

This is a current shot of the old Te Kuiti aerodrome base office and lunchroom that Chris, and many other loader-drivers and pilots, spent so much time in whilst waiting for the weather to improve. It brings back good memories for me also as, during the first half of this decade, when I was Wanganui Aero Work's QA and Safety Manager, I always looked forward to my regular working visits to chat with the troops about safety and audit stuff. Chris, Fraser Wilson, Ronnie Henderson and Malcolm Lilley always made me welcome to the cosy office with a 'cuppa' and a biscuit. Sadly, Ronnie and Malcolm have left us but Fraser is with Super Air and flies a very nice Pratt & Whitney PT-6 FU-24 out of Te Kuiti. It is a great old and historic airfield with many happy memories for so many of us.

*  EVENT: Remembrance  Day World War 1 Airshow – 13th November 2010

One of the first airshow displays of the 10/11 season will be the
Remembrance Day show being run at Hood Aerodrome in Masterton
(New Zealand) on Saturday 13th November ’10

For more details and the full news visit their page

http://www.ipenz.co.nz/pickering/

This is a private airfield which operates 365 days of the year situated on
the South West Coast of New Zealand’s North Island. After many years of
ownership, the vendors are offering this wonderful and beautiful property
for sale.

Contact: Karl Cameron on 06 357 4989