we're back on air.. as such!

I Know, I know.. shoulda updated this ages ago.. My only excuse is that we've been away for a few weeks break. Drove all around the southern South Island. The weather was great, crazy being that its winter.

Did a couple of aerobatic training flights with the guy who bought our good old Acrosport off us. It is a wonderful plane to fly, although a little more difficult to do aerobatics in than the Pitts.

Anyway, we spent a bit of time getting him comfortable with simple rolls and then the Cuban Eight.

If you don't know, a Cuban 8 is done by starting into a loop, and as you pass through inverted, at the top, you stop the aircraft pitching down past 45 degrees (so now you are inverted, diving at 45 degrees) then you roll upright, and pull up into another loop. From the ground, it should look like a figure 8 lying on its side. Flying it is quite simple, and very safe, as the aircraft is never pointing straight at the ground. You will often see these performed very low at airshows for that reason.

We ended up all the way down at Stewart Island, which was a highlight of the trip. We got the local charter operator at Invercargil to fly us over to a beach on the Islands western side. The weather was calm, blue sky. Really not what you expect that far South. We spent one night there in a hut, with a number of hours wandering around after dark, looking for a kiwi.. The bird kind! Saw one, which was quite a thrill, but it wasn't keen to stick around and let us watch it. We did, however, have a lovely meeting with one on another beach with a local guy who takes people out at night to a beach not far from the only settlement on the Island, just to to see kiwis. Definitely worth doing.

Another flight that we did was a little less planned. While in Franz Josef, one of the local pilots recognised us, and managed to organise a couple of seats on a Squirrel he was flying up and down the glacier, just for old times sake. Even got to land on a snow field and then be left on the glacier for a few minutes while he ferried a bunch of hikers back to the town. Would have been a long cold walk if he'd forgotten about us. The temperature just plummeted as the sun disappeared.

So we are back in the office now, and its time I went and did a bit of inverted spinning. This may sound crazy (check the name of the blog!!) but actually, its just something I have to do every now and then as even though I've done quite a bit of it, I am still not the most comfortable with it. Last time, I think I had Izzy, from the local paper come with me.. she laughed the whole time!!! watch this space.