North Shore Aero Club Open Day

[stu]

via email....

For the first time in 10 Years, the North Shore Aero Club, Dairy Flat
Airfield is having an Open Day of this scale, inviting aircraft of all
types, with displays of aerobatics and formation flying. This will be
a fun day for all the family with everything from a motorised
hang-glider to full-on Pitts Special aerobatics.

On the ground there will be classic cars and model aircraft, plus
quality vendors providing interest and refreshment.

Please see the attached flyer - Go ahead and print this out and post
in your local shop to promote the event - lets have a great day to
remember.

The event is posted on Facebook

www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=166763786697452

Attachments:

[philip]

Can people fly in?

[Dave Homewood]

Stu, my computer won't download more than the top third of the poster, after several attempts. Can you tell me what date this is so I can add it to the forum calendar please?

[Darren Masters]

Sounds like a good day. Hopefully the roster allows for it.

[John L]

Jan 22, 2011 22:31:19 GMT 12 Darren Masters said:

Sounds like a good day. Hopefully the roster allows for it.

Saturday Feb 26th

[Darren Masters]

Wish I had it that far ahead Jon

[rbwannabe]

Weather looking good.
look for a possible surprise visit (flypast) by two merlin powered aircraft !!!!!

[Deleted]

Looking forward to the photos .... have to work today unfortunately

[FlyingKiwi]

Was also working today (although "working" for me means flying, so I can't really complain!) but I saw a lot of the resident Ardmore warbird aircraft taking off throughout the day presumably off to North Shore.

[Peter Lewis]

I called in at the North Shore airfield open day today.

To put it mildly, I was appalled at what I found.

There were people there mingling with aircraft!
Not only that, there was a complete lack of twelve-foot high chain mesh fences, and absolutely no sightings of any red Honda RAVs driven by stern looking people in fancy-dan uniforms.

Don't these people realize that whole highly lucrative careers with extensive well-funded overseas study leave and substantial superannuation benefits have been devoted to preventing exactly this sort of interaction?

There was no evidence of any signs pointing out that airfields and aircraft were highly dangerous places to be, and that all people should keep well away from such places and machines under threat of clause so-and-so of the Aviation Security Act or face fines of a gazillion dollars or fifty years in jail or both.

Instead, there were lots of people enjoying a summers afternoon going 'Oooh' and 'Ah' at aeroplanes small and not so small, talking to the owners and the aircrew and gaining the impression that these were not strange creatures from an alternative universe but normal people involved in a pleasant and satisfying hobby that might even be accessible to them as well.

Shocking.

Call WINZ, Victim Support, the Green Party and Clark (H) immediately and demand that they put a stop to this madness!

[stu]

Brilliantly written Peter but you forgot to mention the horrible crime of there being no charge to attend apart from a two dollar parking fee (proceeds to the ATC) if you chose to use one of several conveniently located paddocks.

Probably a bit biased being a member of the Aero Club but it was one of the best open days I've been to in a while. It may not have had the range of heavy metal that is displayed at Ardmore but many of the aircraft on display had the bonus of being more financially in reach of a type rating. It was great to talk fluent aircraft with like-minded others and the offer of a future cost share flight in a Nanchang is on the to do list in the near future. Only drawbacks for me were having to leave early for an appointment to get five stitches removed from my gum (word of warning folks - DIY dentistry is not a good idea) and my 300 mm lens developing a fault.

Instead of clogging up the forum, I have a facebook album of photos that I think can be viewed by anyone... www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=270816&id=756702583&l=3f40d87123

Let me know if the link doesn't work.

Cheers,
Stu

[hardyakka]

I trundled up to NSAC for a day in the sun watching aeroplanes and telling lies swapping stories with other flying people. We had a party of three so our bus for the day was a borrowed C172. Nice low key event. Chatted to Richard Hood and got a close up inspection of John Eaton's superb Pitts Model 12 (which was the main attraction for our trip). It was weird hearing an aircraft sound like a Yak, but seeing a biplane instead. Richard says the Model 12 isn't as agile as the smaller models and therefore isn't really suited for competition aeros, but has plenty of power for relaxed airshow aerobatics. He told a story of being two-up with full fuel and after taking off on runway 21 and a max performance climb, being at 2000' by the crossing runway.

As it was just an open day, we weren't expecting a full-on airshow but the displays that did happen were fine. Almost all of the formation teams had some variation of the spaghetti break in their display. I suspect that Doug Brooker's Spitfire was just on a normal training flight and did a single buzz-and-break pass as a favour rather than a paid-for display. Still, it sounded good. It was also good to see Graham Bethell beat the place up in the P51.

I had a tasty gourmet pork burger while sitting in the shade under the wing of a very tidy C152 (I still have more hours in C152s than any other type)
We had a good day in the sun and I got 1.8 hours of C172 time for my logbook being a trip up from Te Kowhai and back (via a scenic tour of the Hauraki Gulf). Nice way to spend a Saturday.

[Darren Masters]

Nice pics all. Stu, added you to Face Book