gyrating habit but there is room for more flying now that the weather is generally improving. I received this photograph from John Rochfort who is enjoying flying his gleaming red Xenon at Dannevirke. John is flying solo under remote supervision which requires some judgement from afar to provide the right level of encouragement mixed with words of caution. I am impressed with the level of discipline shown by both John and Paul Scherrer in handling the remote consolidation stage of their progress successfully.
h the surface to achieve a smooth image on the surface.
stunning! The portfolio of 'Gyro Grins' was expanded and it was a great day for flying, sunny with a fresh Southwest breeze. Phil was kind enough to fly up from Whakatane just for the occasion which was much appreciated and the loose formation flying was a first for him. Note slowing down to 40mph, with RGG ahead, to let a commercial Beech 1900 cross the grass runway.
'Wordpress' based web site that Gyrate will release very shortly. Among its features will be links to Tauranga actual weather and forecasts, links to other sites of interest and videos of gyro flying around the world.
isappeared! No worries looking back its hard to understand why rushing around Heathrow with two large wheelie cases weighing in at 'max allowable' should be an issue. Twelve hours later formalities and the quiet efficiency of Hong Kong's new airport can be handled even by the jet lagged. There is just a touch of intimidation in the eyes of the Chinees imigration officer and then the smooth airconditioned bus ride takes me direct to the Hotel door located amongst the hectic bustle of Kowloon. It is over 20years since I opperated DC8 and 747 aircraft into the old Kia Tak runway but the memory of heading 
straight at a large checker board painted on a hillside is still very very vived. The break-off into a steeply banked right turn is also indelibly planted into the mental databank and I can see the washing hanging from the balconies as the wing tip passes over, surely the soap-powder struggles to overcome the vapour of burnt jet fuel that must fall from the sky. Maybe that was a factor in reclaiming the land and building an engineering marvel, an International Airport out where there was sea. I am able to keep awake to take in a small amount of the City by night; I treat 
myself to the bar at the Intercontinental which looks across the water to Hong Kong Island where a Lazer light show takes place each evening. At 8.00pm sharp the show begins and beams of colour dart across the sky while the sides of the sky scrapers explode with brilliant light displays. It is hard to enjoy the full specticle as it is spread over some miles of waterway and no one vantage point can capture all the action. The spread of the City is further emphasised next day when I take the tourist tour which 
includes spectacular views from the Peak as well as touching on the povity of the traditional fishermen who still ply their trade from Junks around the harbour.
arrive in October.
I am privileged to have access to fly some private aircraft based at the Royal Navy Airfield Yeovilton and had arranged to use one for a trip to the Chanel Islands. These are somewhat closer to the French coast than the English and appear to operate under 'a flag of convenience' to suit all parties. The Islands are not part of the European Union, they establish their own tax regimes and attract the seriously wealthy to take residence. 
The mixture of a predominantly English language with a French cultural influence creates a unique lifestyle and attitude to the outside world. The two larger Islands are modern sophisticated centers of Banking; both have airports. The smaller inhabited Islands aim to preserve an almost medieval culture with unmade roads, no cars and no aviation. Last Thursday dawned grey and misty, however my brother in law had booked a Hotel and ferry 
so four of us headed to Yeovilton to asses the forecast and landing conditions at Guernsey, the nearest airport to the small destination Island of Sark. Conditions were not good with a cloudbase struggling between 500 and 1000feet and drizzle lurking in the air. The best opportunity for flight would be just after mid-day when the temperature would be highest which would dry the air for an hour or two. We boarded the French designed Tabago TB10 touring aircraft and set off to look at the prospect of success and found it was possible to maintain over 1000ft till South of the UK coast 
where the cool sea brought the cloud lower. With Guernsey offering suitable landing conditions we pressed on clear of cloud and in sight of the surface until the GPS led us to a grey silhouette of land and a climb to join the circuit for an approach. Having secured the aircraft within its protective covers we headed for the taxi and ferry that would take us to Sark. Only 40 minutes on a ferry through some treacherous rock strewn waters and the clock of civilisation turns back through a time warp; there are no cars on the Island and the lack of personal motor transport changes a couple of miles from an insignificant distance to a major obstacle particularly in wet or windy conditions. We traveled to our hotel by horse and carriage on rough unmade
tracks and at one point had to dismount to traverse an excessivly exposed col. Having booked a rather expensive cottage in the hotel grounds we were rather shocked to find that our accommodation was in fact a batch some 500 yards up a flint strewn track were we were sent to dress for dinner, ties and jackets gentlemen please! Some heated discussion followed and a transfer was agreed for the following night to quaint if not 
luxurious rooms across a pretty garden from the main building. By dawn the skies had cleared and a brisk walk along a cliff path led to the small village where we hired bicycles to explore the 5 mile x 2 mile extent of this small rock. Armed with wheels one can cover most vantage points in half a day even at the 19th century pace of the locals. The hotel food is exceptional and so is the bill, its time to return to the modern world where the commercial pressure of competition offers some escape from the sole provider mentality that enables rip-off economics to prevail.
Well against the odds and thanks to my engineering friends I now have a new permit to fly for my VPM16 Gyroplane.
The picture shows an engineer of the old school, Gordon Smith who has still got the skill to take a sheet of metal and with no more than simple hand tools create items as diverse as a kettle drum or a cowling for an antique aircraft. Fortunately he also understands gyroplanes and has acted as an inspector for many years before 
recently retiring to concentrate on model building. For me Gordon has now been replaced by Tony Melody who has vast experience but also a 300mile round trip to service my machine. The CAA office tasked with surveying my aircraft for the issue of a permit is only 15 miles away and was able to provide a prompt service. The inspector arrived in smart suit and shiny shoes only to be faced with Somerset fields awash with weeks of torrential rain. The access to the flying field is a farm track much neglected by the 
farmers and now only passable with a 4x4 and some determination. Fortunately my hangar, a converted removal lorry, is a perfectly dry oasis (that can't be the right word) amongst all this damp and the machine was seen to be in good order. As is often the case with CAA there was just one thing that stopped permit issue then and there; I was unable to show the weight and balance document that was sent to CAA when the last permit was issued. 'No problem' says I, 'nothing has changed and you have the document or you wouldn't have issued a permit'. Ah, 'well archives can't find it and so 
we will need you to produce a copy'. So a quick trip to see my engineer of the time and Gordon was able to satisfy their needs; paperwork in order, permit issued, aircraft flying!
With only a week or so before I head back to New Zealand I have decided to let a fellow instructor take the machine away and market it on my behalf. He has agreed to address some minor issues and ensure the aircraft is in perfect condition following a 200 mile trailer ride back to his base.
Although this will be a sad day for me I have been spoilt by flying modern factory made aircraft and have decided to move on and leave G-YFLY to receive the TLC she needs from an enthusiast. And so it was that today flew the aircraft out of my field and landed where it could be de-rigged and loaded onto a smart trailer for a long journey North and the Tardis stands empty awaiting a new arrival but who knows when! By co-incidence, today a similar container holding three new machines left Germany on route Tauranga, I will be there to welcome it eagerly as these are even better aircraft than the Eagles we 
know.
Well I wanted to show some shots of the Microlight fly-in at Popham last weekend but due to the wonders of modern science they were lost in the exchange from camera to computer. So I have been delaying further blogging until I had some more interesting pics.
Today I received a couple of pics that got my attention and so I was inspired enough to start typing.
Formation flying takes a lot of practice and can have unforeseen consequences. Those air intakes are meant to accept air being forced back to mix with fuel in the
correct ratio to drive the jet turbine engines. Shielded by the back of the C130 the intakes may well be starved of air causing the mixture to become too rich and without a clever engine management system the EGTs on those turbines would go over limits - expensive and engine trouble is not called for in flight critical situations!
Following my return from Germany the UK weather has been foul, just the sort of summer I used to hate when I was hanging around airfields skydiving, totally unreliable with heavy rain showers interspersed with spells of drying wind and sunshine. You just think its coming good and another trough of low pressure drags half the Atlantic ocean into the heavens and drops it over Somerset. I had booked a PA28 Piper Cherokee for Saturday afternoon to fly into the show at Popham, this event is one of the significant marks on the UK microlight calender and I would have normally taken the VPM gyro if the paperwork had been in order. Typical of the rare occasion that I get round to forward planning I found my aircraft booking canceled by the club due to lack of hours available before scheduled maintenance.
As it turned out the tropical storm over Southwest England last Saturday made surface transport a sensible option for travel and I was much happier to accept a two hour drive rather than staring through a steamed up canopy in a ground groping cloud dodging attempt to aviate 'visually'.
Popham was blessed with an afternoon spell of sunshine following a downpour in the morning, the turnout of modern gyros was suficiently significant to establish this as the fastest growing sector of light aviation in the UK. Watch this mushroom in the years ahead, economy and versatility are attracting serious flyers to factory made gyroplanes and established microlight schools are adding this type of rotorcraft to their fleets. Great to see and a real reward for those of us who have been banging this drum for years. The stalls were rewarding and I came away withsome of those things that you don't see anywhere else, not big things but some plastic map holders so useful in an open cockpit.
The rest of the week has centered around organising my VPM permit renewal, critical to this was a visit from my engineer to sign off an annual inspection prior to a CAA visit scheduled for this Monday. Well that's all done although I now realise I am still short of a scribble in a couple of crucial places. The airfield looks tidy due to some hurried mowing between showers and the Hangar/container is swept and respectable. Watch this space!
To visit the manufacturers of the MTO3 Eagle in Hildersheim is a pilgrimage from my home town in Somerset. The best compromise on paper was to fly from Bristol to Amsterdam with KLM and then on to Hanover and hire a car. This worked well on the outward journey but turned to disaster on the return when we were stuck in Amsterdam overnight when a Focker 50 aircraft went sick. Besides a very short night in a very basic Airport hotel and some lost luggage all was well for us but for those on demanding business schedules KLM was a complete failure.
Visiting the Auto-gyro factory always impresses me, the warm welcome was matched with warm weather, some 32C by day and 20C by night. It was pleasing to see the new aircraft for New Zealand were under construction with painted body shells drying courtesy of solar power.
Production is approaching one machine per day with 46 staff running two shifts that start at 5.00am and run
until 11.00 at night. The teamwork is impressive and the cleanliness and organisation of the factory is a stepping stone on the path to higher approvals within European Aviation Legislation.
I was introduced to the slightly modified MT-Sport which is configured to produce less drag and can be fitted with a variable pitch propeller to provide a total performance improvement of twenty percent above the original design.
The changes are subtle and when I first flew the aircraft it appeared that it just wanted to operate faster for given power settings. With adjustment of the electrically controlled Ivo-Prop the cruising revs reduced to 4500 while the machine settled at 100mph with less air disturbance around the cockpit.
I have recently written about the history of London and the UK and it would be amiss of me to not to mention the glories of Hildesheim and the civilisations that populated this war torn land. The restoration of medieval buildings that were heavily bombed in the Forties is particularly impressive.
The town has created an area of cobbled streets which is largly devoid of traffic and allows tourists and locals alike to enjoy peaceful surroundings overshadowed by incredible buildings, some a thousand years old and some only just restored to match.
insignificant day for this hall, just another in its four hundred year history. Built next to the church of the Knights Templer, Middle Temple Hall has served the oldest of the London Inns of Court since receiving the Royal Charter in 1608, it has seen Barristers called to the Utter Bar in the thousands but on Thursday it was my daughter's turn which makes it a very significant day for me. The walls are decorated with shields brandishing the coats of arms of history, the portraits depict 
Kings and noblemen, judges and gentry. The minstrel gallery suffered badly when bombs blew in the end wall in 1940 but today the scars have healed and everything is pristine and fitting for a formal ceremony. The odds are that only one in six of those who start training will practice as Barristers and the call to the Bar is but a step on the way. Still just signing your name in the register atop a table presented by Sir Frances Drake is worthy of celebration and commendation.
Middle Temple Inn is situated down a narrow cobbled walkway that 
leads from Fleet Street towards the Thames Embankment it has a sense of the medieval; the effigies of Knights laid out in the nearby church now attract visitors from around the world thanks to Dan Brown and the Devinchi Code. Cross the river and you leave ancient London and enter the modern culture of the South Bank, the National Theatre the London Eye and just a reminder of the past in a reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
To celebrate we spent a couple of days renewing our acquaintance with the
Capital in which I spent my formative years and rejoicing in warm summer weather and reduced traffic volumes; thanks in part to the congestion charges that apply to the city centre and the rising price of fuel. By day visitors are flocking to the Parks to sunbathe and to the galleries for the enjoyment of art, by night the bars are spilling over with jovial drinkers basking in the warm summer air. Life is good despite the global gloom and the CAA.
The runway is now in good shape and the cattle issue has been resolved, the VPM gyroplane has been fired up and works well so now there is just the small matter of getting a permit issued. First step involves requesting approval for an engineer to carry out maintenance on the aircraft, this should be straightforward but could not be progressed for a week as the CAA person responsible was on a course. Its easy to see how 8 weeks leave will disappear before a permit to fly can be achieved! Given that no flying is likely I am trying to relax and enjoy the warm sunshine and beauty of summer. 
news is that the estuary in the picture has the second highest tidal rise and fall in the world and plans are afoot to build a barrage across, between England and Wales, that will use this natural power to generate pollution free electricity for the foreseeable future.
Before anyone lived in New Zealand the smallest City in England built a Cathedral. It took 300 years and a few generations of stone masons to position the massive blocks that graciously form the intricate structure, all without much lifting gear or health and safety regulations. The Western face is famous for a golden glow as the setting sun illuminates intricate figures in yellow sandstone. I was privileged this week to attend a concert by the talented youths who make up Wells Cathedral School of Music. Awesome! The building was packed and the acoustics made every note from every instrument reverberate to evry nook and cranny. By 
coincidence the Choir of Christchurch Cathedral NZ performed at this venue last night!
My cultural outings moved up a 1000 feet to the top of the Mendip Hills where a small village has existed since Roman times, they still show visitors around the Lead and Tin mines from that period. Every July it plays host to the Priddy Folk Fayre and for three days the village green is taken over by musicians playing virtually every instrument know to man. As a local I volunteered to be a steward and save myself the entry 
fee, standing and directing traffic in the pouring rain for 4 hours made this seem a questionable decision. However the next day became sunny and warm and with time to relax and enjoy brilliant music and smooth English Ale and the world was turning so slowly you could almost see the ghost of Morris dancers who had performed here for a thousand years.
Well you may have gathered that the English countryside is lush this 
year and the paddock where I keep my VPM gyroplane is no exception. So lush that the local lad who rents the grass keep decided to let his dairy cows feed there. This caused me a major headache as with the ground so soft the imprints of 2 dozen cattle turned my airfield into something resembling the Somme battleground. Heated discussion about liability was to no avail and so I had to put an emergency plan into action. I bought 500 metres of electric fencing wire and 50 stakes, frantic phone calls found a contractor with suitable tractor and trailer prepared to come at short notice to flatten the damage. Meanwhile I 
set to and used the rotary ride on mower to remove the grass down as much as possible on my runway strip. All this was achieved in forty-eight hours with the soil drying into concrete as we worked. To finish the surface I needed to start up my triple gang mower which had been standing idle all winter and half a summer. This venerable machine is a single cylinder diesel of around 1960 vintage, it has electric start but also responds well to a cord wrapped around a pulley and yanked with much force to turn the engine over. As I had used the battery to power the electric fence I had to use the ancient rope trick! It came to life just as I was about to give up and so I spent some 3 hours running up and down the strip gradually removing grass and cow droppings and rolling footprints back into a smooth finish. All this deserved a celebratory refreshment which was interrupted by a phone call from an ex student wanting to use the field, no problem I say come on in its looking fine!
I have been very impressed by the engineering skills and ingenuity which is found in such abundance in New Zealand. In England these skills exist but sometimes they are somewhat hidden and hard to find. For over ten years I have been intrigued with the different skills of two brothers from a small village in Gloucestershire, one is an aviation artist of such renown that he is commissioned to create paintings to adorn the walls of the Officers Mess at many Royal Air Force stations. I bumped into Roy at the supermarket checkout this week whilst
on route to meet his brother Gary, who creates aircraft. I use the word 'creates' because of his back to basics attitude, if it isn't available to a satisfactory standard Gary will go about sourcing the raw materials and creating it. This turned out to be the case when he decided to offer kit-set gyroplanes and the Rotordyne blades he wanted to use were not available. A trip to California and an agreement to produce copies in the UK led to his small garage becoming the source of excellent 10 and 11 foot rotor blades which now lift several single seat aircraft into the air. On arrival I found Gary finishing off a Mark 4 Cricket but he was able to show me components for the Mark 6 kits which he markets as Layzell Gyroplanes. I flew one of these as an open frame machine and then trained the owner to fly it a couple of years ago. It performed extremely well with a Rotax 582 engine fitted but now that there is a pod available it will be a delight to operate. As well as gyroplanes Gary has an interest in military vehicles and small armored cars and large 3 ton trucks can be found where most folk would park the family saloon. Both Gary and Roy have done some gyro flying with me and I did throw in an invitation to join us for some more training in Tauranga, watch this space.
This week has been mixed in many ways, the weather for a start has tried to remind me of Tauranga with poring rain and wind mixed with bright beautiful sunshine. Friends have been in touch and I have started to deal with the airstrip and gyroplane that have been awaiting my return. The picture shows Steve Hart in a Montgomerie Benson of which he is very proud. I was privileged to teach Steve gyro flying about 13 years ago and he initially owned an immaculate Everett Cricket and upgraded to this Rotax 912 powered aircraft which is said to have cost some £30,000 to build! Steve is anxious to fly into my little airstrip as soon as it is presentable as he has relations in the
village.
Although the field that I use was cut for hay in June the grass is in need of a good trim to bring it in line with the normal standard at 'Allerton International'. To this end I started to use a small ride on mower which will bring things to the point where my historic triple gang mower can provide the final trim. This may well be the last year of operation, if I sell my aircraft, which is a shame as there are few fields available and having operated for over ten years
it could become officially recognised. To operate my aircraft this year will require an inspection by the local CAA surveyor which will cost £410 as the permit is more than a year out of date! This is double the normal fee and seems a rip off as it is the same look- around and paper work as the annual check. To renew my UK instructors rating will involve a similar expense so I may forgo that pleasure as well. There is growing interest in my aircraft which has an almost new modified Subaru engine with sub4 heads and a recent paint job makes it quite smart.
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