• Top o’ the North

    Top o’ the North

    Okay, so not really the top, but I’m trying to use a theme here. In late October, early November, I took a trip to Auckland, again on family matters. Again I managed to sneak in some airport visits. Auckland International Airport had some particularly interesting stuff for me. Phew! That’s quite a haul. There are…

  • Top o’ the South

    Top o’ the South

    In September I took a short holiday in the top of the South Island, visiting family. While not an aviation-themed trip, per se, I did come back with a few photos of interest. I had known that the RNZAF’s first Lockheed C-130J-30 was airborne in some part of the country earlier in the day, but…

  • Solo 2

    Solo 2

    This is an uncharacteristically personal post. I’ve been on a bit of a tear in recent years, digging into not only my own personal history, but also that of my family. I recently came by a set of photos that were taken 26 years ago today. On that day, my father achieved something fairly special.…

  • A Little Qantas

    A Little Qantas

    Just a quick little post with a couple of Qantas subjects. I had decided to head out to Wellington Airport to catch the QantasLink E190 from Brisbane from a different angle. Every other time I had seen it had been with a southerly wind. This day in June had a northerly, which meant I could…

  • Northbound Again

    Northbound Again

    In June I took a brief trip up to the Bay of Plenty and Waikato regions. This netted me a handful of aviation photos from a few locations. As there aren’t that many photos in total, I have included them all here. With our day one destination being Rotorua, Taupo airport is a good final…

  • The New Old?

    The New Old?

    I decided it was a great day to pop out to Wellington Airport, where I caught several “new” aircraft. Two of Life Flight Trust’s Super King Air B200s put in an appearance. These are new to the Trust, but as with most “new” aircraft, they are not factory fresh. This one is 21 years old.…

  • RIAT 1999, Take 2

    RIAT 1999, Take 2

    In a similar vein to my rework of my Imperial War Museum Duxford photos, I have similarly re-‘scanned’ the photos I took at the Royal International Air Tattoo, at RAF Fairford, which was on the following weekend. Except this time, I have added way more photos. The original Flickr album contained 40 photos. The revised…

  • IWM Duxford, 1999, Take 2

    IWM Duxford, 1999, Take 2

    Three years ago I wrote that I had finally mastered multi-frame negative scanning and offered up my photos from a visit to Imperial War Museum Duxford in 1999. More recently, I have changed my digitising method and I think the new process and its results are superior. I have vowed to capture my entire 19…

  • Autumn Update

    Autumn Update

    I had a sense it had been a while since my last update, but I see it’s less than a month! I will try to keep more up to date than I have done in recent years. Just a motley collection of shots from April at Wellington. First up, a common sight that won’t be…

  • Ohakea 2008+

    Ohakea 2008+

    I am frequently to be found trawling through old photos looking for something specific, or perhaps looking to update a watermark before sharing somewhere. It was the latter case, recently, when I spotted a bunch of photos I took at RNZAF Base Ohakea Open Day, 2008. Here is just a taster of some of the…

  • High Flyers

    High Flyers

    In recent months I have managed to spot quite a number of ‘high flyers’ — high altitude flights transiting the area. Some are closer than others, but when the sky is clear I can get decent shots with my camera from 30,000 or more feet below. For each photo, the caption states the aircraft identity,…

  • Trip of Plenty

    Trip of Plenty

    In December I made a brief trip to the Bay of Plenty area and I was able to capture quite a few interesting aircraft, even with limited time. Our primary destination was Rotorua. We took several walks down by Lake Rotorua, where Volcanic Air Safaris operate a selection of aircraft, including New Zealand’s only registered…