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Report by Mike Foster, Photographs by John King

We in the flight training business have many challenges to overcome, not the least of which is being on the economic map in the first place. Strong competition exists among flight training organisations worldwide to satisfy a demand for flight training which is being fuelled by emerging economies in the erstwhile third world.

In shopping for this training, the pilot trainees look at minimum flight time requirements and match minimum flight training fees to them. Their choices for flight training solutions are globally available and their custom is eagerly sought from schools in the USA, Canada, Australia, Philippines, Malaysia and United Arab Emirates as well as New Zealand. In addition, European schools unable to compete in their own countries, on economic terms or because of difficult weather conditions, are popping up as partners in other countries.

Many of these other countries have economic advantages, being closer to their maintenance support and having cheaper fuel prices, and most do not champion the user-pays structure where the user has no control over the costs but is apportioned an arbitrary amount of the paying. Nor do they apply GST to foreign students, charge student levies or burden their training organisations with compliance costs.

In order to be in with a chance of succeeding against this advantaged competition, the New Zealand operators could well find the Tecnam solution a very tempting prospect. I know I do! The prospect of using an aircraft that is not only cheap to buy but also cheap to operate must be seriously intriguing to any flight school management. It is to me!

So where to start?

A few quick sums looking at capital cost, interest, insurance, depreciation and calendar maintenance, and the fixed costs associated with those, immediately reveals a happy beginning. What about running costs? Fuel consumption at 4-5 US gallons per hour, and mogas to boot, the probable light maintenance costs on a brand new airframe, lower landing fees associated with the lower MAUW...

Hey, let me get at this! Surely it must be too good to be true? When or where will the bubble burst?

Maybe it won't be able to stand up to the rigours of flight training and the stresses involved? (Airframe limited at +4, -2G.) Worries here look to be unfounded, at least in flight, so as long as the undercarriage can handle the inevitable student arrivals it looks like we may be on to a winner.

Maybe the P92 won't be able to adequately perform the manoeuvres required for New Zealand pilot training? Only one thing for it, better drag it out and put it to the test!

So it was that I found myself keenly interested in checking out the P92 Echo.

Would it be up to carrying two burly occupants and enough fuel for a 300nm cross-country? Er ... yep, and then some.

Is it put together well? Can students wiggle all the wiggly bits on the pre-flight without them coming right off in their hands? Again there's no frail fabric here. It's all metal, just like our Cessnas, so a conventional pre-flight inspection passes muster.

So having kicked the tyres, it's me in the student's seat with my learned instructor alongside and all but a full tank of mogas, preparing to light the fire and wring its neck ... well, not exactly, but any Rotax expert will tell you that you do have to choke it to start.

So far so good. At least we got it started and, with the toe brakes and nosewheel steering, taxying is a breeze. I found the side windows to be a bit low for me but, by leaning forward a bit, side vision through the windscreen is very good.

We had earlier checked out the numbers from the flight manual and were prepared to try a student's ham-handed attempt at a short field takeoff technique - flaps 15, rotate at 41KIAS, initial climb (flaps 15) starting at 1.2VS (44KIAS) to VX (56KIAS) then flaps up and VY at 60KIAS. It turned out to be quite a challenging exercise with precise attitude control required, especially to keep within the VFE until flap retraction.

Next, a check of the full throttle VY (60KIAS) rate of climb revealed better than 1100ft/min at the sea level start and still over 850ft/min at 3500ft AMSL. Not bad; this passes muster as we cannot have students spending half their budget getting up to safe heights to conduct training exercises.

Now for some turning. Are our students going to develop good co-ordination in this aeroplane? Again we have a happy result. Although quite light, the controls are well balanced and lazy feet are immediately exposed. Medium, steep and maximum rate turns require precise attitude control but reward the student with pleasing results if he or she makes the effort to practise to efficiently adopt those attitudes.

OK, so far so good, but here we go with a real test now ... stalling. A good training aircraft has to systematically demonstrate the symptoms of an approaching stall, the stall onset, as well as the fully developed stall, and be recoverable at any stage. Many of the LSA types I have flown demonstrate magnificent stall characteristics from the point of view of a private owner, in that they are almost unable to stall at all when flown within the normal flight envelope, but this is obviously not going to be a desirable trait in a trainer.

So how did the P92E do? At our weight and C of G (both, of course, well within the normal envelope) an instructor will be able to point out each symptom of an approaching stall as it occurs, demonstrate the stall itself and recover with a conventional or standard stall recovery technique, whatever the flap configuration or whether the recovery is effected at the onset or fully developed stage - ideal for student practice.

But what of those other private owner priorities, for instance cruise performance? At 5000rpm (62 percent power) at 3000ft we were getting just over 100KIAS, very close to our Cessna 172 cruise during training.

We tried a forced landing without power next and found the 60KIAS 12.8:1 glide ratio to be very manageable. The only thing that seemed a bit odd was that we had to depart from the most efficient glide speed to get within the flap speed (VFE 56KIAS) when the time came.

Returning to the field, we tried some slow flying and found that, much like the earlier turning exercises we had tried, the P92E richly rewarded precise throttle and control inputs.

A rejoin and a flapless landing reconfirmed that P92 students will master consistency in various wind conditions. Short field landings proved to be very conventional and demanded precise control, especially in the latter stages where the full flap approach at 56KIAS clearly had us working on the back of the drag curve.

Here again, with Ardmore having a minimum 70KIAS to 500ft AMSL and the target 1.3VS full flap 56KIAS being relatively low, the P92 student will need a bit of fast footwork to configure and get set for the short field landing. Inevitably the classic stable approach has to be modified to suit but demands even more precise control of the aircraft from the student, so I do not see that as too much of a bad thing from a training point of view.

In summary, I found myself having no justification for finding fault with the P92 Echo. It will certainly fly the CAA Flight Test Standard Guide manoeuvres required of private and commercial Pilots.

Peter Owens witnesses a possible answer

On the centenary of what may have been the first powered flight in New Zealand, a reproduction of that flying machine replicated the flight at Mandeville, near Gore.

Herbert John Pither, a bicycle shop proprietor of Invercargill, designed, built and possibly flew what may have been the first successful powered aeroplane in New Zealand.

Pither's family had immigrated to New Zealand in the 1870s and as an adult he moved south where he became involved in the nascent bicycle building and repair business. He was well known as a road cyclist in the south in the early years of last century when cycling was a most popular sport.

Contemporary accounts record that Bert Pither had a bent for matters mechanical, which accounted for his success in the bicycle and engineering industries. He was very interested in engines and indeed arrived in Invercargill driving a motorcar he had built to his own design.

Bert Pither ran an engineering business in Invercargill's Kelvin Street for about four years from 1906. He was much in demand for his petrol-driven engines for boats and agricultural machinery.

Very little is known about the aeroplane Bert Pither designed, built and allegedly flew. No plans, blueprints or details of specification of the aircraft exist, nor is there any solid proof that it was ever flown as nobody except Pither himself saw it fly at Oreti Beach in July 1910, as he claimed. There is only apocryphal evidence that leans heavily on the writings of an unnamed reporter for the Southland Daily News. That paper recorded in July 1910 that Pither had told a reporter from that paper that he flew his aircraft at Oreti Beach near Invercargill on or about 3 or 4 July 1910.

While there is no reason to doubt the truthfulness of the reporter, Pither himself was renowned for having a disregard for the niceties of accuracy, and his claims to have flown and refusal to do so again led to almost universal disbelief in his alleged feat. In fact Pither left Invercargill not long afterwards, under rather a cloud as a result of a business arrangement.

Had Pither actually flown his aeroplane on the date he claimed, he would have been the first person to make a powered flight in New Zealand. History records Vivian Walsh as having that distinction, at Papakura in February 1911 flying Howard Wright biplane Manurewa No 1.

With a lifelong interest in Southland's mechanical and aviation history, Colin Smith of the Croydon Aircraft Company built a reproduction of Pither's aeroplane to put the 1910 design to a practical test. Working drawings were able to be produced from usefully detailed contemporary newspaper reports and photographs, although no one knows what adjustments Pither later made at his beach test site.

Bill Sutherland of Waikaka built a look-alike Anzani V-4 engine as fitted to the original Pither, and the engine-propeller combination was set to the static thrust output specified by Pither (250lb or 113kg) to test whether that was sufficient to put the craft in the air. The only design concessions were added for safety reasons and made no difference to performance. These, plus the heavier engine, made the replica 77kg heavier than Pither's craft.

This machine was tested at the Croydon Aircraft Company's Old Mandeville airfield on 18 February 2005, flown by Jerry Chisum, one of the most experienced flyers of vintage aircraft in New Zealand.

It flew; in fact it flew in the morning and again in the afternoon.

After that effort the Pither replica was placed in a position of honour in the Croydon Aviation Trust's Museum at Mandeville. There it remained, brought out for the occasional display such as Warbirds Over Wanaka, until early July when the aircraft emerged from the museum and prepared for flight to commemorate the centenary of Pither's alleged flight at Oreti Beach.

On Saturday 3 July at Mandeville the Pither once again flew under power. With Jerry Chisum again at the controls it rose gently to about 25ft (the same height at which Pither said he had flown) and puttered along the runway for about 200m before landing. Jerry turned the aeroplane and flew it back. This was repeated several times, much to the gratification of a large crowd of spectators and backed by a lively commentary by media guru and vintage aircraft fan, Jim Hopkins.

The process was repeated in the afternoon before the Pither replica was returned to the Croydon Aviation Trust's museum. While the question of whether Bert Pither ever flew his aircraft at Oreti Beach will never be answered, the fact that this replica has been flown on two occasions greatly increases the probability that Pither did achieve flight, especially when placed alongside Pither's own description of his experience. The replica is both flyable and controllable.

Present at Mandeville for this occasion was independent film maker Malcolm Hall, complete with film crew. Malcolm confirmed movie producer Richard Thomas is currently seeking funding for a movie featuring the story of Bert Pither who was - or was not - the first person in New Zealand to fly a powered aeroplane.

Nicholas McIndoe report and photographs

Napier Airport became the RNZAF's home away from home between 14 and 24 June as around 100 air force personnel descended on sunny Hawke's Bay for Exercise Wiseowl 2010. Also included was also a public open day on Saturday 19 June.

Exercise Wiseowl allows student pilots on their RNZAF Wings course to put what they have learned to the test in unfamiliar airspace, while ground crews and trades operate in a deployed base environment. The RNZAF describes it as "a total self-contained deployment".

This is the sort of field base the RNZAF is required to transport, set up and operate from in any conditions, in any weather, anywhere in the world and sometimes at short notice. It leaves no doubt that the RNZAF is a close-knit family, good at what it does and very professional.

A quick glance around Napier Airport revealed the accommodation quarters, catering, a medical facility, security, administration, operational HQ, camp supplies and spares - even a maintenance area for the deployed aircraft.

Detachment Commander for the exercise, Sqn Ldr Anthony Budd, said, "Although it is a challenging exercise for the young pilots, learning to fly in unfamiliar airspace is an important part of their training. It is also a great opportunity to set up base operations in a different environment."

A four-ship CT-4E Airtrainer formation, as well as Sqn Ldr Scott McKenzie in the RNZAF Historic Flight's Harvard and Sqn Ldr Sean Perrett in Brendon Deere's Spitfire, provided a relaxed but entertaining and professional flying display for an appreciative public at the open day, amidst blue skies and a slightly nippy southerly.

Peter Clark reports from Whenuapai

Exercise Para Brevet 10 was held during the second week of May at Base Auckland, Whenuapai, with a group from the French 8th Overseas Airborne Infantry Battalion. This is a reciprocal training exercise where the French parachutists train for their New Zealand parachuting wings and the New Zealanders do their French parachute wings.

The battalion is based at Castres in Southern France and has recently returned from a posting in Afghanistan, heading to New Caledonia for a four-month rotation. France, Australia and New Zealand have a treaty agreeing to share resources to help Pacific states during national disasters.

Commander of the French Armed Forces, Western Pacific based in New Caledonia is Brig Gen Olivier Tramond, who sees situations in which paratroopers could be dropped into disaster-hit areas and encourages inter-operability between forces.

"This is the first time we have worked with the Kiwis," he said, "and we have enjoyed it here. We have been well hosted."

The Brigadier earlier in the week had met local defence heads, including Defence Minister Wayne Mapp. He said he saw more military contacts with New Zealand in the future as a result of their talks.

The French found the Kiwi gear different, giving them a slower ride down, Gen Tramond said. (The French military parachutes descend at 6m/sec against the New Zealand parachutes' 4m/sec.) Capt T de Courtivron, the group's CO, remarked after his descent using the New Zealand standard military parachute, the SF10A: "The French parachute has a high impact; the Kiwi parachute is like a flower."

During the exercise the Brigadier made two jumps on 13 May, the first at 10,000ft, a tandem jump attached to Sqn Ldr Darryn Pritchard, CO of the Parachute Training and Support Unit (PTSU), from a New Caledonia-based Armee de l'Air CASA CN-235. The second was a static line jump from 1200ft from RNZAF C-130H NZ7001, the eldest of the Hercules fleet, gaining his New Zealand wings.

The RNZAF's PTSU was established in 1964 to provide parachute training for selected Army personnel and has been based at Whenuapai since its inception. The scope of training provided by the unit has steadily increased to the point where it provides training to a wide range of NZDF personnel.

The PTSU provides basic instruction for initial parachute trainees through to advanced free fall courses for specially selected personnel. All parachutists' initial training is carried out using the traditional round static line parachute.

The static line is attached to a cable running inside the aircraft interior, and when the parachutist jumps out the line initiates the deployment of the parachute canopy. This technique allows the dropping of many parachutists in a short time, helping ensure they land close to one another, and can also be used for dropping equipment.

Training jumps are carried out from 1000ft (300m) down to 800ft (244m). In operational situations, jumps can be safely made from around 250ft (76m) to minimise the time taken to reach the ground.

The first flight of the day was aboard the French CN-235 and included 16 of the more advanced Kiwi and French jumpers from around 10,000ft. Then it was the turn of 45 jumpers from the RNZAF Hercules, including 38 French airborne infantry, being their first jump for their conversion. The French jumped from 1200ft over Whenuapai airfield, with the New Zealanders taken up to 4500ft.

A third flight was then undertaken with the Hercules reloading the parachutes at the jump zone with engines running and away again to 1200ft, to complete several circuits to get everyone out over the ramp for their second static line jumps. Again it climbed to 4500ft for several of the Kiwi jumpers, and further on up to 12,000ft for some freefall training involving several members from Kiwi Blue and a tandem jumper.

The exercise was said to be a great success, with 38 French paratroops earning their New Zealand parachute wings.

Mike Feeney takes another look at aspects of the ditching of Airlands Lockheed L-18 Lodestar ZK-CGV on 24 April 1971 and interviews its pilot, Ray Misson of Wairoa.

There are days in my wife?s and my Waikato homeland when the air is so crisply clear, the rural landscape so lovely, that it is hard to imagine a more pleasant place in which to live. As we motored south to visit Hugh and Justine Baxter at their Te Kawa West home, snow-capped Ruapehu dominated the central North Island and nearby bush-covered Mount Pirongia presided over the western Waikato farmlands.

Changes are afoot in the aviation tourism sector, driven by a number of factors. Climate change is one, as is the deepening economic gloom covering the world. Regulation changes also have an effect, along with shifting patterns in tourist groups and movements.

New Zealand has a new oldest registration. Bob McGarry describes the rebuild of his 1929 Simmonds Spartan, one of the world?s rarest airworthy biplanes.