Kiwi Thunder  - Tigers Blood  

Interview with John Parker.

Interview with John Parker, the owner of American Air Racing and pilot of Blue Thunder II

A nice piece on EAA.com, John talks about Blue Thunder II and the systems on board his TM.

Reno National Air Races 2010.

It's not long now until the next Reno Air Races start (15-19 September) and the excitement is starting to build,  both John Parker in Blue Thunder II and George Giboney with Rapid Travel  will be racing their Thunder Mustangs. John is currently in Oshkosh and is hot off the back of his latest speed record for a 100km distance.

Sadly we will not be seeing John Sharpe with his exceptionally fast Nemeis NXT this year, this is the team that won the Gold Super Sport Race in a sizzling 407+mph speed in 2009!  But we can be sure that the Relentless Air racing team will be looking to go one better than their second place last year. It's shaping up to be exciting in the Sport class and my fingers are crossed for the Thunder Mustang's this year. Both Simon and I will be in Reno and we will try and post regular updates as the week progresses on the Kiwi Thunder Facebook site.

For those of you who want to know more about the racing this link has interviews and race video's with some really interesting characters involved in air racing, check out the interview with Robert 'Hoot' Gibson.

Photo below: John Parker of American Air Racing arrives at Oshkosh 2010 with Blue Thunder II.

The Electronics International MVP50.

We have started work to replace our existing engine monitoring system (the VM1000) with a new one from Electronics International (the MVP50). Our good friend Malcolm Thompson is coming over from the USA to do the installation. The MVP50 is an engine analyser and systems monitoring instrument that will allow us to log and download more data with greater accuracy. As part of the installation we are also fitting a new panel and we will upload some new pictures soon to show you what it looks like.

Hypoxia Awareness Training.

Glenn McCready (New Zealand Warbirds) and I recently attended a very informative hypoxia awareness training day held at the Royal New Zealand Airforce Aviation Medicine unit. The course was organised by Roger Read of the Canterbury Gliding Club and ex-National operations manager for Gliding New Zealand.

Many thanks to Roger for putting this together and to the Royal New Zealand Airforce Aviation Medicine Unit for making their facility and staff available.

This was a rare opportunity to be briefed by the units medical staff on the physiology of hypoxia and in the afternoon included a trip in the hypobaric chamber to 18,000 and then 25,000 feet to experience the symptoms ourselves under the careful attention of the medical team. The trip starts with a check of your medical history and signing the requisite disclaimer followed by 30 minutes pre-breathing of pure oxygen to prevent any chance of the bends which is about when you realise that this is serious stuff.        It is interesting and informative observing the effects of hypoxia in the people around you and in yourself. The reality is that you don't get too much time of useful consciousness at 25,000 feet without a working oxygen system! The ascent/descent in the chamber is done at 6,000 feet per minute which can be a little tough on the sinus and ears but this is carefully observed by the very professional AMU team in the chamber with stops to aclimatise if anyone is experiencing discomfort.

In summary a very informative day which should be undertaken by anyone who is planning on using aviation oxygen. The day was topped off with a session in the rotating 'disorientation' chair to experience ourselves the effects of disorientation (which is not without it's moments of humour..) but it is really easy to see why a basic PPL pilot won't last long in cloud when their senses are telling them something different to what is really happening around them.

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During our recent flight to Norfolk Island we were texting and sending emails from my iPhone at 10,000 feet altitude in Northland and posting them directly up on Facebook, so if you want the latest news become a friend of the Kiwi Thunder team on Facebook. 

To date we have over 500 Facebook friends!!!

Auckland to Norfolk Island.....

589 nautical miles (or 1091km) in a straight line and most of it over water, such was the kind invitation from Rob when we first started talking about setting a new (C1-c) speed record from Auckland to Norfolk Island, how could I refuse?

After delaying the trip once due to a poor weather forecast and not liking the idea of arriving at Norfolk Island with strong winds and a lowering cloud base, after all it is a long way from the next best landing place! Rob and I settled on Friday the 19th of March as an opportune date. Unfortunately although the weather forecast for Norfolk was good it was not looking nice out of the window as dawn broke around Ardmore. But with the promise of better weather to the North we set off, first clearing customs and the paperwork needed if you are traveling international in a light aircraft, at Auckland International and quickly getting on track as soon as we were allowed after takeoff. As promised the weather was indeed clearer to the North and we were soon cruising at 10,000ft with blue skies overhead, the engine sounding smooth and T's & P's all in the green we agreed it was a go and left land behind us. Ahead lots and lots of ocean, sky and fluffy clouds below.

On the day there were also several other light aircraft heading out of Kaitaia for Norfolk and it is comforting to know that somewhere out there is someone else, although we overtook them and were several thousand feet higher we never saw the other traffic until they landed later at Norfolk.

Seeing Norfolk Island coming up out of the haze was a great sight (praise the gps ;-) as it isn't exactly huge and it is a long way from anywhere else!

In short we arrived and for the record we achieved a time of 2 hours 21 to overhead the strip although the recorded time will show 2 hours 26 as it was logged as we taxied past the tower on the ground after landing. Official speed for the trip 448kph.