News Archive...  

Drumsara Wines

We would like to welcome on board Drumsara Wines and ask that you support them as they support us. Drumsara, an hours drive from Queenstown, is located in the heart of Central Otago, New Zealand. Drumsara produce a select range of CENTRAL OTAGO Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris wines that can be bought online or found on select restaurant wine lists. Their 2004 'Ventifacts Block' Pinot Noir recently won a Gold medal in the 2006 Starwine International competition in New York USA.

See our sponsors page for more information on Drumsara Wines or visit their web site where you can also purchase a Kiwi Thunder cap and t-shirt at their on-line shop.

Whenuapai airforce open day..

Unfortunately those who turned up at Whenuapai on the weekend will have noticed that the Thunder Mustang wasn't there. We have been having some trouble with the hydraulic system and had to make the decision on Friday evening that it couldn't be fixed in time to fly this weekend. Unfortunately one of those things when operating aircraft, but we did fly in to Whenuapai with the New Zealand Warbirds team to watch everyone else flying. Thanks to the New Zealand airforce for putting on this event that was clearly enjoyed by everyone and as always the pilots love the opportunity to display their aircraft in front of a crowd.

March 3rd 2007 - Whenuapai

The Royal New Zealand Air Force are holding an Open Day at Whenuapai Air Force Base on the 3rd March (wet weather alternative 4 March). This is going to be a great day with Warbirds on display in the morning and RNZAF aircraft in the afternoon. For details visit the official airforce site http://www.airforce.mil.nz/

The Thunder Mustang will be on display and flying so make it a day out and come and see a great variety of other aircraft being flown including the New Zealand Warbirds North American Harvards, the DH82, T28 'Trojan', ME108, P40 Kittyhawk, P51D Mustang, Cessna A37 jet, Yak 52's and a Giles 202 aerobatic aircraft (amongst others) doing what they do best....And thats just in the morning!

February 2007 - "Wings over Wairarapa"

Thanks to all of the supporters who turned out at Hood aerodrome for the "Wings over Wairarapa" airshow. Lots of great feedback and thanks for the photos sent in, I haven't had time to sort through them yet but here are a couple of shots from Bryan Gault.

A great turn out and a real fun atmosphere made this a great event and with the aircraft on show it makes this a must see event on the New Zealand aviation calendar.

January 2007.

We hope that you have all had a great Christmas and that this year will be good to you.

The Kiwi Thunder team will be displaying at 'Wings over Wairarapa' January 20 and 21 so if you are planning on being in the area we would love to see you there. Simon Gault will be flying the display.

Photo's Ardmore 2006 - Gareth Trevor

November 2006.

At last the weather is looking brighter now if only the wind would reduce it would be great flying! The December issue of Pacific Wings magazine has an article I wrote on the 2006 Reno air races based on our experiences there this year, it includes some great photos of 5 Thunder Mustangs on the ramp at Reno, so get a copy.

On the maintenance side we are coming up for our next 50 hour check, its hard to believe that we now have 150 hours on Tigers Blood and the aeroplane has been running very nicely since our last tune 50 hours ago so it should be a simple oil change and standard checks to get us ready for the season ahead. Keep an eye out for us around the country in the next few months, our planned schedule is listed below

Reno 2006.

Visit the Gallery/Reno Air Races page for a summary of the Reno 2006 Air Races. 

Unfortunately a trip we had planned to the South Island during January has had to be cancelled but we may re-schedule a trip down South sometime in February.

All the best for the New Year

Chris

Merry Chritsmas and a Happy New Year.

The team at Kiwi Thunder would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a great 2006. 

For those who are around Ardmore airfield from time to time you may have heard us back in the air these last few weeks. The maintenance we had planned for the winter took (as it always seem to) a lot longer than we planned. We had decided to investigate a coolant leak following an overheat that occurred at Tauranga earlier in the year, cutting a long story short we have now completed a rebuild of the engine and modified the coolant system. Whilst we had the engine out anyway it seemed like a good idea to put all new bits back in!

All being well and weather gods permitting we plan to be in Tauranga/Napier in the North Island in February before heading South for Warbirds over Wanaka.

Also have a look at the World Gliding Grand Prix running from the 21st to the 29th of January 2006 in Omarama, New Zealand. This is a great concept that makes competitive gliding (racing) accesible to the public by using the latest technology. Click on the link above to visit their web site to read more.

If there are any events that you would like to talk to us about attending you will find our contact details here.

Chris

Reno Air Races 2005.

Well the Reno Air races are over for another year with some close racing being had, for some success and for others dissapointment but everyone seemed to have a great time. 

As usual Blue Thunder ran faultlessly over the weekend and ended up second in the Gold race to Darrell Geenamyer in his very fast twin turbo Lancair Legacy. 

We have added a new page to our web site with more information and pictures from the Reno Air Races, this can be accessed from our Gallery page so check it out. 

The Kiwi Thunder team had a great time at Stead Field and would like to thank again John Parker and the team at Blue Thunder Racing for hosting us and the Thunder Mustang Builders group for the opportunity to meet, greet and share information on the Thunder Mustang.

Coming Soon! Reno 2005.

In a few days time Stead Airfield in Reno Nevada will be alive with the sound of Warbirds and dedicated racers tuning up for the big event, the Reno 2005 Air Races. Simon and I will be heading up to Reno to attend 'ThunderStorm 2005' (Details below).

Reno Stead Airport
August 13, 2005
American Air Racing Update

Hosted by John and Jan Parker, "Thunderstorm 2005" will be held September 15, 16th, and 17th on the Stead Airport at their American Air Racing hangar during the Reno National Air Races. John Parker will give a Recurrent Forum with updates and new information on the Thunder Mustang program. This will be held on Friday, September 16th at 1000 AM PDT in the American Air Racing hangar. 

For more about American Air Racing visit http://americanairracing.com  and  bluethunderairracing.com

A must for Thunder Mustang owners (and anybody else who is interested in aviation or engines) and lots of fun too.

I will be adding Reno photos to the Gallery page on my return...

30 August 2005

At last it looks like the weather is on the improve with some lovely spring type days to make us all want to get out and go flying. Unfortunately the maintenance work we had planned has taken longer than anticipated, but dont worry we do expect to have 'Tigers Blood' back in the air soon. 

17 July 2005

Its been a few weeks since our last update and with the winter weather having truly set in not much has been happening but Simon, Rob and myself have still been managing to get some great flying in between the wind and rain. However we have decided that now is a good time to take advantage of the poor weather to finish off some of the jobs we deferred over the summer. 

We are expecting to be out of the air for a few weeks while we do some modifications to the cooling system to prevent any recurrence of the problem that prevented us flying at Tauranga earlier in the season and also to improve the air induction system. Whilst we are at it we are taking the opportunity to do some further inspections and system checks so by the time the weather is on the improve we will be ready for the season ahead.

All the best, Chris

24 June 2005

See the June issue of Pacific Wings magazine for an in-depth article on Red Honey, including a report by our test and display pilot Bryan Gault on what it is like to fly the Thunder Mustang. 

You can click on the "Test Pilot Report" button on the left to read Bryan's flight report on the Thunder Mustang and visit the Gallery page to see related photographs.

10 June 2005.

See the June Aviation News magazine for more on Kiwi Thunder, Red Honey.                                

7 June 2005.

Congratulations to the team at Blue Thunder for their record-setting performance on Saturday, as pilot John Parker unofficially broke the Class C-1.c speed record over 3 kilometers (374 mph) and 15/25 kilometers (376 mph). Unofficial top speed was 381 mph (or 613 kph). Before being declared a record, the speed needs to be verified by the National Aeronautic Association, whose Art Greenfield, Director of Contests and Records, witnessed the performance, and ultimately, the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI).

29 May 2005.

The flying displays at Tauranga airfield last weekend were part of the celebrations for the opening of a the Classic Flyers aviation museum and for anyone with an interest in aviation it is a must see if you are in Tauranga. Definately a great facility and inaugurated with some great display flying from the pilots participating.

Unfortunately it ended up being a very disappointing weekend for all of the team at Kiwi Thunder, an apparent problem with a coolant thermostat prevented us flying. We had a great flight down from Ardmore but shortly after take-off from Tauranga for his display Bryan Gault noticed an excessively high coolant temperature reading on the Thunder Mustang and wisely decided that it needed immediate attention. We are still looking into the cause of this and further investigation is being done to resolve the issue once and for all. 

On the brighter side (from our perspective) we did an air to air photo shoot early last week with the team from Aviation News and have some great air to air shots that we will be sharing with you over the next few weeks on our Gallery page. The photographer was Peter Clark and the camera-ship a Nanchang CJ6 piloted by Richard (Dickie) Veale. If you cant wait to see them then you will have to buy a copy of the next edition of Aviation News which is due to hit the shelves later this week with the Thunder Mustang on the cover and some more great shots inside.

Chris

30 April 2005.

With the 50 hour check coming up we decided to get some MOTEC (electronic engine control unit) tuning expertise to take a look at the engine setup. We contacted Mike Healy at Turbo Vehicles Ltd in Auckland (http://www.turbovehicles.co.nz) who specialises in this sort of thing and he brought out his laptop and went to work (with many thanks also to Ryan Falconer for his telephone support during this process).

It was an amazing experience watching Mike sitting in the back seat with his laptop connected to the ECU's whilst we ground-ran the engine. The engine seemed to just get (and sound)  better and better as he finetuned each 'bank' of the V12. The end result was an indicated improvement in fuel consumption at cruise of close to 30% and up to 15% greater horsepower! Very satisfying and with the MOTEC's this should now stay on song.

And talking of the tuning and setup work we have done on the plane we would like to thank again Warren Denholm of Avspecs for his continued support and great ideas and Tom Taylor who came down from Reno as our consultant and is our ongoing subject matter expert. Thanks guys.

Chris

12 April 2005.

See the latest 'Aviation News' magazine for a brief article on Red Honey http://www.aviationnews.co.nz/#

9 April 2005.

 V-8 Supercar racing, Pukekohe, New Zealand.

Red Honey will be displaying above the Pukekohe Park Raceway this coming weekend prior to the V-8 car racing, Pukekohe is situated approximately 30 minutes south of Auckland. 

Red Honey will be in the air on both Saturday and Sunday (Saturday 16 April @ 11:20am and Sunday 17 April @ 11:40am). Our test pilot Bryan Gault has a great routine prepared  including aerobatics, if you werent able to get to Omaka to see us come along to Pukekohe. This wll be your first opportunity to see Red Honey displayed in Auckland and as a bonus you will get to see some great car racing.

Many thanks to our sponsor for the event, Palazzo Roma restaurant in Drury. 

Chris

30 March 2005

Classic Fighters, Omaka 2005 is over and the team here at Kiwi Thunder had a great time.  Many thanks to the organisers, it really was a great event and despite the best endeavors of the weather two full days of flying were achieved. Also on the non-flying front I have to say that the food available there is better than at any other airshow I have been to (hmmm although I am sure that I came back with more 'ballast' than I went with...).

Red Honey operated flawlessly over the weekend and although we were limited to what we could do to display the Thunder Mustang (until our 40 hours of test flying are completed) our test pilot Bryan Gault was able to demonstrate the aircrafts performance with 300kt fly-pasts.  The sight and sound of the Thunder Mustang got a great reaction from people attending the show. The most common question being "So, what sort of engine does it have?" and general comments of "wow that is fast"........ Thanks are due to to the team at Avspecs and specifically Richard for getting us here and his support over the weekend.

During test flying to date Bryan has been running through the 'approved aerobatic maneuvers' for the Thunder Mustang and reports back that the aeroplane is very nice to aerobat and is one of the nicest aeroplanes that he has flown for barrell rolls so we are really looking forwards to having a full display routine for our next airshow (still to be confirmed where this will be but watch this space).

Chris

18 March 2005

We are now well into the test flying schedule and managing several flights a day to the enjoyment of the  many aviation minded people around Ardmore who have dropped by the hangar to say hello and wish us well. So far we have flown nearly 10 hours with the usual adjustments and tweaks between flights. Early problems with inner gear door lights not going out have been rectified and adjustments to the oleos seem to have helped. Our test pilot Bryan Gault has flown most of the low speed end of the envelope and is now looking at higher speed flight and climb to height times in between which he has been able to investigate the aerobatic capabilities of the Thunder Mustang. Bryans comment on this so far? 'loops and rolls nicely'

14 March 2005

Finally, after much planning and effort by all Bryan Gault lifted off on Saturday for the first flight of a Thunder Mustang in New Zealand.  Days of ground runs and testing followed by a visit from New Zealand CAA on Thursday cleared the way for the first flight to take place on Saturday the 12th. 

9 March 2005

Yesterday saw the first full-power run up of the Falconer V-12, what can I say but wow!  Tomorrow we have CAA on site to inspect the plane and hopefully give us our permit to fly, so we are hoping top be in the air very shortly.

In addition to this Kiwi Thunder are proud to announce that 'Red Honey' have joined us as our founder sponsor and you will see their logo on the front cowls of the plane.

Who is Red Honey?

Red Honey Is the company of Rowena Roberts(wife of Saatchi & Saatchi CEO, Kevin Roberts) and her daughter Bex Roberts, it's a Beautycare company, the primary holding of which is a joint venture with Estee Lauder for the MAC Chancery Store.

6 March 2005 

It has been great to see the support and interest that the Thunder Mustang creates around the field, the weekend saw a steady stream of people wanting to see how we are progressing and all eager to watch the first start and run-ups. None as eager as ourselves, so on Saturday we wheeled her out into the sunlight and after having made sure we had secured everything, prepared fire extinguishers and double checked everything we could, pressed the starter.  What a great sound! initial runs have been to approximately half power as we check all of the fluid levels and temperatures and pressures but even at that it certainly gets attention.... So far so good and we will now continue with engine and taxi testing for the next few days.

Of course the next question everyone asks is when will we have the first flight.....

3 March 2005 

The team at Avspecs and Kiwi Thunder have been working hard since the arrival of 'Tigers Blood' checking through all of the systems. We have been through and inspected the oil, coolant, hydraulic and  electrical systems and the instrumentation.  All of the control surfaces have been removed and balances checked with fuel tanks and related systems pressure tested. 

The most exciting part came late in the day when we mated the fuselage back on to the wing and remounted the 4 blade MT propeller. The next step is engine running and operational tests. and everyone here is getting excited at the thought of firing up the Ryan Falconer V-12 for the first time in New Zealand.

27 February 2005

After all the delays and  issues we have had with shipping Tigers Blood finally arrived at Ardmore airfield at 06:30am on Saturday morning. The ground fog was still lying across the airfield and the sky to the east just starting to brighten as the truck and trailer unit with its large red 40' container pulled up outside the hangar. My biggest worry after all of our shipping issues was 'is this the right container' or maybe when we open it up all we where going to find was someone else's furniture.... I am please to say after an initial hiccup, it seems that you need a key to open a padlock! (but easily solved if you have a grinder to hand..) everything was as it should have been. It was a great relief to see how well it had been packed and that nothing had moved at all during transit. 

Now the real work starts.

24 February 2005

 New Zealand CAA have issued us with the registration mark ZK-TMG for 'Tigers Blood' (in South Africa it was previously ZU-TMG). I would like to add a special note of thanks to the department for all of their assistance to date, their helpful and proactive approach is greatly appreciated by the team at Kiwi Thunder. 

Unfortunately a slight further delay on the shipping front means we wont be able to start reassembly until the 26th, however we are using the forced downtime to go over the reassembly plan and the work required with the engineers so that when the aircraft arrives everything is ready to go. The team at Avspecs have already made up a special hydraulic test 'mule' to allow us to undertake ground testing of the hydraulic systems.

News Flash:  17 February 2005 

'Tigers Blood' will be debuting at the Classic Fighters airshow being held at Omaka on March 25 - 27, this is always a great event and we are proud that this will be our debut airshow in New Zealand. Come along and show your support for the Classic Fighters Omaka airshow and drop by for a chat with the Kiwi Thunder team.

16 February 2005:

According to our shipping agents the weather in the Southern Ocean is going to delay the arrival of the container ship carrying 'Tigers Blood', as a result the arrival day is now scheduled for the 23rd of February. Annoying but looking on the bright side this is nowhere near as bad as having the container offloaded in Mauritius that caused the previous delay from the 1st of February.

12 February 2005:

With just over a week to go now before Tigers Blood arrives the excitement is growing, almost at the same rate as the paperwork required to get a new aircraft in the air. However everyone involved has been understanding and extremely helpful, we are making great progress and hope to have everything ready by the time Tigers Blood arrives.