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Snows of Pirongiamanjaro

Snows of Pirongiamanjaro
Originally uploaded by Kotukunui

Just goes to show that it can still get cold in Hamilton during October. There was snow visible on Mount Pirongia this morning.

Moooooon....

I bought a camera adapter for my telescope a while back. It just clamps on to the eyepiece and lines the camera lens up with the objective lens on the scope. The long focal length of the telescope means that camera can easily focus the image. It worked surprisingly well.
Unfortunately the clear winter skies required to get these shots mean enduring bloody freezing temperatures and I don't want to spend that much time outside.
The eternal dilemma of the astrophotographer...

Taildragger Yak

Went to Pauanui on Saturday (27th Dec) and Kevin Jane had his new Yak-52TW there. Registered (appropriately) ZK-YTW. Didn't manage to cadge a ride but had a sit in the cockpit and a look around. There are quite a few differences that would probably take some getting used to.

One of the biggest changes is that it has hydraulic toe-brakes instead of the pneumatics on our yak.
The landing gear also fully retracts inboard but Kevin hasn't fitted the gear doors as yet.
The instrument panel is also significantly more "western" than a standard yak. With electric fuel pumps and four tanks, fuel management is more complex than before. Kevin also has a full set of lights fitted for night-flying.

With a three-bladed prop and 400hp engine as well as being less "draggy" than a standard YK52, it does go a bit faster and climbs a bit quicker than usual.

I think Kevin will be concentrating on solo displays for the foreseeable future as the performance differences may take a bit of getting used to in multi-ship formations.JP sitting in the rear 'pit hoping to get a turn in the front...

That big boxy oil cooler under the fuselage is a bit ugly and draggy. Apparently the next series of YK-52TW has it mounted in the starboard wing root. Much nicer. Maybe there is a conversion kit.

More Flying Kids!

The kids were flying again, so I took some more photos...

Yak Cockpit

I was going to redo the Yak-52 pilots manual as the one we work from is a third generation photo-copy of a document produced via a dot-matrix printer and I thought it would be a good idea to update it.

The cockpit layout diagrams in the old manual are just B&W line drawings, so I came up with the idea of using annotated photos instead. Unfortunately my camera doesn't really have much of a wide angle lens and I can't get it far enough back to capture all the necessary switches, levers and instruments in one image. Plus it has to be jammed into a tight space on the rear cockpit's instrument panel, which means you can't see what you are photographing on the "viewfinder" screen.

I'll probably have to do a composite of multiple images. Work in Progress

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