West Auckland Airport Parakai is available for General Aviation, drop-in visitors welcome. Radio 123.5 in MBZ.  Due to frequent skydiving, please join downwind, base or final (not overhead).  Visitor parking to the West of the Leading Edge Engineering hangar, or on grass in summer.

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Oskar's Electric Helicopter: The latest issue of 'Kiwi Flyer' magazine has a cover picture of Oskar and many photos of his electric helicopter in the air at West Auckland Airport Parakai as it works through its initial flight testing hours.     Its a major achievement to have converted a two-stroke Mosquito Helo to Electric, really the building and certification of a new aircraft using some of the components of the original.   This is not a project to attempt in your own hangar unless, like Oskar, you are an Electrical Engineer with design experience on Hybrid battery bus development...   to know what problems needed solving, where the solutions might be found, and to be able to demonstrate to 'The Authorities' that its been properly done to aviation industry standards.

ZK-IAB's first very careful lift off, at Tauranga NZTG.

If you're interested in Helicopters, get a copy of 'Kiwi Flyer' Issue 75, #1 of 2021... not only are the building project and engineering considerations covered in detail, but there is also a lot of information on the characteristics of electric flight and the substantial changes it brings to helicopter ops, and modes of failure.   

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America's Cup:   Make certain you know the airspace on the day and have the required briefings etc, before flying anywhere near the America's Cup races...

Qwilton Biel of the Auckland Airspace User Group writes:

Hi everyone,

For those that don’t know, I am the airspace coordinator of the upcoming America’s Cup in Auckland.  AIP SUP 74/20 (copy attached) was recently released containing details of the restricted airspace associated with the event.

If you are wanting to fly overhead the event during race time (i.e. within the restricted airspace) you will need a copy of the Briefing Package for Pilots and to submit an application form.  Please email me back and I will send these to you.

If you are wanting to know when the restricted airspace is active so you can avoid it, I will be running an email notification list so please email me back and ask to be placed on this.  Each race day you will get an email from me advising which racing/airspace area will be active that afternoon along with activation/deactivation times.

Regards,

Qwilton Biel,  America’s Cup Event Ltd, M: +64 27 493 5655, E: qwilton.biel@americascup.com  W: www.americascup.com

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Looking after the Airport's Environment:

Weed Control:   The Airport has been researching and experimenting with non-chemical control of the Alligator weed that has long invaded the ditches on the Kaipara and choked the drains.   Letting in controlled amounts of seawater has proven effective, and is much kinder to the Inanga and juveniles of other fish species that breed in the harbour, compared to spraying weedkiller or using diggers to clear the ditches.    Further work is being done in conjunction with the Council waterways biologists and the method developed is likely to be rolled out by the Council to other properties on the Kaipara Harbour and its rivers.

Bird Control:  Work on this has also been quite effective, and by studying the habits of the birds and making the airport less attractive to them, its been possible to make the birds spend more time elsewhere.   Skydive Auckland runs a bird scaring device on their swooping pond for the same reason... that's what causes the loud 'shotgun' type booms at regular intervals.   The birds are not keen to settle if they think there are shooters in the area.  With our 'Aimm' Movement Monitoring service now used by nearly half the active NZ airports, we use our client newsletters to spread the suggestions for non-lethal bird control to many other airports in NZ and Australia.

Low-emission Aircraft: The Airport's flight training aircraft have been low-emission for a long time, and produce less than half the emissions of a Cessna or Piper training aircraft.    This is due to the lighter weight of the Tecnam aircraft used at West Auckland, and because their 1990s designed Rotax engines are considerably more fuel efficient than the 1950s designed Lycoming and Continental engines traditionally used for training.  The Rotaxes also use unleaded road vehicle fuel ('MoGas') getting a similar Km/Litre to an efficient car,  rather than leaded aviation fuel ('Avgas') so there is a worthwhile benefit there too.  There is already an Electric Helicopter based at the airport, ZK-IAB, suitable airport maintenance tasks are carried out using an electric ground vehicle, and the Airport is actively investigating moving to electric training aircraft as soon as practical.

West Auckland Airport NZPI from the SW, non traffic side.

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Coming Events:    Landings by Airport owned aircraft at non-AIP airfields require approval of an instructor, and insurance may not be valid.

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Sat 27th Feb:   Springhill Fly-in.    After being closed for many years, Sprinhill is open again...

Northern Aviators Club

Springhill open day Fly-in

Springhill NZSL

Saturday 27^th February 2021

10am onwards, Scones and BBQ lunch

Runways 16 and 34 both seal and grass

Parking by the club house

Arrivals by Air: please use current AIP charts

Arrivals by road: 1232 SH 1, Wellsford 0972

Entrance just to the south of the Hoteo river bridge then follow the farm road to Springhill Airfield.

Further info: call Tim Harrison 021 0224 9401

Click here for airport details.

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COROMANDEL NZCX:  Second Sunday of each month from 12:30. Clubhouse Ph 07 866 2055. Click here for airfield details.

WHANGAREI NZWR: Last Saturday of each month at hangar 10, the Western end of the row of hangars.  Whangarei Flying Club meeting at 10:30 with lunch to follow.  Clubhouse phone 09 436 4053.  Click here for airfield details.

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Tower and Engineering