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In the image above, I have removed the placemarks as they made it so over-clustered that it was just a shambles, making it impossible to display what I am trying to portray here. The arrows depict the approximate direction of travel of the aircraft that was seen in the various observations.

Paul Clarke departed Ardmore at 4.51 pm (1651) on a flight plan for an intended one hour solo VFR practice training exercise prior to his renewal of his PPL (Private Pilot Licence). This flight was to be carried out in the Hunua designated training area just south of Ardmore.

The observed weather at the time was of passing showers and the odd thunderstorm, but was not classed as anything too difficult to prevent the flight, in fact there were several other planes flying around Ardmore at that time.

Ardmore had a Control Tower in those days (doesn’t have now) and the Controller unfortunately incorrectly entered into the Flight Plan Records the ETA (expected time of arrival) back at Ardmore as 1851 - one hour later than he should have. The Controller went off duty at 1700, and another Controller took over and so the error was not noticed.

This shows how confusing the use of the 24 hr system can sometimes be when relating it back to the 12 hour system. Maybe it’s just me, but I often have to think twice when relating the times around the 1700 to 2100 time frame?

This next Google Earth image is the same as the one above, but with all the sightings removed that were reported as an aircraft flying outside the times of Paul Clarke’s flight plan:

You can see by comparing the previous images that many of the observations were of other aeroplanes flying after 6.00 pm - at a time that it is very unlikely that Paul was still flying.

The arrows shown in the above image are only of the aircraft observed flying in the time frame that Paul would have been flying.

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