Gavin Grimmer
As it always happens, Monday dawned a beautiful fine day, so close to 1.30 pm, (Middle of sunlight day - less shadows) I was overhead the area where I (at the time) thought the pilot of Hughes 500 ZK-HNW gave in his last radio transmission, WEST of Milford, and I proceeded to film the area with the high definition video camera that I mounted vertically in the under-belly of my Maranda aeroplane.
It was quite a chore, as being on my own made it very difficult to keep orientated, avoid running into the side of the mountain ranges, keep the aircraft flying at a reduced airspeed, monitor the engine, and take high resolution photos out of the side windows with my Olympus SLR camera, all at the same time.
I had programmed a“grid search” pattern into my GPS to ensure that I covered the whole area but found it was impossible to fly to this as I needed my eyes out the window to avoid bumping into things - rather than looking at a GPS.
On return home, on a quick going over the footage, I’ve found that I did manage to cover the area pretty good, but have yet to examine all of it in great detail. I have however to date found a very interesting object that needs to be checked out....time will tell!
You can read about this interesting object, and the outcome of the following helicopter search in the relevant section on ZK-HNW on this website.
Stan and Gilly Smith and Co. made it to Haast in very unpleasant weather, early on the Friday afternoon, in the DH84 Dragon ZK-AXI and his recently rebuilt DH83 Fox Moth ZK-APT.
The DH90 Dragonfly ZK-AYR and the DH83 Fox Moth ZK-ADI never made it to Haast until Sunday afternoon, but due to the strong crosswind they attempted to land at Mussel Point - further south. This strip was more into wind but still had a crosswind. Fox Moth ZK-ADI made it in with great difficulty on the narrow strip, but Dragonfly ZK-AYR being larger, after a hair-raising aborted landing decided to proceed to Wanaka and land there instead.
The Dragonfly does not have a good reputation in crosswind landings so it was a very wise decision.
ZK-AXI Dragon with ZK-AYR and ZK-ADI flying overhead ZK-ADI on ground at Mussel Point Airstrip
West of Milford Scenery on way to Milford Haast Township with Aerodrome shown
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