Firstly, there have been some cracking crosswinds lately leading to some pretty interesting final approaches and landings... no matter how many times you see it a plane heading sideways to the runway doesn't look quite right. Here's a pic of menno just coming in to land, the white marker boards denote the start of the grass runway which pretty much runs straight off the right of the pic....
and here's a video of mark coming in practising crosswind circuits, notice the direction he's pointing versus the direction he's actually going in... then he straightens up just before touch down. if I remember correctly there was about 15 knots of crosswind that day with gusts up to 25 knots:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Xlt0hSxRo
However, due to YET ANOTHER engine problem in a katana they have taken the decision to ground the fleet for safety reasons. We don't yet have a huge amount of info on it but it's hopefully only a short term grounding. In recognition of the shittyness of the planes they have taken half the cadets on them off and put them on cessnas (so that there is less strain on the limited number of katanas that actually work on any given day).
And finally (best for last and all that), one of my friends here was in a helicopter crash today! He is an ex navy helo pilot and has been doing his helicopter PPL on the side of normal training out here. Today it went a little bit wrong and resulted in a very mangled (and totally written off) helicopter.... he's okay though other than having sliced his ear in half so it was a lucky escape! This is a pic of the wreckage, must have been an absolutely pant filling experience as the rotor blades smashed but he's a tough lad so he'll be reet!
So anyway, that's my news for now!
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