HeliOps 2026 Calendar Giveaway

[Rural53]

PPL in 2000 in a Grumman Cheetah. Rated in C172, PA-28-180, Victor Airtourer 115. I came close to getting a rating in a DH.82A Tiger Moth, but it is a bit difficult getting added to the insurance on a Sunday afternoon. I've done a lot of aerobatics, as a passenger in the Tigermoth. The Airtourer I started my aerobatic rating in, before I ran out of medical, was ZK-CXU, the one Cliff Tait flew around the world in 1969.

As for helicopters, I spent a lot of time in the late 90s riding around/working under Hughes 369Ds fire fighting. I rode back from East Cape to Gisborne, about half an hour, in ZK-HSD a few days before it had its engine stopping/falling out of the sky incident on another fire where I was working as ground crew, https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/30747. I did get a ride to a fire in a BK117 but spent the rest of the day slogging up and down hills. I've always enjoyed anything that converts hydrocarbons to noise. Helicopters are just a subset of things that do it while not touching the ground.