Yes it is.

Battson wrote:I hope nobody here is greatly offended by hunting - its an important part of backcountry aviation culture and history here in New Zealand. The deer are an introduced animal, and there is no natural means of controlling their population, which otherwise grows unchecked. So this is a success, of course we eat them:

What species of deer, and from where were they imported? From what I've read, NZ has several species but the red deer (from Asia & Europe) is the most common. They are closely related to our American elk but maybe a little smaller. What do an average bull and cow (or stag & hind?) weigh?

hotrod180 wrote:What species of deer, and from where were they imported? From what I've read, NZ has several species but the red deer (from Asia & Europe) is the most common. They are closely related to our American elk but maybe a little smaller. What do an average bull and cow (or stag & hind?) weigh?

Those are Red Deer, and yes they are the most common by far. They are found in basically every part of the country. A large stag might be as much as 200 lbs on the hook, whereas a hind would be closer to 100.

They were imported in the late 19th and early 20th century from England and Germany, if memory serves me.

Other species imported and released into the wild include, in rough order of size:
Moose, which are now thought to be extinct
Elk (Wapiti), from the American Roosevelt herd
Sambar, from India I presume
Rusa
Sika, from Japan I presume
Fallow
Whitetail from the USA

All these other species exist in regional areas, rather than nationally. The second-most widely spread are probably the Fallow.

Here are some photos from another hunting trip.

We left early in the morning to allow time to stop on the way, and check the rifles were shooting straight. After crossing the Southern Alps we descended through a small pass under the clouds, and down valley until we reached our landing area. The valley was locked in cloud. The sandflies were absolutely terrible beside the river, so target practice didn't take long....


Afterwards, we had intended to fly down to the coast for a hunt. But after taking off and tracking just a few miles down valley, we were thwarted by heavy rain and very low cloud, right down to the river gorge. This forced us to turn back, and we had no option except land again, or climb back over the Alps again - from sea level!!. Fortunately at 2,000 ft/min there was no need to circle in the confines of the valley to gain altitude, and were soon back to 8,000 ft.


We flew north for some time and scouted a couple of different valleys, which were less confined with cloud. Our first choice was occupied as we spied a herdsman moving cattle into the valley. Continuing north, we found somewhere with better weather and landed. There was plenty of deer sign. We spent the day hiking upstream and spooked a good sized mob of deer while stalking in the forest.


Carefully timing our return, we arrived back at the aeroplane about 25 minutes before dark. This allowed just enough time to warm up and fly back to home-plate before the end of Evening Civil Twilight.

It was raining hard when we arrived back home, although still before "official" twilight, which made for quite a dark landing.

FWIW one of my favorite books is "Wild Pork and Watercress" by Barry Crump. A Kiwi friend of mine here in the US was amazed that I'd ever heard of him, let along read any of his books. He loaned me a shitload of other Barry Crump books to read, which were all good, but none as good as that one.

Here's the latest little compilation video, with more off airport action in the Bearhawk for your enjoyment.

I really have fun making these videos, it takes me to some pretty awesome places:

Here are a few shots from a couple of weekends back - a bow hunting trip for deer and wild pigs. The plane ended up hauling a big load of venison home.

Those are amazing pictures! What a beautiful place New Zealand is!

Working on finishing our O540 powered Bearhawk, can't wait to be in the air again!

Russ

Nice, Jon. Beautiful area.

I am waiting for some Maoris to jump out of the forest! (Ha ha hah!)

Seriously, you are on top of the food chain both hunting and flying. I have always wanted a Bearhawk to build.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maori_people

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The latest installment of video:

No worries sharing your hunting photos. You are doing awesome down there and I love seeing what you are doing with your plane.

Keep it up. [emoji1]

Another off airport spot.


Not a great place for it to stop.....

Battson wrote:
Not a great place for it to stop.....

thats fantastic shot mate! love it!

Great weather for flying this weekend, stopped at the riverbed, the beach, and did an hour of STOL circuits.



I have found I've become proficient enough to retract the flaps on landing for STOL stuff. Well - fast enough that it makes a difference at least. The main advantage in the Bearhawk is the tail gets a lot heavier with the flaps up, rather than just reducing lift in general. The much heavier tail means you can brake a lot harder and stop meaningfully shorter.

Summer holidays continue in New Zealand.

This was an especially tricky spot, by my personal standards. This was a 300ft one-way landing on a rocky bar, you can almost see the whole rollout area in the picture, plus the dead-end trees in front of the plane. The aircraft is sitting where it stopped under braking, to give you an idea how tight the bar is. To be honest, I missed my mark and landed about 40 feet deeper than I needed to. Also, the rocks on the bar were quite large and unevenly patterned at the far end. I was not that impressed with my judgement from the air.



I've been pushing the limits recently, and grown a little more comfortable with these very small spots... some of the time. Unfortunately, rougher shorter spots tend to throw rocks into the tail feathers. This was one of those days, we punctured the fabric in two places with one rock. Field repair... But we are accessing some pretty neat sections of river, there sure are a lot of trout there.

This is another little spot where I used absolutely full braking power - but we had room to spare in the end. Again you can see almost the whole landing run in picture. It should have been a video...
This one was quite smooth, fortunately. It's hard to assess all the spots perfectly from the air. Some times you can see the grade of the rocks isn't that large, but upon landing you find out the rocks are patterned in such a way that some stick out and others lay low, making for a rough landing.


This spot was also really tight (see a trend developing?) and I needed to use the water to get out again. I was loaded with three people and full tanks this time, a heavy load for a gravel bar less than 300 foot long. It's been very hard to find a situation where the IO-540 powered Bearhawk lands as short as it takes off, but somehow we're easing closer and closer to that situation.
Using the water was a big moment, for me personally. I haven't used water before, because I've never needed to before, and I've never practised it as a result. I have read enough about "how do I hydroplaning the wheels" to know what to expect though.


What surprised me the most, was how much give the water had. I could feel the wheels go deeper as I checked the stick forward (to check I really was on the water), then spring me back into the air. I probably only used two or three plane lengths of water, and that was more than I needed, but still a first for me.... baby steps are good, because they don't tend to end badly!

I have a good RV friend, Pete Hunt, who spends his winters in New Zealand. He has a couple RV6's and a T6 Texan here in the states. I believe he does some T6 flying / instructing over there in NZ too though. If you see him say hi!

Battson, awesome pictures and stories. Thanks for sharing!

Battson, Sweeet machine you've got there. I've you ever tried running 31's with low air pressure on that BH? Mike