Hi there everyone. I've been lurking in the shadows, checking in on a regular basis, and am now fronting up to be counted! You've got a great site here, well done. As the strength of any of these forums is actual participation, I figured I should do exactly that.

I live in Queenstown, New Zealand, and along with some other guys, have been doing up and flying a 1967 Cessna A185E. Previous owner had left it sitting for a bit long, so by the time we came along, we needed to o/h the IO-520-D engine, put new windows in all round, new hartzell scimitar prop(!) and generally pull it to pieces and put it back together. So you may understand that the funds didn't go so far as a new paint job or other 'pretty' things. After all that, we were just keen to see it back in the air. This aircraft actually has some family ties to me from earlier days, but that is a story for another time.

We've got some great flying down here, and I can see from some of the user galleries (yellowbelly, and Punkin170b are two), some of you have already had a bit of a look around.
And skiing too Zane! A man after my own heart. Four ski areas within and hour and a bit, and a whole raft of backcountry options. We're just getting wound into, what looks like to be, a great winter.

It's been great to get an insight into all of your adventures, especially as many of those places are familiar to me. I spent a number of years living in different parts of the U.S. (read ski towns), so while I am now back living at home, it is good to read about the backcountry flying in other good spots.

Now, I'll try to upload some photos to the galleries. This should be interesting...

Thanks, keep doing what you're doing.
Thomas

Welcome to the forum. It's great to have an international view in the discussion.
I once looked in to flying in NZ, but I seem to remember that it was about 1 1/2 X more spendy than the States.
What's it cost for a wet C-172 rental there nowadays?
How available are rentals? How 'bout backcountry strips?
Tell all.
Berk

dontlookdown wrote:And skiing too Zane! A man after my own heart. Four ski areas within and hour and a bit, and a whole raft of backcountry options. We're just getting wound into, what looks like to be, a great winter.

Yeah, baby! Good skiing(fresh powder, storm day) and good flying are usually mutually exclusive, so it works out well, with the exception of this last winter, where all I did was ski and not much else (except work.)

Welcome aboard. I'd love to pay you guys a visit in the next few years. I'll be looking for Middle Earth. Would love to do the flyinn.com New Zealand tour, but maybe it's better to work the BCP global network angle and pay for fuel.

Berk wrote:Welcome to the forum. It's great to have an international view in the discussion.
I once looked in to flying in NZ, but I seem to remember that it was about 1 1/2 X more spendy than the States.
What's it cost for a wet C-172 rental there nowadays?
How available are rentals? How 'bout backcountry strips?
Tell all.
Berk

Berk,
it is now up to NZ$200/hr wet for a C172, or around U.S. $120/hr wet. Not sure what your rates are in the U.S. for the same thing. There are quite a lot of aero clubs around the country, so availability of aircraft isn't bad. However, if you want to go NOW somewhere, usually it's a hit and miss affair, depending on who else is out there. Same everywhere I guess.

There's lots of places to go and land, when Zane vets my photo gallery, or rather I can work out how to post things properly, you may see a photo of a beach landing two days ago in Big Bay, and a farm strip yesterday. I didn't take my camera, so took the photos on my phone, so it's a bit grainy, but you get the idea. I'll try to post a few shots of other interesting places, when I can.

I hear you have some great flyfishing down there as well. Grass strip and a stream... count me in.

Thanks Zane,
Sounds good. I'm sure if you make it down here, we can sort something out.
I'm just on the way to the airport to inspect a ski rack that is about to go on the plane for some out of town trips. In it's former life, the 185 was a ski plane, however it hasn't seen the rack on it for a number of years. Saves a poke in the back of the head!

m7flyer wrote:I hear you have some great flyfishing down there as well. Grass strip and a stream... count me in.

There's some great fishing to be had. Clear water and spooky fish, so it's a good way to improve your casts!
Big news here is the introduction of Didymosphenia geminata (Didymo), which I think you've had in North America for some time. It is now present in quite a few otherwise pristine river systems, which is a real pity. Called 'rock snot' here, not sure if you term it the same in the States.

Hey Kiwis, welcome aboard!!
You folks must have some of the most beautiful, if shrunk-down, territory in the world. My trip into Milford Sound was at the top of my short list of "best ever" (until it was bumped to #2 by Prince William Sound in AK last year).

Somehow, I thought flying in OZ would be just like flying in NZ.... wow, how could I have gotten that so wrong? NZ seems to have a tolerable level of regulation where Oz seems to have gone into overkill.

Skiing?? My Auckland friend just might be up to his waist in Craigieburn as I type this.

Look out this summer (winter here). We plan on three months in NZ from Feb-Apr. I'm looking forward to that Super Cub in Abel Tasman Natl Park.

YB

G'Day Thomas!

If I could live anywhere I wanted, I'd probably pick the South Island of NZ. Our holiday downunder was also our honeymoon. T'was the best vacation of my life. We spend a good bit of time flying around the South Island (including a stop at Big Bay & Milford) with Matt McCaughan... Do you of know him? Geordie Hill Station just northwest of Tarras, Flyinn tours, etc? Great people, and a great time it was.

Was your 185 previously a Mount Cook Airlines bird? They still had a few left when we were there, but they were selling them off and replacing them with Pilatus Porters.

Glad to have you on board!

Cheers!

Matt

[quote="punkin170b"]G'Day Thomas!

If I could live anywhere I wanted, I'd probably pick the South Island of NZ. Our holiday downunder was also our honeymoon. T'was the best vacation of my life. We spend a good bit of time flying around the South Island (including a stop at Big Bay & Milford) with Matt McCaughan... Do you of know him? Geordie Hill Station just northwest of Tarras, Flyinn tours, etc? Great people, and a great time it was.

Was your 185 previously a Mount Cook Airlines bird? They still had a few left when we were there, but they were selling them off and replacing them with Pilatus Porters.

Glad to have you on board!

Hi Matt,
Yes the 185 was an ex Mt Cook Airlines Ski Plane. It actually was based in Queenstown for the most part, on and off skis since it was a couple of years old. a few months ago, we went to a commeration marking the 50th anniversary of the first ski plane landing in New Zealand, made by my grandfather. He invented a retractable undercarriage ski, because in New Zealand the snow is usually only on the tops, not in the valley floors. This was on an Auster J1B Aiglet.

They still actually have the 185's up at Mt Cook, along with the Porters. Not everything sold off quite yet!

Glad to hear you had a good time down here. I don't know Matt McCaughan personally, however, I know the station where he is. From your photos, looks like he gave you a good look around.
Thanks for the welcome!

Yellow Belly,
Craigieburn has some great skiing, lucky friend of yours, I think they've got a fair amount of snow, and this is just the beginning!
You've picked the right time of year to go travelling up in Abel Tasman, it's still warm, but without the crowds.

Zane,
I need some guidance with the photo uploads. When I uploaded the initial batch, I somehow managed to send them to the 'Cessna' folder and not my own album. How do I put them directly in the album, and not some other place?
Thanks

dontlookdown wrote:

punkin170b wrote:G'Day Thomas!

...Glad to hear you had a good time down here... From your photos, looks like he gave you a good look around.
Thanks for the welcome!

The NZ photos in Matt's gallery are stellar. I wanna go!
Berk

Glad you liked the photos, Berk. I've got a heap more where those came from... maybe I'll go through them and upload a few more.

Very interesting regarding your grandfather, Thomas. Just like in Alaska I suppose - some of the coolest aviation inventions are conceived out of need, not just because it "sounds like a cool idea". We rode with Graeme O'Neill in a Mt. Cook Airlines 185 up to the Franz Josef Glacier when we were there. I decided right then, that someday I had to but retractable skis on my 170... Plenty of places to go play around here in the winter. The idea still persists, but it is just one of those "cool things to do someday" and not a necessity.

I highly recommend NZ as an aviation vacation destination. The aviation community is outstanding. It is the only country in the world that is more "GA friendly" than the USA. There are grass airstrips everywhere, just like Idaho. Almost every farmer has a strip on his land and probably at least share of ownership in an airplane. The topography is so dramatic, that driving anywhere takes forever. But the coastline is less than an hour from anywhere on the south island by Cessna... And the view along the way is absolutely the best in the world. The people there seem to have their priorities straight too... wish I could raise my kids there. Too bad there's enough excellent home grown talent to keep Air New Zealand from hiring Yank pilots! If they change their minds, though, At least I've got a start on my certificate conversions with the NZ PPL in hand... well, actually it's framed on my office wall until we go back again.

thats a septic tank yank mate!

Hey Thomas, welcome in here! There´s no better way to get into a forum that saying hi eh?

Never been to New Zealand, so I can´t talk about any personal experience there, but, WTF, I´ve the Discovery Channel and have seen the pics of your 185, the way that I can say, without any fear to make a mistake, that are a lucky son of a kiwi! My most sincere envy to you.

Interested in trading the 185 for a nice 172? Feel free, I know you´d feel like you are cheating me, and in fact you´ll be, but I make my decisions based on what my heart dictates and I love those scimitar blades.

What I said, welcome!!

Welcome!

New Zealand flying has been a dream of mine for a long time. I spent 2 weeks when I was 8 years old traveling the South Island with my parents, and fell in love with the country.

I'd be a happy man flying and skiing there, I'm jealous. May even be willing to give up the flying paradise I call home - Idaho.

John

All this talk of flying in NZ is getting to me. Does anyone know what it costs to ship a C - 172? I don't guess it'd be anything even remotely afordable. Oh well, just asking. (Probably not possible to load it up with tanks & fly it to down under?) Has anyone here ever looked at the Earthrounders website??? It'll get you adventure bug going!
Dreaming, Berk

If the plan is making it all in just one hop, of course not, but ferries to Hawai happen everyday. Once that leg has been made, the rest of the flight can be flown also. I happen to know a bunch of pilots that flew a fleet of C-172´s from the factory to Spain, and not throught the usual Canada-Greenland-Iceland-Scotland way, but directly across the Atlantic stopping by in the Azores. My "neighbor", owning some AirTractors, has ferried some of them to Australia in different years. A guy that I know, seling new Air Tractors too, has ferried some to Auzzie also. Anything can be ferried anywhere.

As for disassembling, crating and shipping, I don´t know on that direction and distance, but can give you some ideas about the price to, again, Spain. Disassembling a couple of 172 wings should be around the $500 and can be done in one day. The truck somewhere around the $1-1,5 per mile, the fees at the port will vary, but would make a maximum total (including everything) well under the $1000. The crating and shipping itself, to Spain, is around the $5000 (depending on the container´s size, this is, on the level of disassembling and the total length x heigth of the plane, the compnay doing so, the...: $4500-%5500). Then, once at the destiny, they´ll have to take it out of the ship, put it into another trailer, take it to a work shop, assemble the wings... Shipping to Spain could be around $10,000 and takes almost 30 days. The same with NZ as a final destiny must be much more in both, time and money.

A ferry flight from Spain to the USA, including everything (even gas, boats, extra fuel tank and a ferry pilot) is slightly cheaper than those $10,000, some $8,000 and, weather permiting, taking reasonable journeys, not too long, not too short, can be done in a week. That taking the long route thru the North, but assuming the airplane finally located in the East coast and my 172, wich already has good enough tanks and speeds.

You were just asking, I know, but I was just writing while lunch time finally came.

Jose

I'd ship my airplane If I was going to stay in NZ on a more permanent basis. But for a visit and touring the countryside, Thomas (dontlookdown) might have a recommendation that is much much cheaper than shipping your 172... Or check out these guys: http://www.flyinn.co.nz/

We flew with Matt McCaughan and stayed at Geordie Hill Station for over 2 weeks. Had a great time! Worth every penny. A great idea to have a guide pilot in such dramatic and remote country. Local weather knowledge is also paramount, as it changes quite rapidly. (Cold systems from Antarctica and warm systems from the South Pacific tend to mix right over NZ and change things up in the blink of an eye!)