Kiwi303

Does AusPost have a mail forwarding warehouse? NZPost has a service set up where you send your US purchases to a US warehouse and they pack it all up and ship it to NZ bulk and then reship it domestically here. Plus there are a number of private companies doing the same thing, but probably without the bulk economy of a major postal carrier.

and cost as much as a learjet

and cost as much as a learjet

There are more modern aircraft which compete with the AN-2 these days, like the PAC 750XSTOL, but in those areas where the AN-2 is known, the PAC and the Pilutus PC-6 STOL are not known well enough. It's a marketing issue there as well.

Gotta have the swede young. The cows don't care if it's overgrown and all woody, they have the option of bringing last nights dinner back for breakfast, lunch and another dinner too. They get woody and fibrous once mature, pick them big enough to eat but small enough to be crisp and they aren't bad.

I like Kale, I know it's organic 'cause it comes outta mums garden, not the local Monsanto wholesales store (AKA Supermarket). Thinks the moon landings were real but can't comment since they were well before my time!

Lithium ion batteries again? Ah, never mind, read it. Sounds like a leaky valve and fuel pooling in the engine to me.

From what I hear, the insurgency in Afganistan and Iraq, just trudging along looking for ragheads with guns and nothing more sophisticated, has apparently bred some bad habits in the current crop of soldiers and their brass hats. Constant use of radios to keep in touch, no comprehension of can the chatter. Come a war against a first or even second line oppodent and the troops are going to have a very expensive first few lessons on comms discipline. PFC Parts lights up the airwaves to bitch to PFC Parks about how PFC Peaches turned him down in chow hall, Gospodin Gorsky several miles away gets a hit on the RDF circuit and 10 seconds later a triangulated 122mm is on the way to remind PFC Parts it's a good idea to keep things private around this part of the world.

I'm chatting with a russian woman now from near Abakan in the Siberian wastes... She's mentioned winter lows of -35 as a normal daily low in winter. She wan't me to come teach at the english school in her town. I'm not so sure about living in those temps! Chongqing was nice in winter, only 5 degrees in winter, so above freezing, but 41 degrees near cooked me, and Lyudmila has mentioned +45 in summer. Ouch. Too hot. Gotta be tough to live there!

Too many current competitors for the DC3 slot with more modern design features. The G.222/C27J and the CASA C-295 and the AN-32 families.

Nice to see a Bantam around, the first small plane I went up in as a kid with Max Clear.

First flew in 1947 designed for the forestry commission of the USSR, they quit making them in 1991, but started again in 2000, VERY popular in africa and siberia. They'll even fly backwards with a decent headwind,

at least we only have to worry about possums here!

True above. Just because you are not being paid does not mean you are not recieving a benefit or a reward from the flight. Here in NZ as I understand it the wording is the same as for the P endorsement for the car licence. You cannot carry a passenger in your car "For Hire or Reward" and the same wording is used for differentiating commercial pilots from private pilots. While you may not have recieved Hire, since the aircraft was hired from a third party, you did recieve a reward in the form of "free" hours you did not have to pay for which could be logged in your logbooks. It seems a minor thing, but any third rate lawyer could rip you up on that technicality. Now if you had gone halves on the fuel, leaving the plane fee to the other guy, you would have incurred a cost, albeit a lesser one than flying by yourself. enough to invalidate the "reward" wording.

Steak Tatare methinks

All they did was copy the Yak-38 Forger with all the attendant problems, and add their own newer software and overweight problems.

If I were him, I would go Alaska, Adak, Midway, Hawaii, Banana/Kiribati down through the islands to New Caledonia, Norfolk, Australia, though I think he has the range to skip Norfolk Island and go straight from Noumea to Aussie. Midway used to be a restricted military area, it's now been handed over to the Park rangers, whatever the call the US equivalent of Dept of Conservation here in NZ. It's a birds breeding reserve now, but Parks and Rec maintain the runway still.

Empty I bet, but still pretty impressive.

Who took the photo ? I'd like to pop it up on Facebook to share with my friends, but would like to credit the creator/photog.

Maybe from the neck down she may not be too bad. Neck up she's rather so-so. Delta Goodrem now... That's a chick worth watching :D

P.S. Third photo down, the naval planes are a different make than the Kittyhawks, vertical stabiliser is shaped differently, counterweights at end of elevators extend right to the end of the elevator "L" style rather than inset "T" style, ailerons extend out to end at the curve of the wing, not rectilinear inset in the wing, open rear gunners position at the rear of the canopy. They look like torpedo planes to me. SB2 Brewster Buccaneers from the wing design?

Nah, I think they're just shipping them. NZ used P-40s in the pacific after the fall of Singapore, Prior to that most NZ units in the far east were Hurricane, but once Singapore fell we ended up mostly with US manufactured birds like the Buffalo and P-40 in the pacific and asian battles. 488NZ squadron RAF was a colonial defence unit, RAF funded the planes and NZ provided and trained the pilots under the commonwealth air force scheme. They were in Singapore with Brewsters as a green unit, re-equipped with Hurricanes as they arrived for the defence after Japan entered the war, withdrawn from Singapore back to NZ where the pilots were later reformed as RNZAF 14 Sqn with Harvards and later Kittyhawkss, finishing the war with Corsairs. Meanwhile 488NZ RAF was reformed a little later in England as a Beaufighter unit. The European units all remained Brit planes, Hurricanes, Typhoons, Spitfires, Tempests, Beaufighters. If you look, one photo has them being craned on board, they have no arrestors to make a captive landing. The flying photos would be just taking off to land at the destination where there is no chance to trundle them down the road from the docks to the airfield.

From that, I would say the original reporter was expecting the pilot or mechanic to be found guilty of something. Reckless endangerment maybe? Leaving out the "who wasn't charged" makes it a more neutral story.

What is the range on a Legend? Thoroughly impractical, the handling fees at the airports along the route alone would add up to far too much compared to the crating and shipping costs, but the romantic in me imagines just flying something like that home.

Somewhat off topic and hijacking the thread, Can you get microphone only sets? Being deaf and using a hearing aid I'm far better off hooking on a shoe connection direct to my hearing aid and setting the aid to input aux only. Which still leaves a noise cancelling microphone being needed.