Mt Aspiring trip (Stephen Morton)

One of the joys of living in Central Otago, is easy access to the Southern Alps.  Saturday was one of those outstanding days.  Clear visibility for at least 100km in all directions, and not a lot of wind.  By 10.00am, I had refuelled and heading for Cromwell.  My brother Peter was to come with me, but had been called away to fix an irrigation problem.  Getting airborne again, we headed up the valley, climbing to 6500ft over Wanaka.  The radio was full of chatter, but I managed to get in a position report and let the Jump plane know where I was before he released his load.  
 
The Fiordland CFZ starts at the Matukituki river, so on to 119.2 and another position report.  By now we are cleared to climb to 10,000ft.  Leaning the fuel mix again ERW is hard pushed to make that height, with such a clear day, the view is simply magic.  It is always a good idea to have an escape route whenever mountain flying.  I have had experiences of dropping several thousand feet flying round Mt. Cook and Mt. Aspiring. The wind was around 10 to 15kts and from the west.  So most of the sight seeing will be from the Western side today. Avoid the lee side. 

 
The south side of Aspiring is almost vertical for 2000ft or more.  And the snow field along side it is something else. For me, this is the flight that I always recommend if you want to show NZ to your visitors.
 
Heading back to Cromwell and through Wanaka was straight forward.  Plenty of activity their on a Saturday morning.  Landing on our strip on the Sugarloaf also proved interesting.  By now the model planes were out in force and the local helicopters seem to be busy with the heli-bike tours onto the Pisa Range. 
 
Alexandra was a little quiet with a changeable wind, but Dave Mitchell taxi-ed out to do some circuit practice just as I was leaving.
 
Happy flying
Stephen Morton