Skies abuzz with visiting aircraft

Ray Cleaver | 25th March 2010

A national rally of recreational pilots in Stratford over the weekend filled the sky above Central Taranaki with planes of all shapes and sizes.
Little one-man microlights, high-speed sports planes and even a Russian Yak were among the aircraft on display and taking to the skies.
The annual, national fly-in attracted about 27 planes, less than expected due to bad weather in many parts of the country. This prevented quite a few planes taking off from their home airports over the weekend, but the weather in Taranaki was great for flying.
The event was a combined effort of the Stratford Sport Fliers Club in conjunction with the Recreational Aircraft Association of New Zealand.
Event organiser, Nick Furmage, said the gathering was a great success.
The club brought in a mobile air control trailer for the rally and it registered 252 takeoffs and landings over the weekend.
There were different competitions, such as bombing on Saturday, and on Sunday early morning fog lifted to allow many aircraft to get close to the mountain.
Many locals attended the rally and was estimated there were about 1000 people attending on Saturday.
Included in aircraft attending was a little two-man microlight, an X-Air trike, which two men flew up from Christchurch.