Today was the last day of daylight saving and a very pleasant 20 degrees or so with plenty of sun. As such days are becoming rarer at this time of year, I took the opportunity to head out of the house for a few hours with my camera. First stop was Wellington Airport.

Here’s a small selection from the 17 shots now on Flickr.

I’m not sure of the registration or provenance of what I believe to be Vincent Aviation’s Saab 340, but it, err, needs a little work!

Jetstar’s Airbus A320 VH-VQC is moments from touchdown on RWY16. Once again, the fuselage ribbing and consequent skin contours are visible in this light.

I have seen Qantas 737-800s at Wellington before, but ever since JetConnect (who operate the NZ-based aircraft for the Tasman routes) began replacing their fleet of -400s I have never managed to catch one. Until today.

Well that will do for this selection. As mentioned above, there are 17 shots uploaded on Flickr.

In addition to getting around to processing a lot of photos, I also spent a bit of time out at the airport today. The first decent stay in many months.

The photos don’t show anything new or exciting but I was interested to see how my new camera would perform in familiar settings. On the whole, I’m quite pleased with the results, although some of the shots I took weren’t too sharp. I suspect camera shake and dealing with a fence are at least partly to blame, as many of the shots that didn’t have to deal with either of those factors have come out nicely.

First up is a flying doctor. This Palmerston North registered Beechcraft Bonanza, ZK-EDS, is marked for “Dr. Ralph” and helpfully includes his phone number.

Next up this capture of another Beechcraft — Eagle Air’s 1900D, ZK-EAQ — reminded me of a recent event. So, I’d like to call this configuration “doing the dash.”

Third, and final for the blog post, is this shot of what I thought were two Wellington Aero Club Piper Tomahawks. Except when checking Rodney’s blog for info on the recently added ZK-TAW, I note that this aircraft replaced ZK-JFE — which you can see in the background. Hmmmm.

You can see all of today’s photos on Flickr.

It has taken me a while to get the time for processing photos, and then to get past some serious issues with memory card readers. But finally, here are my 777 pictures from Wellington. Yes, Wellington!

Air New Zealand‘s first Boeing 777-319ER, ZK-OKM has been popping around the country to show off its interior to some dignitaries and frequent flyers. What makes the interior worth showing off is Air New Zealand’s unique seating fit-out, including a first-in-world “cuddle class” economy “sky couch” which allows three economy seats to be used as a lie flat bed for two people. (The third seat is covered by a surcharge and is otherwise unoccupied.)

One of its visits was to lil’ ol’ Welly. So little, that the aircraft arrived with only 20 persons on board in order to deal with Wellington’s relatively short runway. There is no way a fully laden 777 could operate from Wellington. Many, MANY people turned out to watch the arrival around 10:45 on February 9th, including myself. I’m sure there were quite a few at around 16:00 when it departed, too. I’ve see photos of an impressively short take-off roll and epic climbout.

Anyway, enough rambling. The photos! Three are shown here. You can find all eight shots on Flickr.

First, on late finals over Evans Bay with Mounts Victoria and Kaukau in the background.

The moment of touchdown on RWY16.

A picture I took for the purposes of scale. This beastie is HUGE for Wellington! It has been said this is the longest aircraft ever to have landed here.

I’ve barely been out at the airport recently. Aside from being rather busy with other things, the weather really hasn’t been the greatest lately. At least, not when I’m not working!

But over a couple of visits I’ve been able to capture some new schemes and new aircraft.

First up, this Piper PA-28-181 Archer II. I thought I had seen this aircraft around before so didn’t pay too much attention to capturing the registration, but analysing what I can see, I’d pick it to be ZK-LJF from the Canterbury Aero Club. Indeed the colour scheme ties in with photos on Rodney’s blog of LJC, LJD and LJE, so I am fairly confident in my assessment.

Edit: Thanks to a comment from Scott, this aircraft has been identified as being Archer III ZK-LJE.

Moving up market, just a wee bit, we find movie director Peter Jackson’s little runabout. A rather fetching Gulfstream 550.

Possibly better looking than even the G550 is this Heletranz Eurocopter EC120B. I recall seeing this machine many years ago, I think when I lived in Auckland in 2003/2004. According to Rodney, it was here filming the arrival of the ocean racing yachts.

And finally we have Piper PA-32R Saratoga ZK-ZIG which, after nearly 5 years with Capital Air, has now been sold to Golden Bay Air of Takaka. But that’s not all that’s new about this photo. It is also the first aircraft photo taken with my brand new Pentax K-5 camera. I picked it up from the shop on Thursday and apart from a brief walk to the Wellington waterfront at lunchtime on Friday, the weather has been steadfastly miserable. This shot was taken with my back to the incessant drizzle and after waiting about a minute for the wind to die down enough that I wasn’t going to get severe camera shake (which ruined two other shots).

As a result of one of my many trips to our preferred bike shop, I took the chance to pop out to Wellington Airport where nothing much was going on. But I was lucky enough to catch the departure of this Walker Air operated Bombardier Global Express XRS, VH-LAW, which is less than a year old.

In addition to recently trialling some new software to assist my blogging (which I have now purchased and am using right now), this photo, along with three others, are the first to be processed using Apple’s Aperture 3 software. It’s a trial version at this stage, but so far it is looking good. Although I have been considering this for a while, the major prompt for action was Apple dropping the price by 70% in conjunction with the launch of their new Mac App Store. In my books, $105 is a lot more palatable than $384!

Anyway, as usual, check out the other photos (4 in total) from today on the photostream or in the Wellington Airport set.

Just like last year’s selection, I have collected my favourite shots taken in 2010 into a new set on Flickr.

The selection this year numbers only 12. Being a non-air show year there aren’t so many to choose from. Next will see air show action in Masterton and, hopefully, Omaka.

Here are just two of the selection. For the rest, visit the photo set.

For the first time in ages I spent some time out at Wellington Airport today.  A light wind and plenty of sun make for an enjoyable time, although perhaps not for the pilots.

While nothing particularly exciting was seen, a good selection of aircraft were around and in addition to merely capturing the aircraft from traditional angles, I tried for some more unusual angles and crops. First up, a pair of Wellington Aero Club aircraft.

While not such an unusual angle, this Robinson R44 is in a very suburban context.

Some of the more interesting types present were this pair of air ambulance aircraft…

…and a promotionally painted Jetstar A320. Apologies for the heat haze – I was not prepared for this aircraft when it arrived.

Finally, a shot which I think conveys “departure” very simply.

There are more photos on the photo stream.

I’m trialling some new software which will allow me to blog a little more easily. Thinking about it, it is a departure from my usual direction of trying to rely on nothing other than the browser when it comes to web publishing.

Anyway, it gives me some useful tools and offline working so I’m not reliant on my often-slow broadband connection staying stable. An initial test to my personal blog showed great promise.

The real test here is how easy is it to incorporate a Flickr photo, as almost all of the posts on this blog do.

This is a Chinese Gulfstream V registration B-8108. Not a terribly common nationality for Wellington, although the aircraft type is quite common.

Opened on October 27th, Wellington International Airport‘s new international terminal, ‘The Rock’, held a public open morning today, November 21st. The organisers had promised a handful of aircraft including a Spitfire and a Tiger Moth. Unfortunately, this Sunday morning was the worst weather we’ve seen for a while and has already cleared by late afternoon. Talk about bad timing!

But still I went and had a look around, inside and out. Although officially dubbed ‘The Rock’ by the airport company, locals have been referring to the terminal as ‘The Pumpkins’. You can probably see why.

Inside the space is quite striking and I do love the extensive wood finish. However, I cannot get over how small it is!

That is most of the terminal you can see in this shot!

There were plenty of staff on hand and there appeared to be various displays of information and even a chance to win some travel – all things I avoided. Harder to avoid was the, rather appropriately sized, ‘band’.

One major plus was the opportunity to stand out on the tarmac with nothing between me and the runway. Regular operations continued and appeared to be one of the biggest draw cards for many of the visitors.

There are a few more photos on the photostream, or in the Wellington Airport set.