Greetings All
It was a tough season with lots of days lost to bad weather, really a shocker summer for New Zealand. The TVAL crew meet monthly during the flying season (Oct to April) to maintain currency on the various aircraft and practice displays for the biennial Wings Over Wairarapa airshow. This is held at Hood Aerodrome (where TVAL are based), but this year the airshow was pushed back to Nov-23 due to weather concerns. Any way, lots of pics in this album for you all to enjoy. Some notable absences: the SE5a trio are waiting on some new valves, the early BE2c needs recovering, the pilots are unhappy with the LVG's ineffective rudder so it's staying in the hangar for now, Zanzibar FE2b needs a replacement cylinder jacket...
TVAL have not been able to offer hangar tours to the public for some years now, as the hangar is so packed with aircraft it isn't possible to walk around safely. A new hangar would be great but no idea how far away that might be. There are vantage points for the public not far from the flight line, and there are occasional lunch time tours available by arrangement, particularly for overseas visitors with a special interest
https://jamesfahey.smugmug.com/TVAL-flying-weekends-Summer2223/The images are hi-res and you are welcome to download any for your personal use. Use the small download icon, not a right mouse button click or they won't be full size. If you want to post them elsewhere please credit me as the photographer
Thanks to TVAL for the generous hospitality offered to me, and to the volunteer pilots and ground crew for keeping the collection flying
Cheers
James
