Some words of wisdom

Every one should read this.

Sponsors to help me get to Europe are hard to come by, but sponsors for my wee mini, well thats a different story :)

I have been excited all weekend about my flight today, but this morning I woke up to a claggy foggy day with very poor visibility, so no flying, and no flight for a couple of mates who were going to fill the two spare seats in the R44 for the lesson, hope we can reschedule, I would love to take them for a flight. Instead I went for a sprint session and an easy run around the lake edge, with Green Day blaring, it was very refreshing, I really do live in one of the most stunning spots on earth! While out running I spied a spot where lots of drift wood has been left from the last time the water was high, so I’ll have to cruise over and collect it – can’t turn down free fire wood! I’ve spent the best part of today sitting next to the fire studying for my Basic Gas Turbine exam, its pretty technical stuff, this will be the last exam I do this year, but I will probably look at starting a couple of my ATPL exams next Winter, it’ll be a good way to keep everything fresh in my mind over the next few years as I focus on skeleton and not flying. Anyway the reason I decided to blog was not to bore everyone with my quiet day, but to say that Tyre Land Wanaka called and they are sponsoring me with a set of 12 in. superlights for my Mini!!!

My mini will be pimped. I’m stoked, my wee mini began it’s transformation 2 years ago when Wanaka Glass and Collision dealt to the rust and painted it black, and Wanaka Signs had my sponsors decals put all over it and a silver fern down the roof – the same style as my race helmet has, but the old-granny original 27 year old wheels (and cracked plastic hub caps) left it looking a bit tired, but not anymore, in 3 weeks the old girl will be stylin’ it through the streets of Wanaka (probably the oldest car on the road in this town). 12 in. wheels are hard to come buy now days, but they managed to track some down in Aussie, I’ll put up some pics once she’s shining. Now I’ve gotta go and plan tomorrows flight to Bluff in the R22, it will meet my 100 nautical mile cross-country requirement, I get to fly into Invercargill and the heliport in Bluff, and no doubt my instructor has some diversions planned for me on the way home, will take most of the morning with a 8.30am lift off. So I hope this fog lifts.

Flying the 44

I got to have my first flight in the R44, it is a bigger more powerful 4 seater. It feels like a real helicopter compared to the tiny little R22 (which is way smaller than my mini 1275 gt). I love the R44, we got to go and play in the low flying area, flying 50ft off the ground at 120knots, thats like 200kmph, ahhhhhh, it was soooooo cool. It was one powerful wicked machine. I have another flight in it on monday morning, for advanced mountain training. I wish I could afford to do the rest of my training in the R44, but it is too expensive for that. Flying it was so much fun that I think I enjoyed flying the 44 as much as I love sliding the Lake Placid track.

My blog works!!!!!

after months of contacting blogger, searching their help pages, and scratching my head as to why my blog would not work, I deleted the longest html link on my side board, and it looks like it worked!!!!!

it's snowing

Winter arrived, we had 15cm of snow in the garden yesterday, the pass to Christchurch is still closed, there is crazy heavy snow fall in the south, a tornado hit Invercargill and the supermarket has run out of bread!!! I’m keeping warm by the fire, and keeping the mini off the road tucked up safely in the garage, luckily the gym is walking (or slipping and skidding) distance from home.

P.S. for all you Europeans and North Americans: Kiwi towns are not equipped for dealing with a bit of snow, schools close, roads close, supermarkets run out of bread, the news paper does not get through and the post is not delivered if the foot path is slippery, oh and planes don’t fly either! Snow is meant to fall in the mountains not the towns.

Well I have had a very busy week, I have been flying lots; 2 flights a day when weather allows, and weights and sprints in between. Working on sponsorship and fundraising, and planning for the race season, studying for my Basic Gas Turbine exam and trying to avoid the cold out side (which is impossible when your at 2000ft agl, it is -3 degrees, flying with the doors off and you need to stick you head outside to check the load your carrying) brrrr.

trainings good, flyings good and exam passed.

Training is going great, and I have found a new sponsor, Getstrength.com the makers of the front squat harness, well they also make a back squat bar that I can use with out stressing out my shoulders, it is brilliant and they have given me one, THANK YOU. Flying is just awesome. I passed my Nav exam, that's all my compulsory exams done. I'm now starting my sling training and soon I'll be flying the Robinson 44.

Training, exams and my new wee Niece.

I’m back up in Christchurch to sit my navigation exam, it went well, I am confident that I passed but I used every minute of time to get through it, which worries me as I was told that by others who sat it recently that there was heaps of time left at the end, I have to wait 10 days for the results. I also came up here to catch up with my trainer Ashley, I’ve been following his program for 5 weeks now and I’ve been getting stronger and stronger and the front squat harness is just brilliant. I have found a few things that my new shoulders don’t like, dead lifts, and incline bench press, but I don’t have to do them to become strong and powerful, they are certainly not a prerequisite for skeleton so they are off the program.

I caught up with Ashley in the gym at Rugby Park in Christchurch, the sacred home of the Canterbury Crusaders, my 16yr old brother and my 5 year old sister (who knows the names and faces of more crusaders and All Blacks than I do) are jealous that I (I don’t even understand the rules of rugby) get to be in the gym while these international rugby legends are training. My dad and brother are both Crusaders fans and were very keen to know who I saw and met, and they find my ‘I don’t know’s very entertaining and frustrating. some rather good looking, fit athletes is not what they wanted to hear…at least my step Mum could appreciate what I had to say ;)

I also got to meet my new little niece Breanna Louise Corcoran. She was just gorgeous, a placid chilled out baby. Guy and Dani are handling the task of being Mum and Dad just fine.

Air borne adventures

My flying is going great with two flights a day, I hope to take my brother for a flight next week, he’ll be my first real passenger!

I got to go exploring in the helicopter, my instructor circled all the little huts in the shotover/skippers/mototapu area and sent me and another instructor out to find them, I haven’t flown navigating off a tramping topographical map before, there is a lot more detail, neither myself or the instructor who came with me had ever flown in the area we were headed to and it was rainy with low cloud, so it was challenging and exciting conditions to fly it – but as a commercial pilot I wont be able to only fly on good weather days, so it was good experience. We found all the huts, even landed at one, there are some beautiful remote spots up there. We got to fly over Shania Twains mansion she is building, checked out the old chinese gold miners water tunnel they built to divert water into another river, and saw massive waterfalls with all the rivers in flood from the 3 inches of rain the night before. We flew home via Skippers Canion, and through the Queenstown control zone, it was very cool.

Back in Wanaka

I'm well into my new program, and now back in Wanaka and training is going great, the weight of my dead lifts, bench press and clean pulls are still limited by my right shoulder, but that is to be expected with surgery only 12 months ago, but the weights are going up and the box jumps and knees to feet jumps are getting easier, and the Turkish Get Ups are amazing for my shoulders. My front squat harness is a godsend, the strength and stability through my core that I used to have is finally returning. That painful, tired and achy body reminds me daily that I’m getting stronger and faster, the only problem in my training is that every time I decided to do a speed session it starts raining, I miss the athletics track in Timaru, it is much easier to train on than wet grass. But the big benefit of training here in Wanaka is the ice at the Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground, soon I’ll be back up there practicing my push starts on the ice high in the mountains. I cant wait.