Summer Fly-In 2010:

The 2010 Summer Fly-in went well with the Air Cadets providing aircraft handling services, and many members of the Parakai Aviation Club, Northland Microlight Club, and Northern Recreational Flying Club members handled tasks for the estimated 700 or 800 visitors to the airfield.

The Air Force parachute team did a display drop, The Coast Guard Search and Rescue plane and the Westpak Rescue Helicopter arrived, there were many display flypasts and a display of aerobatics from the aero modellers.

The apron with the active operational aircraft. General visiting aircraft parking is off the screen to the right. [Photo J & S Guillemin, badger.pig@clear.net.nz]

The Communications Trailer (Popemobile), several Gyrocopters and a Yak. The Gyros, Yak, and several of the visiting aircraft put on impressive handling displays...

Aircraft from the Northland Recreational Flying Club (Whangarei), the Parakai Flying School, and Flight Hauraki were busy taking people up for trial flights.

Scene below from the Clubroom deck, food to the left and aircraft to the right...

From the hangars looking down the aircraft parking line alongside the taxiway...

The chow line, rubbish drums overflowing by end of day...

More of the aircraft parking line alongside the taxiway...

Looking down the newly sealed runway 07...

The Air Force skydive team dropped in for a display at lunchtime, and their drop ship did a low pass down the runway. Model aircraft, not a lot smaller than some of the planes we fly ourselves. They put on an impressive display of aerobatics, doing things that you'd not like to try in a plane with a pilot on board.

Watching the displays... [Brian Millett photo]

The large models are beautifully made. Once they were in the air more than one person was deceived by the scale and though they were looking at a full sized aircraft operating off the field...

Twenty of the aircraft that visited were new additions to the aircraft portraits web page, being ones that we'd not photographed before at Parakai...

People looking at the planes.

More of the parking line ...

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Summer Fly-In 2009:

The 2009 Fly-in was planned for the last Saturday of February as usual, but the weather had other ideas with a decaying Tropical Cyclone making landfall on Friday evening and raging most of Saturday with strong winds and driving rain. Not the weather for flying, and event was postponed until the next day. Fortunately...

Sunday 1st March dawned calm and reasonably clear, the fly-in went ahead as a lower-key event.

Around 20 planes flew in, many aviators drove in by road, and there were several hundred visitors. People went up for rides, there were skydiving demonstrations by Blue Sky skydiving, flypasts by the new Tecnam Retractible Sierra and the DynAero Club, and Oskar Stielau did an excellent handling display with his very small helicopter and gyro.

At the 2009 Parakai Fly-in

At the 2009 Parakai Fly-in.

At Parakai Aviation Club's lunchtime BBQ was a great success... not a sausage left uneaten. All in all, a good day despite weather of the day before.

Click here for an article in 'Rural Living' newspaper reporting on the day.

Click here for more pictures: Brian Millett's page (Recreational Aircraft News)

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Summer Fly-In 2007:

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Fly-In 2006:

Photos from 'Logan's Fly-in', held annually by the Northland Microlight Club. The 2006 fly-in between Feb 10-12, was a tremendous success with a huge number of Sport Aircraft enthusiasts attending (both by road and by air), and more than 80 aircraft flying in from as far as Fairlie in South Canterbury. Among the many highlights were an adrenaline-pumping flyby from a 3/4 size Mustang replica and a fantastic display of aerobatics from a radio-controlled helicopter (who says a helo can't fly upside down!)	Alpi 300, photo (c) Bob Dedekind
Cessna 172, photo (c) Bob Dedekind.	After the morning fog cleared from the Kaipara Harbour on Saturday morning, the circuit was busy with aircraft landing in a steady stream all morning, and later the Tecnams, Alpis, Cessna 172s, and Autogyro were busy taking local people up to see Parakai and Helensville from the air.
The prize for the longest flight went to an Alpi 300 from Rangiora (near Christchurch) which flew non-stop to Parakai in 4.5 hours. Many local people came to see the static displays of aircraft, and the flying displays including the 600 HP V12 Mustang flown by Simon Gault. During the lunch break the Warkworth club put on a great display of aerobatics in their Radio Controlled models.	Mustang, photo (c) Bob Dedekind.
Tiger Moth, photo Tim Lockie	Veterans from the Warkworth RSA were taken up in a Tiger Moth... the same type of aircraft that many of them had first learned to fly in before moving onto bombers, Spitfires and Hurricanes in WW2. An experience to bring back memories.
The Friday and Saturday night club dinners were well attended, and all available accomodation in Parakai and Helensville taken over the weekend, plus some aviators staying on for a few days before going home.	Single seat turbine Helicopter, photo (c) Bob Dedekind.
2 seat autogyro, photo (c) Bob Dedekind.	Parakai Airfield Ltd was proud to be one of the sponsors of Logan's Fly-in and congratulates Brian Millet and the rest of the hardworking team at the Northland Microlight Club on running an outstandingly safe and successful event. Our thanks to Grev. Walker, RDC Council Member, and the Helensville Information Office for their assistance in promoting the event and bringing some 250 visitors to the area for the weekend from all over NZ. Return to Homepage