OKIWI to CLARIS (NZOX-GBZ) on Fly My Sky Britten Norman Islander (BN-2B) in couch class
One passenger disembarks and a young family loads their luggage in the back and hops onboard. A few minutes on the ground and we take off in opposite direction to that which we landed. I guess that is one advantage of cross winds! As we took off I thought our take-off roll is probably shorter than the length of a 747 or A380.
As the map linked above shows, this is a short hop. Not quite as short as the Westray to Papa Westray inter-island 2 minute flight in the hebrides, but not particularly long either. By straight line it is about 6 miles, but we fly around the hills instead of over them, adding a good 50% to the distance.
I forgot to check the time when we took off so I'm not sure exactly how long the flight took, but it was not long. For this flight we kept at 600 feet around the headlands before landing at Claris again from the sea.
This is a bigger airfield, but still very small. It has one sealed strip seemingly no wider than a car, and a grass cross-strip. We land on the grass beside the sealed strip and then use the grass cross-strip to taxi up to the "terminal" (aka shack). It is a busy time of day with 2 other aircraft parked up in the process of boarding.
Last edited by Kiwi Flyer; Oct 5, 2008 at 7:41 pm