Well, that obviously didn’t happen. The pandemic blew up everyone’s plans, and given the obvious jeopardy to my livelihood, the loss of our adventure barely registered. And then, as the world began to open back up, New Zealand stayed locked down longer than most. It wasn’t until Oshkosh 2022, when Dawn and I ran into Matt and Jo McCaughan at the FlyInn booth, that we dusted off our travel plans.

The McCaughans are friendly Kiwi sheep and cattle ranchers hailing from central Otago on the South Island, where they also run FlyInn, billed as “the authentic NZ self fly vacation.” They are also avid cruising sailors, which quickly became our main topic of conversation. Almost as an afterthought, we told them that while we’d be busy building our hangar/apartment for the 2022-23 season, we’d come fly with them in December 2023. Our revived New Zealand adventure would be our 20th wedding anniversary gift to each other.

We flew my airline from Seattle to Auckland on November 15, staying in New Zealand’s largest city for several days. On the 19th, our good friends Brad and Amber Phillips flew in, whereupon we rented a pair of campervans and headed south. The next two weeks would have been a pretty great vacation on their own. We spent six more days on the North Island, visiting the usual “must-dos” like Rotorua, Tongariro National Park, and Wellington as well as many more out-of-the-way locales.

Crossing the Cook Strait on a typically raucous ferry ride following a 40-knot blow, we spent another eight days road tripping through the South Island. We sampled excellent wine in Marlborough, tramped the fantastic coastal trail in Abel Tasman National Park, got rained on all down the wild West Coast, and set up camp in truly epic surroundings at Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. All throughout, both the landscapes and climate frequently reminded us of the Pacific Northwest, Idaho, and Montana.

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The roads were scenic and engaging, the locals exceptionally friendly and helpful, the cities few and far in between. This is a country slightly larger than the U.K. but with only 5 million people…and 75 million sheep.

In Christchurch we returned the campers and said goodbye to the Phillips, as their busy life back home precluded them from joining the flying tour—more’s the pity. Dawn and I took an Air New Zealand ATR-72 from Christchurch to Queenstown, New Zealand’s renown adventure tourism hot spot, which is where the FlyInn tour began the next day.

Soon after we landed, Jo McCaughan emailed to say that they were rejiggering the itinerary to go to Milford Sound and Fiordland on day one, thanks to a brief weather window. This made sense. All throughout our travels, the weather had been exceptionally variable, with low ceilings and pouring rain as well as bright sunshine being encountered more days than not. It was clear that flying in New Zealand requires a fair amount of flexibility. Still, from what little I knew of Milford Sound, I got the impression that I was being thrown right into the deep end, sink or swim.

At the airport the next morning, we were joined by Matt McCaughan, longtime FlyInn instructor Nick Taylor, and North Carolinian couple Adam and Lissa Broome, our counterparts for the next eight days. McCaughan and Taylor introduced us to our rides for the week, two 180 hp Cessna 172s, registrations ZK-TRS and ZK-WAX.

For safety purposes FlyInn tends to keep the airplanes together, so we got to know the Broomes over the course of the tour. Notably, Adam circumnavigated the globe with his Beech Bonanza in 2016, making for some very interesting stories.

Dawn and I drew the eye-catching, yellow-and-blue ZK-WAX for the week and started with Matt as instructor. We began with a short hop up to Wanaka, FlyInn’s base of operations, for a coffee and chat. Sufficiently briefed, we departed to the northwest over the serrated, deep-blue ribbon of Lake Wanaka and climbed to circle striking, glacier-draped Mount Aspiring, “The Matterhorn of the South.”

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Beyond its peak, the weather turned significantly cloudier than forecast—no big surprise there. We flew over the top for a bit, found a good hole, dropped into a wide, verdant valley, and followed the glacial, gravel-strewn Pyke River to the appropriately named Big Bay. After making a good inspection pass and landing on the broad, dark-sand beach, we went for a tramp a short way inland, where there’s a hiker’s hut and seasonal fish camp. This is a good week’s hardy walk from the nearest road, and all resupply is done via beach landing.

We soon departed over the crashing surf and turned out to sea, making our way south around a series of cloud-choked headlands. Matt duly noted St. Anne’s Point straight ahead, and then Dale Point to our left, our cue to turn into the rain-soaked entrance to world-famous Milford Sound. It looked VFR—only just. Matt noted there would likely be sunshine (albeit with a lot of wind) at the head of the fjord. I proceeded in, keeping my right wing hard against the northern wall of the gorge at Matt’s urging—the better to turn around if his promised good weather didn’t materialize. But it did, along with rainbows and a couple dozen waterfalls and steaming tourist cruise boats. It was a truly magnificent sight.

And then came the wind, streaking the head of the fjord with long ribbons of spume and giving our little 172 a good bashing. Unperturbed, Matt kept up his litany of mandatory radio position reports. I was glad he was there since it was challenging enough just flying. I turned up the Cleddau River valley and began my letdown, reversing course at a wide fork in the river to make a modified dogleg final to Runway 29 at Milford Sound Airport (NZMF).

The sea breeze was gusting at 30 knots. My landing was not pretty. It was safe and acceptable, that’s all. A short taxi later, we shut down in the shadow of a dozen tour operators’ Grand Caravans, Airvans, and Kodiaks. With the steep rock walls and silvery cascades of Milford Sound as a majestic background, it would’ve made the world’s best “Learn to Fly!” poster.

As we ate lunch, I reflected on a few things. First, Kiwi pilots appear to be pretty comfortable in marginal VFR (IFR not being very common here). Strong local knowledge of weather and terrain helps mitigate the risk, as does observing a few rules of thumb that closely mirror those that my old-school first CFI taught me as “the right way to scud-run.”

Second, there’s a lot of trust in the engine—though, admittedly, a lot of the valley floors are probably survivable in case of forced landing, with fairly stunted bush and plentiful gravel bars on the rivers.

Thirdly, the high density of world-class scenery coupled with a highly developed tourist industry make much of the New Zealand backcountry far more air-trafficked than comparable sites in the U.S., with accordingly more rigid procedures despite a relative lack of ATC facilities.

This would be a tough place for the uninitiated to go it alone—thus the appeal of an operation like FlyInn.

Departing into the maelstrom once more, we climbed over Milford Sound and ducked into the relative calm of the Arthur River valley. This impossibly scenic, waterfall-laced, glacier-carved hanging valley, traversed by the famed Milford Track, perfectly frames the 2,000-foot cascade at its head, Sutherland Falls, once thought to be the world’s tallest. It pours from what appeared to be a neat rock-walled thimble of a tarn, Lake Quill.

“Want to fly around it?” asked Matt with a wry grin. He knew I’d think this was a crazy idea, and at first glance I did. “There’s more room than it looks,” Matt said. “Just put out 20 degrees of flaps and slow to 65 knots.”

So I did, and it was absolutely spectacular, one of the neatest things I’ve done in an airplane. Once we completed our circuit, we dove out of the thimble and ZK-TRS buzzed in, and as I watched them my perspective suddenly shifted, revealing the epic scale of the landscape we were exploring. The effect was magical.

I’ve described the memorable first two hours of a weeklong tour in New Zealand, and I think everything we saw could fill a year’s worth of columns. I’ll content myself with two, cramming the balance into next month’s contribution. In the meantime, by the time you read this, my special V1 Rotate video episode, “New Zealand By Air,” should be live on FLYING’s website.

We recorded some 500 gigabytes of footage, much of it spectacular, and editing it down to 15 minutes proved to be a real challenge. There are worse problems to have.

This column first appeared in the March 2024/Issue 946 of FLYING’s print edition.

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The company calls the CX300 an “eCTOL,” or electric conventional takeoff and landing aircraft. It resembles an ALIA-250 without rotors for vertical flight. Beta said that for years it has been testing two versions of its prototype aircraft, one for hovering flight and the other for wing borne cruise flight. This arrangement allowed the company to gather a broad range of performance data quickly.

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The airframe, batteries, propulsion, and other systems used in the CX300 will be the same as those of the ALIA-250, which is already moving through the FAA certification process, the company said.

Beta said its eCTOL test aircraft has reached a number of milestones during development flights, including covering a total distance of more than 22,000 miles and completing evaluation flights with test pilots from the FAA, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Army. The aircraft also made a flight of more than 386 miles from Jamestown, New York, to the company’s test facility in Plattsburgh, New York.

Beta said it designed the eCTOL and eVTOL test aircraft “to fulfill essential missions for its customers, optimizing payload and range to enable short-haul and regional operations with zero operational emissions and much lower operational costs.” Expected customers include cargo, medical, defense, and passenger operators. The company said new and existing customers have placed orders for the eCTOL aircraft.

• READ MORE: Bristow Group Places Firm Order for Beta Technologies eVTOLs

“We have been flying our eCTOL prototype airport-to-airport for a few years now to drive technological advancements in propulsion and systems, and now we’re seeing that there is a clear market for this product in addition to our eVTOL aircraft,” said Beta’s founder and CEO, Kyle Clark.

Beta said it applied for type certification of the CX300 with the FAA last year and is planning to complete certification and begin delivering aircraft in 2025.

“We continue to progress our ALIA eVTOL design through certification, in harmony with the eCTOL program. The two aircraft are common in their design, allowing us to economize validation of our high performance solutions,” Clark said.

The company said Air New Zealand, biotech company United Therapeutics, and Bristow, a provider of vertical flight services, are among its customers for the CX300. Beta said it is nearing completion of its final assembly facility in Vermont and expects to begin manufacturing of aircraft this summer.

The post Beta Technologies Reveals Electric Aircraft In Development appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

All About Alice

Arlington, Washington-based Eviation rolled out the Alice proof-of-concept design earlier this year. Alice is a clean-sheet design powered by two magni650 electric propulsion units developed by magniX, a global industry manufacturer of flight-proven electric propulsion systems. 

Alice is designed to be a commuter-class aircraft, and to operate at a lower cost than light jets or high-end turboprops currently in use.

In September, FLYING was there when the Alice proof-of-concept aircraft made its first flight in Moses Lake, Washington. When the aircraft lifted off into the morning skies there were cheers, as the Eviation team has spent several years developing the sleek commuter-class aircraft.

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According to Gregory Davis, President and CEO of Eviation, a good portion of Air New Zealand’s routes fit well within the aircraft’s range and performance.

“Regional flights make up a sizable proportion of Air New Zealand’s routes,” he said. “The Alice offers an effective way to decarbonize these journeys, revolutionizing air travel and supporting the goals of the Mission NextGen Aircraft program.”

Gregory went on to note, “New Zealand has earned a proud reputation for its progressive attitude and wide-ranging policies towards the climate challenge. The Alice is a beautiful aircraft that will delight airline operators and passengers. Seeing it soar through the skies of New Zealand is a magical prospect, and I pay tribute to Air New Zealand’s commitment to innovation and sustainability.”

Zero-Emission Aircraft

In November Air New Zealand announced its Mission NextGen Aircraft program with the goal of accelerating the adoption of zero-emission aircraft, with the first zero emission flight taking place in 2026.

According to a statement from Air New Zealand, the company is looking at a combination of electric, green hydrogen, and hybrid aircraft. These partnerships involve Air New Zealand signing a “statement of intent to order,” a document which demonstrates its ambition to acquire three aircraft initially, with further options for 20, from one or more of the partners subject to an evaluation process.

Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran said the airline selected these partners based on their aircraft development and their shared goal of starting now to take ambitious action on climate change.

“Mission NextGen Aircraft is not about backing one innovator. It’s about working with a range of leaders in zero emissions aircraft technology to help move the whole ecosystem along,” Foran said. “Our goal is to confirm our commitment with one or more of these partners in the next 12 months with the ambition of purchasing an aircraft for delivery from 2026.

“The learnings we will take from flying an aircraft with next generation propulsion technology from 2026 will then pave the way for our long-term partners to deliver an aircraft that can replace our Q300 turbo prop domestic fleet,” he said.

Foran continues, “Eviation’s all-electric Alice aircraft is a natural fit for the program with its proven technology that is optimized for short-range flights.”

About Air New Zealand

Air New Zealand was established in 1940 with a flight between Auckland and Sydney on a flying boat. Today, the airline operates some 98 aircraft ranging from Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, Airbus A320s, ATRs, and Bombardier Q300 turboprops.

Alice will be added to the fleet that serves domestic routes.

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