Rather than me post a selection of videos here, why not go direct to My Channel on Youtube and see all of them ?  Mainly flying....but hey, got to be better than most...

http://www.youtube.com/user/VHZMH

Rather than me post the odd video or three here, why not go to my Youtube Channel direct and check out the latest offering ?

http://www.youtube.com/user/VHZMH

January 2013

I mentioned earlier about some video. Here's a short one on Terry's P-51 the day before the engine failure.

Another season has come, so must be time for an update. Summer is here and along with it the summer rains, which are most welcome though we didn't expect a repeat of the 2011 floods. Since my last update, we had the tragic loss of good friend Terry in his amazing P-51 replica. This has clouded my recollections of the past 3 months, so I will just add a series of pics and a bit of video. Oh, yeah, I did get a trip to China to visit the new SportCruiser factory and meet the people behind it. Looking forward to assembling and test flying the new version, hopefully Feb 2013, but more likely March. Chris and I also have been having some old school experiences in our 1928 Model A roadster. Ideal to go to the rockabilly dancing and hot rod events.

Winter is nearly over, and it has been unseasonaly wet during our 'dry' season. Fortunately our annual Airpark Breakfast Fly-in had fine weather, as did the annual Air & Land Spectacular at Emu Gully. Our hangar was packed with aircraft, with a brand new but shipping-damaged SportCruiser receiving new wing leading edge skins and tailplane as well as nose gear, and another two being assembled, registered and test flown. Sadly, Mister Pickle, Chris' much loved miniature Poodle had to be 'put-down' due to failing health, after nearly 18 years of great companionship. He now has a spot under some trees on the property. Speaking of which, another 100 native trees have gone in, and along with the other 200, they are starting to make a visual difference.

We had two new SportCruisers arrive just before Xmas from the Czech factory. After assembly the documentation and inspections had to be carried out before the new owner from Melbourne could pick his new aircraft up. He flew it out of Essendon until his home airstrip was ready. Unfortunately the result was not pretty. At least he walked away unharmed...

Summer is over and it is getting dark in the mornings when we wake up (0530. I may have mentioned that we had 3 duck families on the dam recently, a record. One family has grown up and the other moved on or been eaten by foxes or the big wedge-tail that was hanging around for a while, while the big family of eleven is still there. Today I was whippersnipping around the dam and startled a mum and 13 (!) little chicks. That is definitely the biggest flock to date, as 8 is about average. They should be in residence until the young ones 'leave the nest' and will add to the list that includes 4 yellow-headed parrots, the 3 amigos (the maggies that eat the dog food) the 10 native minors and the two black-faced cuckoo shrikes, plus Tim the Eastern long-neck turtle and a number of hares (no rabbits round here) that are all living on site. Of course, there are plenty of ducks and small geese, small 'roos, spoon-billed ibis etc that drop in as they pass through. Oh, and the horses....Finally got around to wiring up the electric fence. Works great !
Ask me how I know......
I now have a small helmet-cam, which I have tried out on the 'plane. Check out the vid..

Link

It is just two days till Christmas as I write this, and we cannot believe how fast the time is going. The wet season is upon us and we have had plenty of rain and sunshine, but very few storms so far. We have our solar farm up and running, built a machinery shed and stables, run the power and water from the gate up to the house/ hangar site - all 350 metres of it - and plumbed in a pump and rainwater tank. The horses are loving it. The stables , not the power.... The dam is full and we released a small Eastern Long Neck turtle into it yesterday after I found it wandering across the road. I have rebuilt an old ute and that is doing great service around the property, the Spacewalker is flying great after I revised the undercarriage geometry which required repositioning the axles, and all the trees are growing like crazy. Long time mate, Mike Loughnan, called in for few days aftr picking up his re-engined, supercharged Honda NSX, and I have picked up a part-time gig writing for Gizmag. Chris is still full time at the Uni running the Vet Dept reception area, but always finds time to see the horses every morning and night.

Winter is over for another year, and Spring arrives early in these parts, at least compared to Melbourne. For example, we are only 2 weeks into the season and we had 28 degrees C yesterday, with clear skies, light breezes and 27 deg C predicted for another week...
Beautiful flying and riding weather. Our solar farm has been installed and commissioned, and we check the output each day while feeding the horses. I guess that officially makes us farmers...of sorts. At least I now have an old ute to go with the old hat. Picked up a rough diamond from a fellow airparker - a Toyota Hi-Lux 2.8 Diesel with 400k km. After a bit of panel beating, new water pump, timing belt, clutch and power steering hose, it is ready for another 400k km....or 12 mths, whichever comes first.

A cold day today, so I thought I would add some recent pics of the new property. We are a long way off building there, but the horses have taken up residence at least.
The pics are self explanatory. Along with attending to erosion issues with tree planting and grass growing, I have put the tractor to good use and have been massaging the terrain. At least, that's my story....

Since the catastophic floods in our part of the world, things have slowly got back to normality. We were lucky, no damage and only got stranded for a couple of days, although Chris had to stay for 2 nights at her Uni job.
We had the annual Emu Gully Air & Land Spectacular in May, where the Red Baron once again got shot down for his efforts, as well as our Airpark Breakfast Fly-in.
Chris has bought Charley and ET over to our new property, and they have settled in very well.