Page 25 - MFW June 2025

Because Te Matatini was being held in New Plymouth at
the time we weren’t able to secure a booking at our
favourite local eatery so alternative arrangements were
made where a BYO casual dinner was hosted at Dave
Bull’s home (thanks heaps Dave). Justin Whalley took
care of the food and the lasagne & chips and chocolate
brownie for dessert went down a treat. The best part of
course was the socialising during what was a very
pleasant evening.

Sunday dawned a little overcast and dreary in New
Plymouth but Lake Ratapiko, with its own micro-climate,
presented us with conditions that were, to say the least,
perfect. At times the lake glassed over and at others there
was just enough ripple to get the most reluctant floaty to
unstick. Again a mixture of aircraft from electric foamies
and built-up ic models took to the sky. I personally can’t
remember the sky over the lake being so busy. Even on
the lake, Greg Burrows took his beautiful large scale
torpedo boat out for a number of patrols and Bruce
Plumtree hooned it up with his scratch built ic powered
launch “Bonito”. This boat is a stunner, built and
refurbished by Bruce and just like Bruce, is over 60 years
old. Keith Butler was kept busy with his retrieval dinghy,
but there were no major incidents and everyone
eventually went home with all their planes in one piece.
Another burger lunch satisfied the hunger pangs and
then it was back to the flight line for another round of flying
over water in what has to be one of the most picturesque
floatplane spots around. NPMAC are very lucky to have a
great relationship with the Taranaki branch of Jet Boating
NZ who manage the lake and allow us to use their
clubrooms on a regular basis. Two prizes were handed
out, one to Keith Butler for his model retrieval efforts and
to Annalise Hunt who was always on hand to assist in
making sure that no-one went hungry.

All-in-all a very successful and enjoyable event. Our
thanks to all of you who travelled (you know who you are)
either for both days or just the lake day, hopefully we will
see you all again next year.

Top to bottom:
Allan Rowson's Hansa Brandenberg.
Gordon Meades's FW 190.
and Ultra Hot.
Geoff Hall's Maule M7.
Left:
Mike Pillette's Grumman Albatross.
Below:
Justin Whalley's Catalina.

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