Five minutes from coming thru the gate until leaving. That's all it took to load the shipping container onto the transport truck today. A brief exchange of pleasantries between the driver and I, an identification seal being placed on the door, a bit of slick remote-controlled hydraulic legs and lifters action, a three-point turn, then the Skyleader GP One light sport aircraft was gone.

On Thursday it will be on a ship from Bluff to Brisbane. After being unloaded and re-assembled by its new owner, the GP One will be re-certified by CASA. Finally it will be flown 520km (350nM) to its new home near Rockhampton.

Action a plenty at the weekend. Our Skyleader GP One light sport aircraft had its wings, tailplane and prop removed. Then it was cleaned and loaded into a 20 foot shipping container. It's a snug fit from nose-to-tail, but it does go in diagonally. The wings sit in their special foam cradles beneath the fuselage.

Now I will strap down the wings and round up the prop, tailplane, streamlined wheel fairings (spats) and other loose items. The container is due to go on a ship to Brisbane next week.

The new Kiwi owner has purchased a property at Cawarral (near Rockhampton, QLD) with a large hangar and 800 m airstrip.

I took the GP One to Manapouri for its final airworthiness inspection before it's exported to Australia. This was done by Jeff Ludemann at Fiordland Aero Maintenance. Jeff and Russell Baker, the owner, have been very helpful over the past 2 years. 

Flying into and out of Manapouri was lovely. It was a winter wonderland of snowy peaks, rocky knobs, green valleys and interesting cloud layers.

While i was there I took Rod Hall-Jones for a ride. Rod is one of the Fiordland Aero Club's instructors, having recently retired from 18,000 hours of helicopter flying. He just loved the GP One. It could be controlled right down to the stall and maintain altitude indefinitely when stalled with cruise power (admittedly with a ridiculously high nose-up angle). He cranked out some max rate turns and finished up with a smooth landing. Overall he thought it was a great plane. I was stoked with that kind of feedback. I wish that I'd had a Go-Pro running to capture the manoeuvres..

The only downside was the horrible weather when I arrived back at Invercargill. 20 knots cross-wind with squalls of heavy rain made for an interesting approach and landing.