Pilot ready to soar over Australia

They're making our shirts for us now, so I'll be framing mine when I get back.Chris Rawlings, aviatorClive man Chris Rawlings is saving a place on his wall to hang a shirt - a garment he hopes will have staked a place in the history of transtasman sporting rivalry.
Late last month, along with fellow Hawke's Bay and East Coast Aero Club team members, he flew at the National Wigram Trophy championships in Christchurch and at the end of the competition he was approached and asked if he would like to go to Australia.
"Yes, it was a bit of a surprise," he said with a smile.
Flying New Zealand representatives had watched Mr Rawlings in the air, met up with him later, and decided he fitted the bill to be part of a five-man Kiwi flying team being assembled to represent the country against Australia later this month.
"I said yes but I still can't quite take it in that I'll be representing my country," he said. "They're making our shirts for us now so I'll be framing mine when I get back."
He will be the first Hawke's Bay member of the NZ Wings team.
The Kiwi aero club pilots take on their Aussie rivals in a series of flying disciplines to be staged at the Royal Newcastle Aero Club in NSW on March 23.
Mr Rawlings will contest in a class of low-level precision circuit flying. Three of his Wings team-mates are from Tauranga and will take on the Australians in formation flying while the Christchurch member of the squad will also engage in a solo discipline.
Since joining the team he has been adding to his more than 280 hours of flying under the expert guidance of the Bridge Pa-based club's chief flying instructor Max Dixon.
"He is such a wealth of knowledge," Mr Rawlings said.
The recent Wigram Trophy event was only the second Mr Rawlings had competed in.
His first was in 1994, two years after gaining his private pilot's license and when the national championships were staged at Waipukurau.
He went to Canada the next year and stayed for 14 years. When he returned to New Zealand, he set about gaining his commercial licence, which he achieved on February 1.
Mr Rawlings wants to do his bit to help keep the Wings International Challenge Trophy out of Australian hands. The Kiwis currently hold it. But doing his bit for the silver fern doesn't come easy or cheap.
"It's an amateur sport so we have to fund most of it ourselves."
He reckons it will cost about $4000 to take part.
The aero club was doing what it could to assist, and he said he wanted to do well to pay tribute to his Wigram Trophy team-mates who helped the local club take third place overall.
He and the rest of the Hawke's Bay and East Coast Aero Club team of Mads Slivsgaard, Clem Powell, Sonny Soper, Frans Kraus , Graeme Campbell and Stephen Shepherd all won certificates or trophies at the Christchurch event.