Freefall...

Well not quite, but stalling practice today. So after the pre-flight, paperwork and briefing were completed, we climbed (or should I say 'origami-ed' myself) into JFY, one of the clubs C-152's. Checked the ATIS, made a radio check with UNICOM and headed towards the holding point for 03.

Not a whole lot of room here, and with a twin doing run-up checks there is even less! But we squeezed ourselves in, completed our checks and proceeded to wait for the aircraft on late finals before lining up for take-off on 03 seal. After take-off it was a climbing turn to head out via Waterworks, up the Hunia valley and out towards the Training Area near the Thames.

After climbing up to 3000', my instructor asked if I wanted a demostration first, and seeing as I hadn't done any stalling for years, thought it would be a good idea, so we ran through the HASELL checks:

• H - Height, enough to recover by 2500ft Above Ground Level (AGL)
• A - Airframe, declare airframe configuration (ie. no/full flaps, undercarriage retracted or down etc.)
• S - Security, hatches/harnesses secure, no loose objects floating about the cabin
• E - Engine, Temps & Pressures (T&P's) all in the green
• L - Location, not over a built-up area. The reason for this is not so that we're not going to crash into a house if it all goes wrong (as I originally thought), its because the dramatic changes in engine pitch from power to idle to power again can freak out people on the ground who make think the aircraft is in trouble!
• L - Lookup, first up a minimum of 180° to confirm no conflict with any other aircraft (then a minimum of 90° for subsequent HELL checks)
  

Then Carb-Heat On, Power to Idle and maintaining Height, Direction and Balance. Basically keep pulling back on the yoke to maintain altitude, and use rudder to maintain co-ordinated flight.

So, at 65Kts Carb-Heat cold (as we need full power for recovery), and notice the symptons of the stall eg. Low airspeed, high nose attitude, stall warning, buffet (as the turbulent air catches the elevator) and then the nose dropping at the onset.

Recovery is quite simple:

• Check the control column forward to unstall the wing
• Apply full power
• Balance with rudder
  

Now, I have done stalling before in a PA-28 Piper Cherokee, and it was a number of years ago, but I certainly don't remember that Angle of Attack (AoA) being so high. It felt like we were almost vertical before the onset of the stall!

We did a couple more, adding in some Power On/Flap Stalls (basically the same thing but with power at 1500 RPM and full flaps). Good fun! Although, as my instructor pointed out, the only time we should ever have a fully developed stall is when doing it on purpose. The idea being that you notice the symptons (stall warning, buffet etc.) and take corrective action before onset.

Then it was back to NZAR to try an overhead join. I've never actually done this before as most of my flying was at a controlled airfield (NZPM), so was quite interesting. We'll be covering this again next lesson.

And time for a couple of circuits. This week, got my landings. I have been visualing them at home and remembered the old 'Eyes to the end of the runway' advice one of my old instructors gave me. Much improved effort and made some sweet landings.

Next week, more circuit bashing, while I wait for my medical to get sorted before I start looking at going for my (second) first solo ;)

This flight: 1.1 Hours Dual
Total Hours: 38.0 (34.9 Dual, 3.1 Solo)

Houston... we have a problem

Went for my medical today... and the news was not good. Apparently my blood pressure is a little high, so the Doc wants to monitor it for the next 2 weeks before issuing my medical.

Crap.

Personally, I think its stress related as work has been a bit shitty lately. And probably a combination of me being about 10Kgs too heavy and having a somewhat poor diet.

Having said that, I have recently started exercising and eating right since I got back from a 4 week business trip in the middle of Feb, as living in hotels and taking taxi's everywhere for 4 weeks does not exactly do wonders for your diet and/or exercise regime!

In the meantime, I'm going to continue flying anyway, as I dont believe this little hiccup is going to prevent me getting a medical.

fingers crossed.

Houston, we have lift-off!

Gong Hai Fat Choi... and what a way to start the Chinese New Year! After a hiatus of around 3 1/2 years, I finally got back behind the controls of an aircraft today.

Drove out to NZAR around 0830, clear blue skies and hardly a breath of wind. Arrived at Airline Flying Club to find my instructor all good to go. So a pre-flight of JBL (a C-152 aerobat), a flight authorisation and a B-Cat signoff later, and we were in the cabin doing startup checks.

I have pretty much forgotten everything in terms of checklists and radio calls (it does not help that I am in a fairly unfamiliar aircraft, at a fairly unfamiliar airfield), so my instructor Trevor took care of all the finer details, leaving me to concentrate on "getting my groove back". Flying is not like riding a bike, its very easy to lose "The feel"(tm), as I found out later in my flight ;)

We taxiied out from the club apron towards the threshold for 21 seal. I'm not sure what the issue was, probably just out of practice, but I was having some trouble keeping the aircraft on the straight and narrow. We finally pulled up on the old, unused runway for some run-up checks, then lined up behind one of the AFS aircraft. Trevor put in the "Rolling on 21" call, I pushed the throttle all the way in and away we went.

I pretty much nailed the take-off roll and climb-out, right on the white line down the runway and a steady climb at 70kts, which considering my rather ordinary taxiing was quite surprising. Climbed to 500ft AGL and put in a nice climbing turn to get onto downwind at circuit altitude, before departing for the Training Area via WaterWorks.

After flying some lovely "S" turns up the Hunia Valley to avoid some incoming traffic we made it out to the training area, out by the Firth of Thames. Time for some medium turns, one to the left, one to the right. Then some steep turns, one to the left, one to the right. Nailed the second one, getting the tell-tale big bump at the end as I ran into my own wake turbulence.

Then we cruised up the southern side of the training area near Mercer, heading towards Pukekohe, with Trevor pointing out some handy landmarks like the Waikato river, the Mercer Airfield, the Comms Tower on top of one of the hills, Pukekohe etc.

Then a right hander to ensure we stayed outside of controlled airspace and headed up the right hand side of the southern motorway towards Drury to begin out approach back into the NZAR circuit.

Downwind was fine, base leg was fine, was hitting all my speeds. Finals I was a little slow, and a little high, but was under control... until I flared about 5ft to high and dumped it onto the runway. Remember what I said about flying not being like riding a bike? I shudder to think what the G-force meter was reading...

Anyway, as they say, any landing you walk away from is a good one, and it was my first landing in over 3 years so I'm not too worried. Some circuit practice next week will sort that out :)

All in all... a perfect start to the new year.

This flight: 1.0 hours Dual
Total Hours: 36.9 (33.8 Dual, 3.1 Solo)

The story so far

Ok, so it all started back in 1999, about when the government decided to fully fund certified aviation courses, I was in Palmerston North at Massey University finishing off a B.Tech (Computer Systems Engineering). Massey had a School of Aviation and I had originally wanted to do a B.Av, but due to the large price tag and my lack of funds I had to go with my second love (computers).

With the advent of fully funded aviation courses, the School of Aviation offered a 'Learn to Fly' 1/2 year course. 30 Hours and some credits for your degree. The fact that my final year only involved a couple of papers meant i had lots of spare time, so decided to put some of it to use.

Anyway, I did my 30 hours and seemingly typical of the ways things seem to work, the next semester they split the course into two half year papers take took you all the way up to PPL (50 hours).

So after I had passed the course, done my 30+ hours, and was looking at continuing up to my PPL, 2 thing happened. I got layed off from the job I had and I accidentally found another job... in Auckland. So I packed up my stuff and headed to Auckland and spent a couple of weeks living with my In-Laws while I got settled and found a flat for my wife and I to move into. Luckily, she was working for Work and Income at the time, and was able to get a transfer up to Auckland without too much bother.

Unfortunately, Auckland is a lot more expensive than Palmerston North. That combined with the fact that we were having to pay rent meant no spare money for flying :(

After about 3 months of working at the ISP helpdesk on a casual basis (actually worked out really well, cause I could take 3pm to midnight shifts and spend my days job hunting), I finally managed to secure a 'real' job. As a software developer with Peace Software. That was an awesome place to work... young workforce, good moral, excellent people.

So fast forward to 2003, and I finally had got myself to the point where I could continue flying, so I did a ground course at AFS and got all the theory out of the way and had taken 2 flights when I got the chance to go to Australia as part of an 'On-Site' team at work. Was a really good opportunity so off I went thinking its just for 3 months.

2 years later (!), after buying an apartment off plans, getting sick of the 4 month delays in completion and cancelling the contract, buying another apartment and getting sick of a company that was going downhill rapidly, I finally managed to get off my ass and find a job back in NZ. At which point we decided to buy a house out in the burbs, as the central city apartment my wife had been living in while I was in Oz wasnt really big enough for both of us.

House + Apartment = LARGE mortgage and no spare money... so the apartment went after a year and I got myself into a position to start flying again. At which point, work offered me the chance to work on a fairly sizeable project for one of our key clients. Good career choice, but unfortunate timing, as it meant an overseas trip for a few months, most probably over Xmas. Notice the pattern here?

Luckily, the trip was cut from 3 months down to 4 weeks, and so here I am, back in New Zealand after a trip to Copenhagen, New York and Los Angeles, booking flying lessons and determined to get that PPL that has been so elusive over the last 6 years.

Fingers crossed for some nice weather for the next couple of months!

Total Hours: 35.9 (32.8 Dual, 3.1 Solo)