Let there be (f)light...

So yesterday was a right-off... but this morning dawning nice and bright... and SUNNY! Bit of a breeze blowing, but 20kts straight down the strip is no real problem...

Dan was away today, and one of the other instructors, Ian, offered to go up with me today, but I decided to go for another solo and see if I could get the stalling and FLWOP practice I was going to do last week but decided against given the bumpy ride.

I pre-flighted JFY, then headed out to the run-up area for 21. Got to follow, then watch the Kiwi Thunder Mustang doing run-ups.. it may only be a 'scaled' version of the original P-51d, but it actually outperforms the original in a lot of respects!

So I headed south to the TA, and tuned into the Mercer (NZME) frequency to see what was happening and to announce my intentions... unfortunately, aside from the normal parachute drop zone operations, the mustang had decided to do some aerobatics out to the east of the field, an AFS aircraft was operating in the area as were 2 or 3 others.

As I had enough to worry about without having to dodge 3 or 4 other aircraft, I put in a call and cut across the edge of the Mercer area and headed out towards the Firth of Thames and the paddocks out by Miranda. So I learnt another good lesson today, when everyone is taking the 'short' way to the training area by departing via Drury, it might be worth doing a half circuit and departing via the Hunua Valley, as I effectively had to fly past it to get where I was going anyway!

While watching the mustang doing all sorts of 'interesting' maneuvers (I definitely want to try out aerobatics!) out to the south of my position... I got setup and climbed up to 3000' to commence practice...

Put in some Steep Turns, left and right and then setup for some 'Basic' Stalls. Was good revision, but not as 'fun' as wingdrops! ;)

Finally, I decided to try some Forced Landing practice. Unfortunately, this did not go so well... At first I thought I was too high, so I was trying to bleed off altitude to get to my 1500' area, but then completely missed my 1000' mark. As the wind was a lot stronger than I had anticipated, I drifted too far downwind and ended up going around at the (minimum for students) 500' before I had even turned on finals.

So I climbed back up to 2500' and tried again. This time I was making allowances for the wind, but still ended up drifting a little far from the field. I had only just got to turning to finals and was already at 500' so had to go around. I will definitely need to spend some more time practicing forced landings! But as Ian mentioned when I got back, FLWOP's are probably one of the hardest exercises as the conditions play a big part and are usually different every time.

So I headed back up the Hunua Valley, did an overhead join and then 2 quick circuits before stopping for the day. I could have stayed in the circuit a little longer, but there were about 3 or 4 aircraft at the holding point and after the 2nd landing there were another 5 heading out down the taxiway... through in a few more joining overhead and a couple of AFS planes simulating EFATO's, I decided to call it quits.

I have to say that a 17kt (gusting 25-30kt) wind straight down the strip makes for great landings... I really concentrated on my speeds today and my first landing was a total greaser! I flew down finals at 65kts and came over the fence bang on 60kts... I touched down so softly, I did not actually realise I had landed!

All round, a great day... I'm grinning like an idiot again :D

This flight: 1.2 Hours Solo
Total Hours: 57.1 (49.1 Dual, 8.0 Solo, 2.5 IFR)