The perfect start...

Happy New Year!

I had a great break... went over to Whiritoa on the eastern side of the Coromandel Peninsula... and spent New Years at a friends beach house... lovely spot... lovely weather...

All capped off with a great weekends flying...

I went out on sunday morning not really expecting much, as the cloud base looked a little low, but the wind was fairly light. I went up in JFY with Trevor to go over some of my weaker points and rack up some more Simulated IFR time to get up to the minimum 5 hours.

Luckily the cloudbase played ball and we managed to find a nice ring of clear air to do some stalling practice... again, JFY refused to drop a wing, but Trevor commented he was happy with that..javascript:void(0)
Publish Post. He thought I was crazy when I told him I was a little disappointed ;)

I totally screwed up my precautionary landing... Instead of getting the plane configured properly (low flying config - 70kts & 20degress flap) first and then following the procedure, I tried to do both... it didnt work :( But I did learn a valuable lesson!

Some more IFR on the way back and then a picture perfect shortfield approach and landing!

While Trevor went up with another student, I got my KDR's (Knowledge Deficiency Reports) signed off by Chief Flight Instructor Rob... these are basically the bits I got wrong on my theory exams... and he just wanted to make sure I now understood and knew the things I had got wrong.

He then suggested we go back up and finish off the IFR so Trevor could sign off the exercises in my log book and then I would be ready for a mock flight test with Rob next week!

So after Trevor got back and debriefed his student, we went up for another flight... by this time the wind had picked up and was blowing pretty much straight across the runway... so I got to demonstrate proper crosswind take-off technique...

Once airborne (and bouncing around) we did some more IFR work... this time concentrating on Partial Panel and Unusual Attitude Recovery... good fun! and I actually found partial panel work easier than full panel, despite the turbulence... I think I was feeling a little tired and so only having 4 gauges to look at instead of 6 made for less work?!???

I also nailed the precautionary landing... this time I took the time to get the aircraft configured properly before attempting the procedure and it was so much easier than the previous one... like I said... a lesson learned! Also, the really strong wind assisted by making for low groundspeeds on the upwind legs...

Back to NZAR and by there was the nice 10 to 12 knot crosswind to contend with, so I was able to demonstrate proper crosswind landing technique... did quite well considering we have not had much in the way of decent crosswinds to practice with... at least I put the into-wind wheel down first this time!

A great way to start 2008... and if everything goes well I will have my flight test before the end of January!

Now I can start on the paper work... grrrr you have to fill out a 'Fit and Proper Person' questionnaire, send off for criminal and traffic offence history and get a referee to vouch for you... lots of hoops just to be able to hold an aviation license!

This flight: 1.1 Dual (0.5 IFR) + 1.2 Dual (0.6 IFR)
Total Hours: 80.9 (62.4 Dual, 18.5 Solo, 5.1 IFR)