Playing it safe

Decided to try for some more night flying last night. I made an effort to get out to the field early, so I could get up before the temperature dropped too much and the fog rolled in.

As it turned out, I probably could have done a city scenic, as what little fog there was, was fairly localised north of the field... better safe than sorry though, so I just bashed the circuit, trying to get close to the 10 hours of night flying required for the CPL. I need another 0.4 and I'm a little short of dual (0.1!), so I'll have to take Trevor up for some dual flying... perhaps some 'proper' night flying out over the training area one night.

It was still a great night to fly... an almost full moon, very few clouds and the visibility was at least 30 to 40kms. Even from the NZAR Circuit, Auckland City looks fantastic at night.

For this flight, as an exercise, Trevor suggested I try a few different things like landing deeper into the runway (ie. overflying the threshold at 50' and touching down in the 'landing zone')... the idea was really to just mix it up and make me think about what I was doing, rather than flying the same old approach.

Muffed the first one up... it was a good landing, but I landed pretty much on the threshold as normal, highlighting exactly what Trevor had been talking about. However, I managed to land the rest fairly well. I'm also getting better at finding and staying on the centreline in the dark with no landing lights and the flapless landings were not too bad.

I am still really impressed with LMA. It is an absolute pleasure to fly. Nice and stable, it does not bounce around and is not quite as 'twitchy' as the 152. Makes it easy to hold the speed, descent rate and direction that you're after... If only it was a little cheaper to fly :(


This flight: 1.2 PinC Night
Total Hours: 122.5 (78.1/34.8 Day, 3.9/5.7 Night, 5.1 IFR)