Long (wet) weekend indoors

Over Labour Weekend, Trevor was doing some more IFR work down in Hamilton in preparation for his Instrument Rating Flight Test, so I decided to tag along to learn as much as I can while I'm not paying for it ;)

On the Saturday, as you can see from the outdoor pics below, the weather was a bit crap (30knot winds, embedded CB's etc.) so we ended up in the sim instead of flying.

While waiting for Trevor to take care of the paper work and rebooking his flights, I decided I may as well give jade's camera a bit of a work out. I think my photography skills are really coming along :P

Waikato Aero Club Alpha 160's and WAM (C-172)

Sunair Aztec (PA-23 250) ERM looking lonely

A very tidy (inside and out) Cessna 170, OCC

What we were supposed to fly... Piper Archer II (PA-28 181), FWS

What we ended up flying... AT-21 Simulator pretending to be FWS

As is usually the case, I tried to keep up with what was going on and paid attention when John was explaining concepts on the whiteboard. I think I now have just enough IFR knowledge to be dangerous ;) Seriously though, watching the sim sessions has been a bit of an eye opener. IFR flying = Busy and stressful. I'm sure the 30knot winds don't help...

Looks cosy...

All the knobs, switches and levers you would ever want

The sim is able to be configured to simulate a wide range of light aircraft and you can actually unscrew the throttle quadrant and replace it with one that has condition levers to give a bit more realism when simulating turbo props.

It's not FSX, but it does the job

The graphics aren't flash... but considering you spend most of your time flying around in cloud they don't need to be :) The sim even has a builtin intercom system, so if you wanted to be ultra-geeky, you can hook up your headset and talk to the "controllers" (ie. the person sitting at the instructors console) over the radio.

More of the same (weather and sim) on the Sunday, followed by an attempted flight in FWS on Monday as the rain and CB's had moved away. The weather looked nice enough, I flew us down to NZHN in LMA, but unfortunately by the time we got airbourne in FWS, the 30-40 knot high-level winds from the South-West had re-appeared, and they set up lots of mountain wave. Here you can see the effects as we were departing Hamilton below. There were about 6 of these little 'cap' cloud formations in a nice line.


And some real monsters around Tauranga... about the only people enjoying it were the Gliders who were all up around 12,000'!!!


The sink and lift was so outrageous that at one point we had full power and the aircraft at 10 degrees nose-up and we were still sinking at 200' per minute! Christchurch control ended up giving us a 'block' altitude (from 5000' to 6000') as it was impossible to hold a nice steady level. After one attempt at the hold Trevor and John called it quits and headed for Rotorua, hoping it would be a bit nicer there. It was not as bad, although that is kind of like saying that being shot by a 9mm pistol is not as bad as being shot by a .45 pistol!

Then back home to Hamilton and a nice VOR/DME Arc approach and 20 knot cross-wind landing.

So much 'fun' to look forward too! *gulp*

The crosswind was still up around 20knots when we departed back to Ardmore in LMA, so the tower gaves us the crosswind Grass 25R for departure... a nice headwind = a take-off roll of about 300 metres! ;)


This flight: 1.6 PinC
Total Hours: 156.0 (78.9/57.8 Day, 8.6/10.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Look at the pretty lights!

Got off the train after work yesterday and noted that the sky was extremely blue and contained zero cloud. So I called Chris to see if he wanted to head up to Whangarei. As I suspected he would be, he was keen like a keen thing, so I soon found myself at Ardmore pre-flighting LMA.

I put "as much fuel as humanly possible" in it (approx. 186 litres) giving us around 5 1/2 hours of endurance!

We took off and headed out North via Brookby. Approaching Whitford Town, we called up Auckland Tower to request clearance to 5500' for the cruise up to Whangarei. They informed us to contact Auckland Approach, so we did and were duly cleared to our requested altitude.

On the way north, Chris pointed out various landmarks (Orewa, Snell's Beach, Marsden Point etc.) all shining in the dark.

We had been switched over to Christchurch Control during the cruise and they called us up, as we were approaching the edge of controlled airspace, wanting to know what our intentions were at Whangarei and did we still require radar following. So we told them that we did still require it (and also for the return journey to Ardmore) and that we were going to spend around 40 minutes doing circuits once we got to Whangarei before heading back.

They responded that they would lose radar and radio coverage when we descended into Whangarei due to terrain (should I be concerned now??) and that they would establish a SARTIME which would give us just over an hour to get in, do our circuits and climb back out into radar/radio coverage.

So we descended into Whangarei, looking for the runway and the runway 'lead in' lights (PDF showing light setup). Whangarei has curved approaches due to the big hills surrounding it, so they have setup some nice flashing amber lights out in the harbour to indicate a nice safe approach path and some nice red ones along the shore to indicate where NOT to be! ;)

I was expecting really bright flashing lights (something like a lighthouse)... that you could see from miles away... boy was I disappointed!! They were incredibly difficult to see and I am not entirely sure that they were all working as I could not even see all of them... Still, the strobes at each end of the runway made that easy to find, so we flew in, made a left hand turn and set ourselves up for some circuits on 24 (including a really good flapless approach and landing) and then re-positioned for some the other way on 06 (including a couple of real 'greasers' ;).

Then we climbed back out and set course for home. Climbing through about 3000' we re-stablished contact with control and requested 6500' for the flight south. They cleared us up and we sat back and enjoyed the stunning view. Note: I REALLY need to get a video camera! :(

Coming back down, Christchurch Control handed us over to Auckland again and coming up to the Whangaparoa Peninsula we asked for clearance to track direct to Ardmore at 6500', descending overhead Drury if traffic allowed. They kindly let us through and once overhead Drury, we got clearance to descend out of controlled airspace and terminated radar following. Then, I pulled the power back to idle and we spiraled down to 1600' and setup for wide right base for 03.

One nice soft landing and a short taxi later and we were back at the club... 2.6 hours of wallet-lightening bliss! ;)


This flight: 2.6 Dual Night
Total Hours: 154.4 (78.9/56.2 Day, 8.6/10.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

The (not so) Far North

Riddle me this batman... How does one get from Auckland to Kaitaia and back again (with side trips to Kerikeri and Kaikohe) in 4.0 hours?

Answer: in a Cessna 152 of course!

Could not believe my luck yesterday when, after getting up anticipating a full day of mall crawling with her, jade says to me around 1100 "It is such a nice day, you should go flying this afternoon".

Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, we grabbed some lunch and after dropping jade off at home, I headed out to Ardmore.

I found Nick waiting for me, but having spent the morning dealing with a 'difficult' group getting wedding photos taken with his helicopter he decided that he wouldn't come flying but would play the part of 'annoying' C-Cat instructor and made me plan and pre-flight for a cross-country to Kerikeri, Kaitaia and Kaikohe.

Under CPL cross-country rules, you are supposed to be able to do this in one hour. Due to being a little unprepared for this adventure, I didn't quite make it in the one hour, but was not too far off. I am going to take Nick's suggestion and make up some 'cheat sheets' so I am not running about photocopying flightplan sheets and P-charts and having to hunt throught aircraft flight manuals looking for weight and balance data.

Having finally got everything organised and my flightplan filed, I taxied out in JBL.

A nice long cruise up to Kerikeri, where I had to hold for a few minutes due to parachute activity, a quick touch and go there and then off to Kaitaia. I have to say that some of the scenery up that way is just breathtaking, lots of unspoilt wilderness.

After having a stretch and topping the tanks up at Kaitaia, following a pretty ordinary crosswind landing :(, I had a quick hop to Kaikohe and got out to have a quick look around and drop some money in the honesty box for landing fees.

It was such a picturesque place I thought I'd snap a couple of shots just to test out jades new camera (Canon 450D)

The Hokianga Harbour


Most random shot of the day


A Fletcher looking a little unused... I believe this is ZK-DEQ


Then off for home. I was getting a little anxious climbing out of Kaikohe as my SARTIME was fast approaching and I could not contact Christchurch Info to amend it. Thankfully, once I got some altitude and cleared the surrounding hills I managed to raise them on the radio about 5minutes before my SARTIME expired :)

Heading home I managed to get some nice smooth air, so I decided to try some 'random' photography. This basically consisted of flying with one hand, while holding the camera in the other, pointing it in the general direction of something 'interesting' and pushing the shutter button :)

The results were mixed (lots of blurry shots of nothing etc.) but some of the shots of the Kaipara Harbour and the Auckland CBD came out OK.

Sunset on the Kaipara Harbour



Auckland CBD by Twilight



4.0 hours of flying later I made it back, cutting it a little close to the ECT curfew :)

Conclusion: Flying solo, into airfields you've never been to before is an interesting mix of fear and excitement! Fear that you might not find it ;)


This flight: 4.0 PinC
Total Hours: 151.8 (78.9/56.2 Day, 6.0/10.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Who called a taxi?

Played at being a "Taxi Driver" today... I flew down to Hamilton with Trevor, to play in the sim... well actually Trevor played in the Sim and I sat there and tried (unsuccessfully) to keep up!

Was an interesting flight down, flying into a 20-25 knot headwind and dodging showers, one lot so heavy that I actually had to make a bit of a detour around it. Then when we were approaching Hamilton, the tower decided to put all the light aircraft onto the crosswind grass runways as the crosswinds were gusting up to 20knots. Luckily for us, they did this before we were anywhere near the traffic pattern, unlike several aircraft who were in the circuit and had to reposition for the new runway.

Was a nice change as I had never landed on the crosswind runways at Hamilton before and it gave you a slightly different perspective of the place.

Going out after the sim session, they gave us the grass again as the wind had not really died down. I was a little nervous, as my last experience taking off on the grass crosswind runway at Hamilton had involved a large flock of birds and a fence that got very close, very quickly! Thankfully this time, I was in LMA, and with the fine-pitch prop it really hauls arse... Rumbling along to 50kts and then popping on 2 stages of flap and it just leaps into the air ;) We were off in less than half the runway length (300 metres or so)!

Heading home with the tailwind made for a quick trip and we were back on the ground at Ardmore in about 35-40 minutes!


This flight: 1.7 PinC
Total Hours: 147.8 (78.9/52.2 Day, 6.0/10.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

101 Not Out

Without realising it, I have broken through the 100 post mark... I actually did not think I would do this for more than about 3 or 4 weeks before getting bored with it all!

Anyway, to celebrate this awesome accomplishment, I decided to go flying (what a surprise eh? ;)... Actually, I decided to go flying because it was a really nice night. I had been planning on going to Hamilton with Trevor along for the ride, but Chris suggested we try out Whangarei.

Unfortunately, by the time I managed to get out to the field, Trevor's flu had caught up with him and he decided he didnt feel like sitting in a 152 with a cracking headache. Chris, unfortunatelym had to work early in the morning and Rob, while very keen, needed to be up early as well for one of the other club members C-Cat flight test!

Not wanting to waste such a lovely evening, I decided I would solo down to Hamilton and back. I am hoping to go somewhere else soon, as I am getting a bit bored with Hamilton and I think the Crash-Fire guys are getting sick of me wanting the lights turned on!

As an added bonus, Trevor loaned me his GPS... a Garmin GPSMAP 296.


I definitely have one of these on my 'Aviation Wishlist'... but at around $2000 it could be a while :(

Anyway, after filling up at the pumps and then completing my run-up checks, I switched the unit on and waited for it to find some satellites and then stowed it safely on the seat next to me so I would resist the urge to look at it every 5 seconds instead of flying the aircraft!

Being the geek that I am, the first thing I did when I got back was try to figure out how to get the 'Track' information off the GPS. The Garmin website had the USB drivers but the utility (Flightbook) only extracts flight log data (distance, time etc.)... Google, as always, is your friend and I found a neat (and free) little utility called EasyGPS. It download the track points and saved them out to a '.gpx' (GPS Exchange) file. Google Earth will import these directly and voila... a pretty map of my flight :) (you can click the images for a bigger pic)



It was a pretty uneventful flight down, I just cruised along under the various control zones at 2500', approaching Hamilton I contacted Crash-Fire and confirmed they had the runway lights on for me (I had called up prior to departing Ardmore to give them a heads-up on my planned ETA).

I opted for runway 36 for a change and after joining left-hand downwind I did a couple of circuits and then I headed back to Ardmore. On the last circuit I called 'Touch and Go, departing back to Ardmore via the City'. I was going to call up Crash-Fire and thank them for their services and advise they could switch the lights off if they wanted, but I noticed when I looked behind me to check my centre-line tracking during the climb-out that they had already switched them off!

I think my circuits were pretty good and the GPS track tends to agree...



Going back to Ardmore, I had been planning on climbing up into controlled airspace, but unfortunately a patch of low cloud had developed north of Hamilton at around 2500'. By the time I cleared the edge of the cloud patch I was already at Huntly, so it just wasn't worth the effort to get clearance when I was already halfway home!

As you can see, my approach into Ardmore was a little, errr 'crooked'. I had been admiring the view and left my turn on final a little late. Whoops! Still, it was a nice smooth landing and as I taxied back to the club, I called up Christchurch Information and terminated my flightplan.





This flight: 1.6 PinC Night
Total Hours: 146.1 (78.9/50.5 Day, 6.0/10.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Money conversion

Given the title and the current state of the global economy, you might be forgiven for thinking that I am trying to take advantage of the good NZ-AU exchange at the moment... But I actually mean the conversion of money into noise + fun :)

4 Hours in total this weekend... beginning with some simulated IFR practice on Saturday afternoon. The last lot I did was back in January leading up to my PPL Flight Test, so I figured a quick refresher was in order.

It was a relatively breezy day (15-20kts), and it took me about 15 to 20 minutes after putting the hood on to get back into the groove and about another 10 until I was no longer 'chasing' the aircraft and had some decent heading and height holding. Nick was acting as 'safety pilot', and managed to play nasty tricks involving up and down drafts that you get in and around the various islands in the Hauraki Gulf when the wind is blowing... it certainly makes you think when you're holding 5 to 10 degrees of down pitch, and the aircraft is climbing at 500' per minute!

Sunday, I had been planning on flying down to Hamilton to play in the sim with Trevor. Unfortunately, he was unwell and decided to postpone. In the end it was rather moot, as all the club aircraft were booked, so we would not have been able to fly anyway :(

Instead, I opted for some more IFR... Only for extra added challenge, I "decided" (read as: only aircraft available) to take DJU, the 172. I had not flown a 172 since May, and had never flown this aircraft... fun times!

Trevor decided he was well enough to come along as Safety Pilot, so I went and did my 3 take-off/landings to get current and then we blasted off for an hour or so. He put me through my paces, after about 10 minutes of 'normal' IFR, he decided Partial Panel was the way to go, so I spent the next 45 minutes flying around without the use of the Artificial Horizon or the Direction Indicator. I have to say, I was feeling a lot better about my IFR on this flight, having had some practice the day before, but I got the 'Leans' really badly and was having to really concentrate on keeping straight and level.

Then, just to keep things interesting, Trevor tried a little aircraft handling exercise. "I want you to descend at 150'/minute, how are you going to do that?"... I was thinking that was easy, just nudge the nose down and trim it out for the required descent rate... "Ok," he says "Now I want 150'/minute at 90 knots"... As we were doing around 115kts that one required a bit more thought... drop RPM a little bit, raise the nose a little bit... fine tune until we get the required speed and descent rate... "Ok, now I want 350'/minute at 90 knots"... arrrggghhhh!!!

I can see the point of the exercise. It makes you really think about and apply the 'Pitch controls Airspeed, Throttle controls Altitude' mantra and, hopefully, my general aircraft handling skills will benefit as well.

And just to make sure I was a completely burned out, he had me fly an overhead join, a circuit and the approach to land with the foggles on... It is quite nerve-racking watching the altimeter counting down and not being able to see the runway!

Then to cap off a great weekend, Nick and I decided we would 'solo' down to Hamilton in a 152 for some Night Circuits/Cross country time. Was a gorgeous night with a full moon and some really high, thin cloud cover... Crash/Fire had the lights on for us when we arrived and after Nick finished his circuits we taxied to the apron, swapped over and I did a couple of circuits before we vacated back to Ardmore.

All in all, a highly successful weekend of money conversion ;)


This flight: 1.3 PinC (1.1 IFR) + 0.5 PinC + 1.1 PinC (0.9 IFR) + 1.1 PinC Night
Total Hours: 144.5 (78.9/50.5 Day, 6.0/9.1 Night, 7.0 IFR)