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)