Luckily jade was not really in "shopping-mode" so I was able to get out to the club and tag along as 'Safety Pilot' for Nick while he did some instrument flying. He had commented that he had not done it for a while, nor had he done any practiced forced landings... so halfway through I told him to take a break and take the hood off for a bit of a breather. As he pulled the hood off and had a quick look around, I pulled the throttle closed and called 'simulating'... muahahahaha!
For someone who had not done any FLWOP practice for a while, he did a very good job. He reckons the checks were a little rusty, but I reckon he would have got the OK from a 'real' instructor.
Afterwards I had dinner with the in-laws, as it was MiL's 60th B'day... a nice dinner followed by a great dessert (read as: watching Winston Peters disappear from the NZ Political Landscape!).
Sunday, I got up early to watch Liverpool demolish West Brom (3-nil! Woohoo!) and checked the weather... looked pretty benign, with winds of 5 to 8 knots forecast all over the North Island. I was thinking a run down to Taupo then over to New Plymouth and back up the west coast via Raglan.
Unfortunately, by the time I got out to the Flying Club around 10am... the winds were up around 20-25 knots!! It was Nick's turn to fly, so we decided we would head for Whakatane (via Waihi Gap and Tauranga) and then cut back inland to Matamata before heading home. What we ended up with was a little different:
Despite the winds, the flight through the Waihi Gap out to the Bay of Plenty was remarkable smooth... a couple of bumps crossing the ranges, but nothing really unpleasant. Once on the windward side of the ranges the air was silky smooth and the cloud noticeably absent. We cruised through the Tauranga Control Zone and along the coast towards Whakatane without too much trouble.
The wind at Whakatane was interesting... a nice 10-15 knot crosswind that was blowing at a right angle to the runway! It certainly kept Nick on this toes. As for the Airport itselft, the place was like a ghost town! I did not see anyone else, even when I wandered into the Terminal Building to use the bathroom... kinda spooky really.
We gassed up JFY (after we finally found the Shell AvGas pump ;) and decided that instead of bounce ourselves around flying back across the Kaimai's to Matamata, we would fly back up the eastern coast of the Coromandel and have a look at the various airfields (Whitianga, Pauanui, Matarangi etc.)
Unfortunately, it started to get a little choppy[2] from this point so taking photos was pretty much an impossible task :(
You can see the rest of the days photos in the photobucket gallery.
We cut back though the Colville Gap at the Northern end of the Coromandel and back across to Ardmore. The arrival back at Ardmore was fun, getting overtaken by a Delfin L-29 jet overheading the Clevedon Rivermouth and then having the 4 aircraft Harvard formation take off and turn crosswind underneath us, and then spiral around over us as we did an overhead join... Always fun and games at Ardmore! ;)
[1] Only joking
[2] Only hit my head on the roof once! :-/
3 comments:
Nice photos Jarred!
- Pauanui has excellent coffee and food.
- The strip at Slipper Island looks pretty scary, even on a good day.
I give all credit for the quality of the photos to blind, dumb luck! ;)
I'm told the main strip into Slipper is not too bad... just that cross runway that heads towards the rather large hill that you need to be wary of! One of those, 'no go-around' type deals.
I think we should try and organise a coffee meet at Pauanui one of these days... after I get these sodding exams done!
Sounds like a plan!
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