Yet Another Flying Kiwi

End of days...

2011-09-20T10:32:00.001+12:00

5 months, 19 days... Or 379.0 hours PinC :-)

And so the big UK adventure comes to a close... A "brief" summary follows ;-)

I've visited Wales, Scotland and most parts of middle & southern England... sadly, no (single engine) light aircraft allowed over London :-(

Dealt with ATC (civilian, military AND US military!), UK immigration and the UK insurance industry...

Worked around gliders, moto-gliders, micro-lights and what passes for "summer" here in ol' Blighty :-P

Had fuel leaks, gearbox leaks and radio failures...

I've PPR'd ("Prior Permission Required"), penetrated a MATZ, transited a zone and operated in an AIAA (Area of Intense Aerial Activity)...

I've had basic service, radar service and "no service" (Tatenhill, I'm looking at you!)

"Coasted out" and (thankfully) "Coasted in"...

Seen Tornados, Apaches, a Tucano and a Red Arrow...

Got to report "Visual with the Fokker"...

And most of all... I've had FUN! :-)

I now fully appreciate why, despite the bad rap that GA (General Aviation) has, that it really is true that it is the most "fun" you'll have in your aviation career...

Time for a bit of a holiday I think ;-)

One Hundred...

2011-07-31T10:51:00.001+12:00

July 2011: 100.1 hours :D

Despite the best efforts of the english summer, I've managed to accumulate 100 hours in one calendar month...

Although, the weather has had the last laugh, as while today is blue skies and sunshine, there is just too much haze :(

On the plus side, it means I get a nice sunny Sunday to head out and enjoy the countryside... as opposed to the usual "off day" being couped up indoors all day due to bad weather :)

Independence Day

2011-07-05T07:29:00.006+12:00

3 months & 200.1 hours added to the logbook! But more importantly, I'm still having fun :-)

And as a (very) wise man once told me... "Find something you enjoy doing and you'll never work a day in your life... Even if it doesn't pay a lot, make sure it makes you happy"...

Thanks Dad, best advice you ever gave me :-)

In other news... I think I now TRULY understand why they call light aircraft "BugSmashers™"...

Before...

7.4 hours later...

Dammit... I spent over an hour cleaning the aircraft yesterday afternoon... and I think it might actually have more bugs on it now than before I cleaned it!! :-(

500

2011-05-15T06:26:00.015+12:00

So in the 6 weeks that I've been enjoying what "Mother England" has to offer... I've been North-ish, South, East and West... I've seen Fenlands, Moors and what the English call "hills"... I've had CAVOK, haze, Fog and barely VFR minimums... I've had sunshine, rain and 20kt crosswinds!... I've had "Basic" service, no service and penetrated a MATZ (Military Aerodrome Traffic Zone)... I've dodged gliders, motor-gliders & micro-lights... I've seen some interesting crop circles, a giant chalk horse, more windfarms than you can shake a stick at, "secret" military installations and a massive fire (see below)... I've even been asked by a prison (via the local airfield info service, kinda like UNICOM at Ardmore) to "move along" :-/

But most of all, I've racked up 102.3 hours... which by reckoning puts me at a shade over 500 hours Total Time! :)

It's kinda scary to think that in just 6 weeks, I have managed to accumulate 1/4 of the amount that had previously taken me 4 or 5 YEARS to get!

In Short... I've had a bucket load of fun so far... Touch wood, it'll stay that way :)

3-bladed, Jet-A1 powered Cessna 172

An interesting mix of old and new

Odds of flying this morning? about 0%

CAVOK :)

Kyoto Protocol... we've heard of it

What Carbon Footprint?

There IS a windfarm there somewhere... Honest!

Secret Squirrels... Shhhh!

Giddy up!

Aliens or bored teenagers?

or Alien teenagers?!?!!

The other side...

2011-04-04T15:18:00.000+12:00

of the world that is... :)

So, I'm currently enjoying the english countryside... which I've discovered can be an interesting place to navigate around.

Largely because the area I'm in (East Midlands) is about as flat as a billiard table! Which can make it a little disorientating, as you can't just be "Oh, there is the ABC ranges over there" or "Look, Mt XYZ is over there"... Plus all the villages/towns look the same and they're fairly close to one another, so it can be difficult to work out which one you're actually overhead!

I think the biggest problem I've had so far, has just been the position of the sun... As opposed to New Zealand, where the sun tends to occupy the northern part of the sky, here in *cough*"sunny"*cough* England, it likes to live in the southern skies... which has been messing with my head a little bit and throwing my natural sense of direction out... as I keep looking at the sun and going, north is that way! Only to have the compass disagree when I use it to confirm :P

There are a few bonuses tho... like the fact that the place is so flat means that there isn't much to hit, so most of the minimum safe altitudes listed on the charts are under 1000' :P It also means you're spoilt for choice when it comes to options for forced landings! And because there are so many suitable places to put an airfield, the english went ahead and put them in! I actually think it's a throwback to World War II, with many of the airfields being ex-airforce... in any case, it's quite difficult to not be near an airfield, which means there are plenty of places to visit, so hopefully I'll see a few during my travels over the next few months :)

Success, Postponement & Commercial Reality

2011-02-27T21:35:00.009+13:00

So I successfully completed my Multi-Rating... spending a small fortune along the way, desperately trying to maintain control of a twin with the benefit of only one engine in all sorts of situations (during take-off roll, after take-off, in the cruise, in the circuit, on approach, on short final below DA (Decision Altitude) but having some of the most fun I've ever had whilst flying!

The emergency gear extension was interesting... opening a little hatch in the floor and using a little metal bar to turn a small value that just drops the gear down using gravity. Was somewhat re-assuring to know that in the event of the electric hydraulic pump failing, it might still be possible to get the wheels down...

An engine shutdown... and a (thankfully successful) mid-air restart... I have to say, despite the smile on my face (see below), flying around with the prop completely stopped was a little unnerving... especially after having spent 300+ hours in single engine aircraft where a stopped prop = BAD! :P

Look Ma, No Engine!

Then came the realisation that I was not going to be able to continue with my Instrument Rating... I had hoped to do it in the Duchess, but unfortunately, several critical pieces of avionics decided to release "The Magic Smoke™" rendering it unuseable for IFR flight :(

So I decided that I could just switch to the Partenavia P68 and do my Multi Instrument rating in that... but was unable to secure a test date at a suitable time that would leave me enough time to train, complete the test and make it to the UK in a timely manner (more on this later)...

So the decision was made, very reluctantly, to shelve the Instrument Rating until I return from my Northern Hemisphere adventure... As it turns out, due to several other factors, such as the Christchurch Earthquake and navigation equipment maintenance, there is pretty much no instrument training occurring at present so the decision was most definitely the right one.

So I was wondering what I was going to do to keep busy... at which point I was then asked to go and do some more aerial photography, only this time, away from "Home"... So I packed some clothes in a bag, put some spare oil in the back of DJU, made sure I had the fuel cards onboard and headed south.

"Jules" looking awesome in front of Mt Egmont (NZSD)

12 days & 41.3 hours "down country" later... I've seen a fair bit of the Taranaki & Manawatu... Managed to operate in and around the airforce base at Ohakea without annoying anyone, chatted with Police and Airforce crew at Foxpine (NZFP) who were out "doing some gardening" in an Airforce Iroquois helicopter ;), met some real characters like John the Pom, all the while "enjoying" some of the realities of commercial flying, and having a total blast...

"Jules" tucked up ready for bed at Foxpine (NZFP)

Now I mentioned the UK earlier... well this is one of the reasons I'm delaying the Instrument Flying... I've been offered the opportunity to head to the UK to do some flying up there for 6 months over the northern summer (yay! 4 summers in a row!!) So, as soon as I get back from the current round of flying about the countryside (currently in a Motel room in Masterton!?!?) I'll be packing up my life and heading to Ol' Blighty...

Fun times...

2 types of workout

2011-01-27T23:36:00.003+13:00

One mental... the other quite physical!

So I got up at O'dark thirty this morning to ensure I was out at Ardmore before 8am ready for my 2nd flight in the twin...

The sky was full of blue and a giant ball of yellow, a very very nice morning for flying.

After pre-flighting and a briefing on the considerations for flying a twin in the circuit, we taxied out... did out run-ups and took-off, at which point the instructors door came ajar! Leading to a very noisy circuit and full stop landing so we could get it shut.

Take 2 was much better, and we spent the next hour going round and round in circles...

The first couple were a bit hectic, I was struggling a little, and the speed both in climb and across the ground really did catch me out! For instance, on the first circuit, by the time I'd got the aircraft sorted after take-off and conducted my after take-off checks, I was almost at circuit altitude and I hadn't even turned off the extended centreline! By the time I was sorted in the downwind with the power set and got the gear down to help keep the aircraft under 120kts and then completed my downwind checks, I was late downwind! In a 152, I can have that pretty much done by halfway downwind :-/

But, practice makes perfect, and towards the end, I was getting into a rhythm... keeping ahead of the aircraft and making some decent approaches and landings.

And because I'm a sucker for punishment, I decided that I would go ahead with the afternoon's flight... Intro to Asymmetric flight. This occurs when one of the engines in a twin-engine aircraft fails. In a single-engine, if your engine dies, you're going down, hence why we practice forced landings without power. In a twin, if you lose an engine, it a lot of instances, you are still able to fly "quite" happily on one engine... it's not quite as simple in reality, as I found as this afternoon, but you can do it.

The problem with flying a twin on one engine, is that the engines are usually mounted one on each wing, so if one dies, the thrust from the one good engine is pulling that side of the aircraft along faster than the side with the dead engine, and hence the aircraft wants to constantly swing around... aka "yaw"... Us pilot's generally like to fly in straight lines, so this tendency for the aircraft to want to yaw is a bit of a problem...

Thankfully, we can just straighten the aircraft out with rudder... or so you'd think... it requires MASSIVE amounts of rudder to hold a light twin straight with only one engine working... on the plus side, I can skip the leg press exercises at the gym this week! :P

But again, those cunning pilot's of yesteryear have devised a procedure for dealing with these engine failures, where you keep the aircraft under control by using rudder and full power on the live engine, then set about the task of positively identifying the failed engine, verifying it is failed, and then setting up the engine to produce the minimum amount of drag... and so we worked our way through the various scenario's... engine failure in the cruise, engine failure in the climb, engine failure in the descent...

We followed that up with a "Vmca" (Minimum Control Speed) demonstration, to prove that if you fly too slow on one engine, there is a point where you have full rudder in to counter the yaw, but the aircraft just keeps going and continues to yaw and roll due to the reduced effectiveness of the rudder at such a low airspeed and eventually the aircraft will enter a spiral dive (which leads to other bad things like crashing and dieing!)... Thankfully, we conducted this demonstration at 3500' ;)

Then it was time to head back to Ardmore... on the way Jason popped in a sneaky "surprise" engine failure (all the others he had announced) just to see what I'd do... I handled it OK, but a bit on the slow side remembering the steps in the procedure... I only have 3 hours in the Duchess... and about 1 handling engine failures, so I'm sure it will come with time and practice :)

These Flights: 1.1 + 1.4 Dual Multi
Total Hours: 320.3 (150.4/140.3 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 3.6 Multi, 18.6 IFR)

I'm in love!

2011-01-26T19:13:00.000+13:00

WOW... what can I say? 2 engines good, 1 engine bad :P

So I've had my first flight at the controls of a light twin, a Beechcraft BE-76 Duchess (ZK-SMI)... and it was awesome!

Firstly tho, a little bit of a back story...

Unfortunately, the club where I do the majority of my flying, Airline Flying Club, do not have any twin's on the flightline, which is a bit problematic when one is wanting to do a multi-engine instrument rating... :(

Fortunately, our club president has a few contacts about the place and has managed to swing a deal with the club next door, Auckland Aero Club, whereby those of us at AFC who are wanting to get multi ratings, are able to do so at AAC using their aircraft and instructors... :)

So I've enlisted the services of an AAC B-Cat instructor, Jason, and their Duchess... ZK-SMI.

It was just an initial intro to type flight, that covered the basics of the aircraft, how to pre-flight, taxiing, take-off, basic maneuvers like medium turns, steep turns, stalls, emergency (ie. manual) gear extension etc... then a circuit and full stop landing... but thus far, one of the best 1.1 hours of my flying so far.

The machine just has so much get up and go... it easily climbs at over 1000' a minute (we were getting around 1300 or 1400'/minute) at the "standard" climb power setting of 25" Manifold Pressure and 2500 RPM, which isn't full power... compared with say a 152 that might do 600' in an updraft or thermal at full power :P

And it hums along quite nicely at 140kts in the cruise... compare with a 152 that might do 100 with a tailwind ;)

And here-in lies the problem with these aircraft... they're fast and powerful, and it's very easy to get a long way behind the aircraft as it travels so far in such a short space of time you have to plan a long way ahead. I think the next week or so are going to be very interesting and hopefully bucketloads of fun... I've got 2 flights booked for tomorrow ;)

This Flight: 1.1 Dual Multi
Total Hours: 317.8 (150.4/140.3 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 1.1 Multi, 18.6 IFR)

New Year, New Aircraft

2011-01-24T22:49:00.000+13:00

Ok... so I kinda got caught up in the hustle and bustle of Christmas (read as: more partying and alcohol than my aviation doctor needs to know about! ;) and didn't fly for the rest of December :(

But I made up for it by taking my Sister, her husband and 2 of their friends from Ireland who are semi-backpacking around the world for some scenic flights around Auckland in LMA on January 2nd...

The weather was awesome and the it was a great way to start the New Year ;)

Following that I skipped over to Australia to catch up with my Neice and Nephews in Melbourne as my Brother and Sister-in-Law had been unable to make it over to for Christmas with the rest of the family :(

I then foolishly made the mistake of flying up to Brisbane to catch up with an old friend... during the worst flooding since 1974!! Thankfully the airport was still open the day I left, despite the buses and eventually the trains being shutdown!

Once back, I decided it was time to finally get back into the flying stuff, the primary focus being getting my Multi-Engine Instrument rating.

However, the club recently negotiated the use of a Piper PA-38 Tomahawk, ZK-EVL. So I figured I'd add another type rating to my growing list ;)

Now the Tomahawk has a reputation in the aviation community and some would have you believe the "Trauma-hawk" is a death machine, but having never flown one I was trying to keep an open mind.

My type rating was duly completed, included watching it "waggle it's tail" during stalling, but to be honest, it was fairly benign... sure it drops a wing pretty much every time you stall it, but that isn't particularly difficult to deal with, and I actually found it to be a very nice little aircraft, and EVL is a really tidy specimen. The cabin is nice and roomy, a lot bigger than a 152. It has awesome visibility and, was generally, just a real pleasure to fly.

Next up... the multi-engine rating... my first lesson is booked for Thursday! :)

These Flights: 2.3 PinC + 1.4 Dual
Total Hours: 316.7 (150.4/140.3 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 18.6 IFR)

Cloud punching

2010-12-08T17:34:00.003+13:00

Instrument Time - Actual: 1.5

Hah! take that clouds... I laugh at your inability to stop me flying where I want :p

My first IFR cross-country... What a ride... AR-HN-AA-AR or Ardmore to Hamilton via the Waiuku NDB, a couple of approaches and holds at Hamilton, then back to Auckland International to make an ILS approach via the Surrey NDB, then home to Ardmore...

Well, that was "The Plan"™... only those tricky controllers are far to wise to make things that easy!

Somewhere between flight planning and getting overhead the Waiuku beacon, the wind at Hamilton changed, so my plan for a "VOR/DME RWY 18L" approach quickly turned into a "VOR/DME RWY 36R" approach...

Not a big deal... join the arc, make the approach, missed approach into the hold... transition to the NDB hold, make the NDB approach, missed approach and onwards to Auckland (via Surrey)...

"Delta Juliet November, be advised, a 15 minute hold for the ILS"... yeah no worries, it's only money :P

At which point Auckland Control had a minor comms failure... eventually they sorted themselves out, turned me back towards the hold at Miranda... I Split the ADF needles on the entry to the hold... (yeah baby!) and was looking at making a perfect parallel entry "Delta Juliet November, Cancel Hold turn left, heading 280" grrrr...

Then vectored into the hold at EMRAG... "Delta Juliet November is entering the hold at EMRAG", "Roger, cancel hold turn right heading 210"... GAAAH!!!!!

Intercepted the ILS for the approach into Auckland International with World+Dog (3 aircraft in front, 2 behind)... was eventually told to slow from 140kts to 120 as we were catching the jet in front :P

Made possibly the worst ILS approach in history (despite Instructor Phil saying that wasn't too bad)... damn that needle is sensitive! and then executed the missed approach, heading back to Ardmore under Visual Flight Rules...

Time for a cup of tea... and just to make my day even better, the nice Cookie Time Girl arrived with my bucket of Christmas Cookies... OM NOM NOM!

This Flight: 3.0 Dual (1.5 Actual IFR, 1.0 Sim IFR)
Total Hours: 313.0 (149.0/138.0 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 18.6 IFR)

Prior Experience

2010-12-07T20:40:00.004+13:00

So having been checked out to Waiheke the day earlier, I got to put the lessons I had learned with Chris to good use on Saturday, flying some friends for a scenic and then dropping them at Waiheke for an afternoon of cafe's and vineyards before I picked them up and dropped them back at Ardmore.

The weather in the morning was a little marginal, which some low "scungy" cloud hanging around, making it hard to do any real scenic flying, but thankfully it was high enough that we could get into and out of Waiheke without too many issues. The weather had vastly improved in the afternoon, so we able to do some decent scenic flying around the gulf and the Hunua Ranges on the way home.

The wind had picked up in the afternoon, and while the Waiheke procedures state they prefer take-off's and landings to and from the south for noise abatement (ie. we don't want to annoy the neighbours by flying over their homes), I was not comfortable with taking off downhill with a 10 to 12 knot tail wind just to keep the noise down! I know that the 182 is capable of it (having had it demonstrated on another student's check flight to Waiheke a year or so ago), but the safety of the aircraft and those on board come first as far as I'm concerned. As it turned out, with a max performance take-off and the headwind, we were airbourne about halfway up the strip and we were able to easily make a right hand turn once airbourne to pass well clear of any homes to the north of the strip.

A satisfactory outcome for all concerned :)

This Flight: 1.8 PinC
Total Hours: 310.0 (146.0/138.0 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 16.1 IFR)

Flying on faith

2010-12-03T20:07:00.004+13:00

So I now know what faith is... it's the belief that the little needles on the little dials on the little instrument panel of a little aeroplane is indeed telling the truth.

1.8 hours of "faith" later, and I had literally worked up a sweat... the inside of the instrument hood was dripping :P

Today was ADF approaches. So instead of "comfortably" flying around at 2500' feet flying holds and tracking to and from NDB's, we left the safety of altitude and practised flying approaches to "minimums".

"Non-precision" Instrument Approaches (like NDB approaches) are designed to allow you to fly safely down to fairly low altitudes, as long as you are where you think you are (faith in the instruments)... the idea being that you drop below the cloud base, spot the runway and commence the actual landing part visually.

Flying to minimums basically means that you fly to the lowest altitude allowed and hope you spot the runway before you reached the "missed approach point", at which point if you haven't spotted the runway, you get the hell out of dodge and climb back up to a safe altitude.

As I was simulating instrument flying conditions with the hood on, I never got to see the runway... so every approach resulted in a missed approach, back into the hold and then time to setup for another approach.

And just because I hadn't had enough "fun" for one day, I went for a quick afternoon jolly with Chris over to Waiheke, to get checked out for landing there... the club have a policy whereby members must first fly a dual check flight here due to some interesting quirks that Waiheke has... like the 45 degree offset approach for runway 17 due to noise abatement procedures, this is also complicated by the the fact that the runway has a pretty pronounced downhill slope in this direction, so if the wind is a moderate southerly you are in for a fun ride ;)

Taking off uphill can also be a challenge as it's harder for the aircraft to the necessary airspeed while it's rolling uphill and then you need to outclimb the slope once airbourne...

Thankfully, the 182 has bucketloads of power and eats the strip alive... even with a moderate tailwind landing downhill! ;)

So after doing some p-charts to confirm that we could safely get in and, arguably more importantly, out again... we headed off to Waiheke, completed take-off's and landings in all directions to get a feel for all the approaches and to see that it actually makes more sense sometimes to land with a small tailwind because it's up the hill than to land down the hill with a small headwind!

These Flights: 1.8 Dual (1.4 IFR) + 0.8 Dual
Total Hours: 308.2 (146.0/136.2 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 16.1 IFR)

Needles and Racetracks...

2010-11-26T19:29:00.003+13:00

This week has been an interesting aviation week... I was "Re-educated" in the use of an E6B by a very knowledgeable instructor... I also learned more about Automatic Direction Finders (ADF's) in 20 minutes in a briefing room with this instructor than from all of the reading I have been doing of instrument rating study guides.

I then proceeded to spend over $1000 flying around in circles... and I didn't even get to enjoy the view!! :P

Yesterday was basic ADF tracking... or "How to make a needle point where it should" ;)

This involved taking off from Ardmore and flying out towards the Surrey and Miranda NDB's (Non-Directional Beacon's) and flying to and from the beacons on various headings as instructed by Instructor Phil... By learning a couple of basic principles, the "smoke and mirrors" of ADF tracking suddenly became a reality...

You're not on track if the needle is pointing at the wrong heading

The head of the needle "falls" to the tail of the aircraft

When tracking "TO" an NDB, to make the needle rotate right, you rotate the aircraft left (and vice versa)

When tracking "FROM" an NDB, to make the tail of the needle rotate right, you rotate the aircraft right (and vice versa)

If the head of the needle rises, you haven't made enough allowance for wind

Today was ADF holds... or "How to fly nice racetrack patterns in the sky". This lesson built on the basics from yesterday, but threw in some added fun bits, like holding pattern entry procedures (Parallel, Offset and Direct entries)...

I had another student tagging along, who brought along his Garmin 296 GPS, so when we got back I could have a look at my flight path, and while the first couple of holds were a little "wobbly", the steadily got better and better, until I was flying very nice racetracks indeed :)

A very solid 2 hour workout!

Then in prep for our club trip to Taumarunui on Sunday, I went and go current in the 152 this afternoon... with 3 quick circuits in JFY in an almost empty circuit... BLISS!

These Flights: 1.5 Dual (1.2 IFR) + 2.0 Dual (1.6 IFR) + 0.4 PinC
Total Hours: 305.6 (143.4/136.2 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 14.7 IFR)

300

2010-11-08T23:05:00.003+13:00

No, not a post about Sparta...

I have managed another mini-milestone... 300 Hours Total Time :)

After another weekend of pretty awesome weather, I racked up another 8.1 hours while flying about the countryside which has pushed me to 301.7 Hours...

Saturday was a nice early start and a short hop across the city, over to "Vanilla Pie" (aka Whenuapai) before their airspace got too busy with gliders... at which point we headed for Swanson/Henderson and Waitakere, getting a little too close to the Auckland Control Zone/Area for my liking... I really need to invest in a Garmin 296 so I don't have to rely on guesstimating where the airspace really starts ;)

Sunday was a little less stressful... a nice cruise up north for a looksee around Mangawhai Heads and then onto Whangarei. A quick "recce" around the area before stopping to refuel both aircraft and occupants. As always, the little cafe in the Whangarei Airport Terminal provided some really good food... Choc Fudge Brownies FTW!! ;)

Then it was back into it, covering the area north of the city, around the airfield and along the coast east of the airport.

I would also like to give a big shout out to the Eagle Air pilot's who flew into NZWR on Sunday afternoon, they're very accomodating to us folk in the lighties... despite me offering to hold early downwind so as not to get in her way, the pleasant voice on the radio told me to go ahead and she'd slow down her approach :) And later, when we were flying around north of the city, I heard another approaching Eagle Air Beech 1900D pilot let a 172 from Ardmore Flying School in ahead of him...

Then it was home for "Tea, Buns and Medals" as Mel says... personally, I had a beer ;)

In other news, I finally got around to rewarding myself for getting the CPL. I purchased a Lightspeed Zulu headset... OMG, this thing is simply the best headset I have ever worn.

It wasn't exactly cheap, but after my 4 hour flight on Saturday, I barely even knew I had a headset on it was so comfortable... Lightweight, ANR (Active Noise Reduction) and with an auxiliary input jack for piping music from my phone (which automatically cuts out when getting radio/intercom transmissions)...

There is nothing quite like cruising around in the sunny blue skies listening to some nice chillaxing sounds ;)

My only regret is not buying one sooner!!

These Flights: 3.9 + 4.2 PinC
Total Hours: 301.7 (139.9/135.8 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 11.9 IFR)

Crap... I'm dead?!!!

2010-11-04T23:28:00.003+13:00

So, I received a phone call approaching Huntly... a somewhat difficult task given the excessive noise of the rather modest powerplant of the Cessna 152... I shouted "We're still flying" into the microphone of my mobile, pressed the "End Call" button and then sent a text to the caller saying "What's up?"... the reply?

"You're dead, according to SpiderTracks"

Rewind 1hr and 39mins... and Irene and I are taxiing out to runway 03 after ECT (Evening Civil Twilight aka. night time) preparing for a night cross-country down to Hamilton for some circuits.

Unfortunately, my "point and click" digital camera is less than useless at night photography, so I have no pics to show, but it was one of those nights that reminds you why you wait patiently for the sun to descend below the horizon to go flying... we could see the lights of Hamilton as we departed via the downwind from Ardmore... the long yellowish snake of State Highway 1 stretching out into the darkness before us. I was there as pax, with Irene wanting to rack up some PinC/Night flying time...

Following a relatively uneventful flight down, we arrived overhead Hamilton to join a (surprisingly) busy circuit... with 3 or 4 CTC aircraft doing the rounds. 5 or 6 (rather large!!) circuits later and Irene decided it was time to head home, so she called departing and we headed back north...

Despite SpiderTracks indicating that our flight had ended somewhat abruptly somewhere between Ngaruawahia and Huntly, we made it back to Ardmore safe and sound... at which point several phone calls were made to allay the concerns of the parties receiving emergency alerts.

No (real) harm done, but a story about a young man and his fascination with "canis lupus" comes to mind :-/

$200 $10 Fish 'n Chips...

2010-10-28T09:19:00.007+13:00

And an Ice-cream! :P

So I found a way to fly about the countryside, sampling the wares of the various Fish 'n Chip vendors without busting my piggybank...

Find a CPL stupid who is "PinC" hour building and wants some company! :)

So I bundled myself (along with sunscreen) into the right hand seat of one of the clubs 152's, and enjoyed the view out the window as we headed for Raglan.

Climbing out of Ardmore

Thankfully, the weather today was a lot nicer than our previous effort (hence the sunscreen) and we arrived into Raglan without incident.

A short walk from the airfield (after paying the "outrageous" landing fees at the camp office) over to the Camp Store and then we were sitting in the sun enjoying some very nice fresh gurnard and chips... OM NOM NOM!! ;)

$5??!? Simply Outrageous! :P

Pilot in Command

Lunch... YUM!

This was, of course, followed by the compulsory Ice-Cream... (I went for the Magnum Gold today) which was duly consumed before arriving back at the airfield!

Irene chose a max performance take-off (probably a good idea with both of us full of fish 'n chips! ;) and we tracked along the coast heading north... Saw some interesting rock formations, I have no idea if it's due to the type of rock or the eroding action of the sea or a combination of both... but they look cool :)

Interesting rock formations on the coast

As usual, we managed to time it "right" so we arrived back at Ardmore just as World+Dog was also arriving, so the circuit was all sorts of chaos :-/

Irene opted for the grass and asked if I'd mind if she did a couple of practise circuits before full stopping.

I gave her my 'Standard Pilot as Passenger Response™'.... "You're PinC, I'm just along for the ride" ;)

View from the Right Hand Seat...

2010-10-14T23:31:00.003+13:00

So I tagged along today with one of our CPL students who was doing some "Pilot in Command" hour building...

The plan was Ardmore - Hamilton (some circuits) - Raglan - Ardmore... The weather at Ardmore was blue skies and sunshine and we were both hoping for some fish 'n chips at Raglan ;)

Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to interfere... Upon arriving in the Hamilton CTR, things got very grey and very wet... and the PinC decided a full stop landing would be a good idea after the 2nd circuit.

So we taxied over to the Waikato Aero Club... checked the weather, let "mother" know what we were up too and waited for the band of showers to pass...

20mins later and we were back into it, going round in circles dodging CTC Twinstar's doing asymmetric circuits and airline traffic, before being cleared to the west at 2500' or below...

So, off to Raglan we headed... the PinC taking the opportunity to get some Simulated IF time while I played "Safety Pilot"... weeeeeeee!

Unfortunately, we (and by we, I mean me, as PinC was busy flying ;) noticed on the first circuit at Raglan that the fish 'n chip shop near the camp ground appeared to be closed, so we decided to cut our losses and head back to Ardmore... :(

Still... a fun day with low stress for me... I just got to sit there and work radio's and organise charts and aerodrome plates and let the PinC deal with all the really fun stuff like dodging clouds, other aircraft, dealing with controllers etc :P

$200 Fish 'n Chips...

2010-10-06T19:00:00.001+13:00

Ingredients:

1x PA28-180 (ZK-LMA)
1x CPL
1x Freshly minted C-Cat
Plenty of AvGas 100
1x Fish 'n Chip shop
1x Seat by the beach
Some decent weather

Directions:

- Take decent weather, put CPL and C-Cat in PA28, add AvGas.
- Point PA28 in the general direction of Pauanui.
- Let PA28 cruise for about 40mins.
- Upon arrival in Pauanui, remove CPL and C-Cat from PA28.
- Combine Fish 'n Chips and a seat by the beach with CPL and C-Cat.

(Optional)
- Garnish CPL with Gooey Raspberry Memphis Meltdown and Watermelon Chupa-chup before sending back to Ardmore.

C-Cat getting current on PA28

OM NOM NOM!

NZUN

I'm living the dream ;)

This Flight: 0.8 PinC
Total Hours: 279.4 (139.9/114.8 Day, 8.6/16.1 Night, 11.9 IFR)

No rest for the wicked...

2010-10-04T21:48:00.004+13:00

Despite lugging an "Instrument Rating Manual" all the way around the world and to China and back, saying "Yeah, I'll have like 10+ hours on all those long haul flights to study"... the manual came out of my bag once... and that was because I needed to use the bag for something else at the time :P

However, I haven't been totally deliquent in my studies... so at 0800 this morning, I rocked up to the "ASL Examination Centre" (read as: a small upstairs area in a small commercial unit in a small business park in East Tamaki with some computers), ready to once again engage in a battle of wits and english comprehension with the ASL question writers...

30mins later, I walked out a little disappointed that I didn't get an immediate result, which I had thought was one of the benefits of the computer based exams... especially after I got this nice green screen after clicking submit which I initially thought was a "Congratulations! You're totally awesome and kicked ass on that exam!!!"-type screen...

Instead, it was a "Congratulations, we didn't lose all your answers when you clicked submit. They're now safely stored in some super secret data centre in a super secret location. So you won't have to do the exam again... unless, of course, you failed! We'll be in touch"-type screen :-/

It turns out that they only mark the exams when everyone sitting an exam at that time has finished. As ASL also do various exams for the LTSA, and most of those exams are at least 2 1/2 hours... I was in for a bit of a wait... Thankfully, I am a posterchild for patience *cough*

So, I just logged into the results website and around 11am (after hitting refresh every 30seconds or so for about 2 hours ;) my results had been posted...

w00t! 93% for Instruments and Nav Aids... guess I'd better get that Instrument Rating Law study guide out :P

What goes up... hopefully comes down!

2010-10-02T23:41:00.005+13:00

Full throttle, airspeed increasing, lift-off... climb established... flaps up, climb power set, climb RPM set... nil runway remaining, tap the brakes, gear up... bzzzzzzzzzzz *THUD*... orange light...

And so began my foray into "suck-up wheels"... aka. retractable landing gear

The club recently got a Cessna 172 RG "Cutlass" ZK-EWP on the flightline, and I had been dying to try it out. I was supposed to start my type rating last weekend, but had to defect the aircraft during the pre-flight due to some misbehaving cowl flaps.

The defect was fixed earlier this week, so then it was a matter of waiting for the instructor... Today was not a bad day for aviating... a little bumpy, but nothing like the 30knot+ winds we've had recently! And besides... I needed an excuse for not studying for my Instrument Exams :P

So I duely pre-flighted EWP, strapped in the CFI and headed for the training area for the usual runthrough of maneuvers required for a type-rating... turns, stalls etc... only this time we also played with the gear, getting used to the pitch changes as it went up and down... what the "gear horn" sounds like etc.

After that we headed back to the airfield for an overhead join and some circuits which I thought were barely passable... the circuit gets very busy when instead of throttle, mixture and flaps, you now have throttle, mixture, flaps, pitch, cowl flaps and undercarriage to worry about... and an aircraft that will easily do 120+knots downwind if you let it!

As Rob had said during the briefing, if you get setup early, and slow down before you enter the circuit, you'll be fine... Apparently these old, gray-haired instructors know a thing or two about this flying malarky :P

A couple of circuits later and we taxiied back in as Rob had another booking... and I needed a cup of tea and a lie down!

1.0 hours of pure busyness :-/

Later in the afternoon, we rounded up some self-loading ballast (ie. a couple of CPL students lounging about the club) to get the aircraft to maximum all up weight (MAUW), so I could do the MAUW check as required by law...

A standard circuit (very average), a go-around (executed nicely), a flapless landing (not too shabby), another standard circuit (better, but still average) and then I surprised myself by making a very nice shortfield landing onto the grass to finish.

0.7 hours of pure busyness with onboard spectators :P

All in all, a fun day's flying... and I now have a 172RG Type Rating... (and an appreciation for why "cup" checks are important ;)

These Flights: 1.0 + 0.7 Dual
Total Hours: 278.6 (139.9/114.0 Day, 8.6/16.1 Night, 11.9 IFR)

6 months later...

2010-09-28T20:54:00.009+13:00

It has been a long time between posts, but I have a REALLY good excuse... 2 weeks before my CPL flight test re-sit was scheduled, the Tuesday before Valentines Day to be precise, my wife came home from work and delivered some rather life changing news...

To cut a long story short, I'm now "flying solo"... so after selling the house, finding a place to live, dividing up assests and re-arranging my personal life, all while trying to pass a CPL, I figured I was due up for some time off.

I managed a sneaky club trip down to Nelson (was supposed to be Queenstown, but was the weekend back at the beginning of May when Queenstown was underwater) in the 182... We visited Nelson Lakes Station & Omaka (and had an unscheduled pitstop in Motueka due to some rather high engine temps) and generally had an awesome time. ps. Controlled VFR at 10,500' is the way to fly! ;)

I also figured it was a good time to go cross some things of my "Bucket List", see some friends overseas and see some more of our fair Earth... So after 3 weeks in the US/Canada followed by 3 Weeks in UK/Europe through May/June and 3 Weeks in China for a friend's wedding Aug/Sep, I can safely say that I've seen a fair bit, met some awesome people, made some new friends, had bucketloads of fun and have generally been enjoying life. :)

Of course, eventually, "Real Life"™ will catch up with you, and in my case, that is the need to get a Multi-Engine Instrument Rating, to which end I have been perusing the IR study guides and booking exams while this last load of crappy weather was ravaging the country (even went and did a 1hour famil in the Redbird FMX 1000 full motion sim ;)...

To celebrate the arrival of some decent weather and reward myself for such commitment to study (I mean, I have even been getting out of bed before lunchtime!)... and to really get back in the swing of things after doing some "currency circuits" on the weekend, I decided to go for an impromptu cross-country today...

So I pre-flighted DJU, checked weather all over the North Island looking for some interesting places to go, decided on Rotorua and White Island, put in a flightplan, chucked in a couple of pax I found hanging out at the Flying Club (1 CPL Student and 1 shiny new C-Cat), double checked we had life-jackets onboard, plugged in the SpiderTracks (oooo new toys for the club!) and headed off for Rotorua...

Was a pretty decent day, relatively smooth. Some cloud over the Kaimai's meant a slight detour through the Tauranga Control Zone, but no real drama's...

Stopped in Rotorua to refuel ourselves and the aircraft, got "Ramp Checked" by AvSec (I knew I carried my licence with me when flying for reason!) before heading off to White Island.

Neither of my pax had ever been out there, so they got a bit of a treat as we circled the volcano and then headed back west... We skipped up the east coast of the peninsula at 3000', checking out all the airfields along the Coromandal before heading back to Ardmore.

SpiderTracks - Big Brother is watching you!

Another 3.5 hours in the book... Was a great day to be flying and was nice to have some company along :)

Hopefully, posts should become a bit more regular again (assuming the weather co-operates) as I embark on my MEIR journey... should be fun ;)

Magic Plastic Part II

2010-03-13T12:21:00.003+13:00

So I wandered out to check the mail today... imagine my surprise when I found a little white and blue envelope with the CAA logo emblazoned on the front...

I skipped back up the front path ripping the envelope open... Could it be?? YES! It could... wooooohoooo!!!!

They were even nice enough to add all my Type Ratings and the English Language Proficiency to the licence as well...

I still wish they'd make 'proper' cards, with photoID etc... so much for aviation security... on the other hand, they'd probably charge more than $60 for that ;)

Pilot for Hire...

2010-03-03T11:00:00.005+13:00

If you need a nice fresh CPL, look no further :)

After the minor setback at the end of January... and a "no-show" last week due to a mix-up at ASL, yesterday saw me once again in the crisp white shirt, tie and pants nervously pacing up and down at the flying club awaiting the flight examiner.

As is usually the case, the thing I was most concerned about was the weather. After weeks of glorious weather, I awoke to find ARFORs (Area Forecasts) and TAFs (Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts) predicting heavy rain showers and thunderstorms across the Auckland area in the afternoon... from 4pm. My test was booked to start at 3:30pm.

As is usually the case, I awoke nice and "late" at 7am... after a "restful" night of tossing and turning... and after having some breakfast and triple checking I had everything I needed (and almost forgetting my tie) I headed out to the club.

I spent some time prepping the briefing room, making sure I had everything ready and at hand... Up-to-date AIP Vol's 1&4, Logbook, License, PhotoID, Exam results + signed off KDR's, current charts, Calculator, Nav Computer, Pens/Pencils, note paper, custom Take-Off and Landing calculation sheets to make sure I didn't forget AC91-3 and Part 135 requirements, Aircraft Flight Manual, a big folder containing all the relevant Parts (91 & 135) and Advisory Circulars so I could look up anything I needed if required.

Then I made sure the aircraft was good to go... by going for a nice relaxing solo flight (remembering to take the Flight Manual with me!). No instructors to pester me, just me and JFY and a lovely clear morning with variable winds.

0.7 hours and several max-rate turns, basic stall, approach stall, wingdrop stall and steep gliding turns later I was back on the ground and ready for some lunch.

And then the waiting really began. The clouds were starting to look dark and ominous... the temperature and pressure started to drop like a PA28 on a glide approach and there was that "It's going to rain" feeling in the air...

I tried very hard (and failed) not to check the weather reports and rain radar every 5 minutes...

I even tried taking my mind off it by sitting in the back of an aircraft to act as ballast for one of the other club members doing an all up weight check in LMA... but all I could do was look at the clouds around the area while we were flying around the circuit :)

Just after 3pm... I put on my shirt and tie and waited for the examiner to show up. He arrived exactly at 3:30pm and we got started on the groundwork. Making sure all the relevant bits of paper were in order (Logbook, ID, exams etc) and then into the flight planning.

A "short hop to Thames" and some careful calculations later... and some (very) random questions later, I had ticked all the groundwork boxes and it was time for the flying.

Pre-flight completed, aircraft fueled, we hopped in and I started running through my checks. I was really starting to feel nervous, right up until the engine kicked into life... and then I was in my comfort zone.

We taxied out, run-ups, max performance take-off and then headed south towards the training area. Then we started running through the syllabus...

I was feeling good and flying well (not perfect, but well within limits) and then came the words I had been quietly dreading... "Demonstrate a Max-Rate Turn to the right"...

Deep breaths... prominent reference point + heading, reference altitude... deep breath... Good lookup... airspeed below Va, lead with power... roll into the turn... increase back pressure... hitting 60degrees angle of bank... stall warning chirping away... maintaining altitude with ailerons... anticipate roll out... check forward and reduce power to prevent ballooning...

"Ok... now demonstrate one to the left"...

Repeat procedure... I thought it was a little messy at the end, and I could have used a little bit more rudder when rolling out to maintain balance and I commented as much to the examiner and asked if he would like me to demonstrate again...

"No, that's fine... when you're ready, demonstrate a basic stall"...

WOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

We ran through the stalls, forced landing, precautionary landing, low flying, coastal reversal turn, constant radius turn...

"Ok, let's head back and you can demonstrate a flapless landing"

Back into the circuit following a near perfect overhead join... and slotting myself into a 3 aircraft train of Ardmore flying school aircraft, we started the circuits and finished with a shortfield landing onto the grass... I landed about 2 metres from my target aiming point and we pulled up with moderate braking about 1/3 of the way along the grass runway...

"Very nice landing"...

I taxied back to the club, shutdown and secured the aircraft... and we went inside for the debrief.

He held me in suspense for all of about 10 seconds before flashing me a big grin and offering me his hand to say congratulations...

We then covered the flight and he made a couple of comments, just some minor things to be aware of... nothing major and everything well within limits. We completed some paperwork and he congratulated me again and I went and opened my tab at the bar ;)

I'm still smiling, despite the minor hangover, and I don't expect this silly grin to wear off for at least another couple of days...

Next on the list: Multi-Engine Instrument Rating, Instructor Rating, Basic Gas Turbine Rating...

These Flights: 0.7 + 1.7 PinC (0.3 IFR)
Total Hours: 263.8 (136.5/103.0 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 11.9 IFR)

ps. If you know of anyone looking to hire a pilot... I'd appreciate it if you could point them in my direction ;)

2 more years...

2010-02-01T22:57:00.006+13:00

I awoke to dark grey and wet. So that would make it Auckland Anniversary Day then ;)

However, by late morning, the steady drizzle had all but disappeared, the cloud base had started to increase and even small patches of blue were occassionally sneaking through the light white/grey cloud cover.

I headed out to the club after lunch ready for my booking with CFI Rob. My last BFR (actually my PPL flight test) was 03 February 2008. Meaning my Biennial Flight Review (BFR) was due on 03 February 2010. I had been hoping to avoid having to do one, by (successfully) completing a CPL flight test before that date. Unfortunately, we all know how that turned out. :( And having a 'current' PPL is a requirement for a CPL Flight Test.

So today was BFR with Rob day... including of course, some Max Rate Turns (which aren't even in the PPL syllabus ;)

Thankfully, this was not as stressful as it can be for some PPL Pilots. Mainly because almost every training flight I have done in the last 2 or 3 months has been close to a complete run through the CPL Training Syllabus which has somewhat stricter limits on flight maneuvers (eg. +/- 50' instead of +/- 100') and has a few more of them to boot. Also, one thing that Rob likes to stress is to ensure that the 'basic' maneuvers like medium, steep and compass turns are not 'overlooked' and practised regularly as they can (and have) bitten people on CPL flight tests!

After the flight, filling in the paper-work, I dutifully calculated my hours since the last 'BFR'. 160.2 hours in 2 years. Not too shabby for a "self-funded" operation...

And a memorable way to bring up 250 hours Total Time :D

This Flight: 1.0 Dual
Total Hours: 250.2 (127.2/98.7 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 11.0 IFR)

2 months of Ups and Downs

2010-01-30T21:30:00.005+13:00

Wow... so much has happened since November... and unfortunately, the most recent event was not as pleasant as I had hoped. More on that in a minute.

Back in late November/Early December, I had been hard out prepping for the CPL Flight test. Running through the CPL syllabus, practising the ground work exercises, reading the aircraft flight manual from cover to cover and back again, AIP's, AC's and Part's 61, 91 & 135.

I had booked my flight test with ASL, hoping to get it in before Xmas. Unfortunately, it would appear that everyone else wanted to do the same. I suspect the inclement weather we had didn't help either.

The upshot being that I couldn't get a flight test date. :(

Then "real life" got in the way, with my sister's wedding the weekend before christmas (awesome day btw... congrats Keryn+Dave ;), Christmas, New Year, my wife actually getting some annual leave so I thought it best to spend time with her ;). Before I knew it, a month had gone by and I hadn't been near an aircraft :(

And then I got a flight test date of the afternoon of January 25th.

Awesome, something to work towards... unfortunately, and I must take some of the "credit" for this for not pushing harder, the lead up just wasn't there. Weather and lack of aircraft didn't help my cause and I went into the flight test ready, but probably not as ready as I should have been.

The day itself was a nervous wait... just making sure the aircraft, me, the paper-work, the aircraft, me, the paper-work, me, the aircraft etc. etc. were ready.

As is usually the case, most of my nerves were unfounded, the examiner was friendly and cheerful and we got down to the business of the paperwork and the ground theory.

This went well enough, and he seemed impressed by my obviously thorough preparation and sound knowledge. I pre-flighted the aircraft under his watchful gaze and after strapping him in and running through a safety briefing we taxiied out.

The flight started smoothly enough, Max-performance Take Off, Engine Failure After Take-Off and then into the instrument flying. Fairly simple stuff that I did well and he commented as much during the post-flight debrief.

We ran through some turns, stalls and other basic manueveurs and then we got to Max-Rate Turns... and I came unstuck :(

I had had some issues with these during my training, and I was a little nervous as we started the exercise and my first turns were very tentative and not up to the required standard. I had another go and the result was pretty much the same.

At this point, we decided to come back to those, as he wanted me to demonstrate some stalls in the steep turns, which were a bit rough, but passable... then the slow flight exercises and then some steep gliding turns and then, without warning, straight into a forced landing without power. I was a little high, but some aggressive S-Turns got me into a good position to make the chosen field. He commented later that it was a little untidy, but passable.

On the go-around, he originally instructed me to head for 500' and I figured we would then do the low-flying exercises. However on the climb he changed his mind, instructed me to head for 1000' and we would have another go at the Max-Rates...

I think I started to panic a little, knowing that my entire flight test basically rested on the next 5 minutes. Unfortunately, I blew it. My turns were even worse and the examiner suggested that I would need further training, and that we should head back to base for a de-brief. Flight examiner speak for "You have failed" :(

We flew back, I made a fairly awful approach but a nice enough landing, taxiied back in and shut down. CFI Rob got some of the others to secure the aircraft while we went inside to de-brief with the flight examiner.

We covered all the good points and things I had done well, made some general observations about things that while "passable" I should definitely consider thinking about for the next flight test... and then the issue of the max-rate turns.

To be completely honest, I don't really recall a lot of the discussion... as I was pretty bummed... and kinda tuned everything out at that point. I was mostly upset at me for letting myself down :(

I headed home, had a few drinks, felt sorry for myself and went to bed. The next day, I woke up, built a bridge, got over it and was determined that I would not fail next time. I set about rebooking a new flight test date, and getting the preparations started as I will now need to redo the full CAA Fit and Proper Person process as it will be more than 24 months since my last one.

Today was my first flight since the flight test. It felt good to be back in the air. With a fresh perspective from a different instructor, I went and practised Max-Rate Turns and Stalls in Steep Turns for just over an hour and a half.

Certainly some things to work on, but things are coming along nicely ;)

Committed

2009-11-04T18:34:00.003+13:00

So I have finished up at work... FREEEEEEEEEEDOMMMMM!

And I have dealt with other things that required my attention, such as being best man at my friends wedding. And my bank balance is looking healthy thanks to my severance package and the weather, while less than brilliant has been very flyable.

All of which means I went and got my Class 1 Medical renewed on Monday (no major issues, yay!) and I've spent the last two days being assessed by CFI Rob as to where I currently am flying-wise, and what we'll need to do to get me to CPL Flight Test Standard.

Yesterday was just over an hour of cloud and shower dodging, while trying to demonstrate compass turns, steep turns, stalling in the turn, Forced Landings, Low Flying in the bad weather config, Coastal Reversal Turns and a nice Overhead Join with a shortfield grass landing to finish.

Today looked like it was going to be a washout, but I could almost have got sunburnt this afternoon, as the drizzle and low cloud gave way to blue skies and sunshine! So it was more steep turns, Max Rate Turns, Forced Landings, more low flying and coastal reversal turns, Steep Gliding Turns, a flapless landing and another shortfield landing onto the grass.

The upshot of all this (aside from being about $600 poorer) is that Rob thinks I am around 10 to 15 hours away from a CPL Flight Test. Which is better than I thought, bearing in mind that I had not been in an aircraft for about 2 months and had certainly not done any "proper" flight training for almost 3, I figured I was probably going to be a little underdone.

As expected my forced landings were a little rusty... the flying is not a problem, it is the rest of the procedure (initial actions, trouble checks, mayday call, passenger brief etc) that I get mixed up with. But this is really just a practice thing.

Most other things I am relatively competent at, I just need to polish them up a little to get them to a CPL standard. As Rob is fond of saying "Attention to Detail".

I am under no illusions that the next few weeks/months are going to be a lot of hardwork, but I'm up for it. So, I have more flights booked up for the rest of this week. Fingers crossed the weather holds ;)

These Flights: 1.1 Dual + 1.3 Dual
Total Hours: 219.2 (101.3/93.6 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.7 IFR)

One door closes... another door opens?

2009-10-07T08:51:00.002+13:00

So I'm another year older... and perhaps a little wiser, depending on who you ask :P

The last couple of months have been something of a roller coaster both professionally and personally.

I've managed to sneak the odd flight in here and there, trying to keep my hand in and learn some of the CPL skills at the same time. However, for the most part I had been holding off due to the chance of being made redundant which meant that, one, I needed to be a little careful with the funds until I had a clearer picture of how everything was going to pan out and, two, that I might soon be able to fly "full time" which would help with currency.

The last couple of weeks have been particularly bad, having picked up this years rather nasty flu that left me in bed for 3 days and nowhere near able to fly for about 2 weeks :(

To top it off last week I got my letter informing me that my services would no longer be required effective October 16th. While this was not entirely unexpected, given that we were told back in May what the master plan was which basically gave us no longer than April 2010 but possibly, it still leaves you with that slightly numb feeling to be given a set date.

Being something of a "glass half full" kind of guy, I am looking at the opportunities that have presented themselves, namely "Time" as I no longer have to be at work Mon-Fri and "Money" as I stand to get a fairly healthy payout.

So I have decided that Time+Money = full-time flying to finish off my CPL and invest in a multi-engine instrument rating. Hopefully the Spring/Summer weather will be a bit nicer than the rubbish we've had the last week or so!! ;)

When you least expect it...

2009-08-24T10:30:00.003+12:00

Saturday morning saw me drag my butt out of bed at ridiculous o'clock to drive down to Hamilton for a sim session with Trevor (and the promise of a ride in the back of the Twin Comanche, DOK)...

In typical fashion, the only thing that occurred according to plan was that we drove to Hamilton and back :P

It turned out that the twin was booked most of the day by someone else. So John, Trevor's Instructor, decided we would do a quick session in the Sim and then we would take the nice "new" Archer III, WIT, for a ride so Trevor could familiarise himself with the cockpit instruments as it has the same "glass" instruments as the Twin Comanche.

While we were at it, John decided Trevor would fly us Matamata and they'd play with all the fancy pants equipment like the 3-axis autopilot, dual Garmin 430's and the Aspen Avionics EFD1000, then we'd swap over and I could take him for some circuits and do some stalls and a forced landing etc. on the way back to Hamilton and thus get "checked to line" for Waikato Aero Club purposes.

So my cruisy day of sitting in the sim and the backseat watching proceedings quickly turned into a $200+ mini-checkride :-/

So while Trevor and John finished up in the sim, I went out and pre-flighted WIT.
There are more excellent photo's that Chris has taken over on his blog here and here. Note that these pics were taken before the avionics upgrade. You can see a demo of the Aspen EFD1000 here.

The aircraft is still in pretty good nick... it even has that nice "new car leather" smell... Ooooo Shiny! ;) My only complaints are that there isn't enough room in the back (I couldn't wear my normal headset as I simply didn't have enough headroom!! So I had to resort to my homemade headset that wraps around the back) and because of the auto-pilot, the controls are quite "heavy" as the controls are all run through servo's. Other than that, the machine is a real dream!

The "check-ride" actually went pretty well... although due to an impromptu airshow being conducted at Matamata by a homebuilt scaled-down Fockewolfe FW-190, ZK-FWI our plan for circuits ended up being the stalling and forced landing component of the ride which went pretty well, although I got a little wide on the forced landing due to the longer wing on WIT compared with LMA, so my visual references using the wing-tip to judge spacing was a bit out. To my credit I did pick up on it and corrected it as best I could.

We came back and landed at Matamata to pick up Trevor and then headed back to Hamilton to finish up for the day and head back to Auckland.

So, not quite the day we had planned, but I think it turned out pretty well... and I have finally flown an aircraft that is actually younger than I am! It's a 2004 model with around 420hours TT ;)

Sunday, I came crashing back down to "reality" as I went and did some simulated IFR and forced landing practise in one of Airline Flying Club's C-152's :( Actually, to be fair, they're pretty tidy, and fun, little aircraft... and cheaper too ;)

The IFR was OK and I did a fairly decent job with the Partial Panel work. The forced landings were a little poor, I keep getting fixated on finding a field to land in before actually running through the procedures and checks, the end result being that I get everything mixed up and it just makes things really messy.

I thought I was doing pretty well with the glide approach onto the grass until Trevor suggested I use more flaps than I thought was necessary... the end result being that we came up "a little short", and I got a first-hand lesson on just how much you can steepen an approach using flaps... and why you should never extend downwind when doing glide approaches/forced landings!

These Flights: 0.9 Dual + 1.1 Dual (0.3 IFR)
Total Hours: 216.0 (98.9/92.8 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.7 IFR)

Glide time...

2009-08-18T12:56:00.002+12:00

Glide Approaches that is.

The purpose of the glide approach is to practice the last part of the forced landing. ie. everything that happens after you hit your 1000' point abeam your 1/3 aiming point in your paddock/field/road/clearing/beach etc. Basically, as you come abeam the aiming point, you pull the power back to idle and glide the aircraft down onto the ground as if you were carrying out a forced landing. It's just that in this instance, instead of pretending to land in Farmer Joe's paddock, you land it on the runway :)

This is excellent practice, because when doing forced landing practice out in the training area, aiming for a paddock, you usually get to 500' (if solo) and say "yeah, I would get that in from here"... but you never really know for sure. Doing glide approaches, you definitely find out.

Sunday was looking a bit iffy weather-wise, but as we were planning on remaining in the circuit I was pretty confident we would be OK.

As it turns out, the iffy weather was just what I needed, as it kept everyone else on the ground meaning I had the entire circuit pretty much all to myself, making it relatively easy to get some decent glide approach practise without having to slot in amongst guys flying battleship sized circuits.

Along with the light showers and relatively low cloud base, we also had 25kt winds at circuit altitude. It was "only" 14kts gusting 20-ish on the ground, and being 20 to 30 degrees off centre meant a nice 5 to 10kt crosswind component to deal with.

Things happen quite quickly when a 25kt tailwind is increasing your normal ground speed by a 1/4! Turn downwind, make radio call, do downwind checks, initiate glide approach. Doesn't sound like it would be too difficult, until you only get about 5 seconds to do all of it!! :-/

Was quite challenging, but good fun... and unfortunately cut a little short due to approaching "bad" weather. Still, I got a good look at the effects of various techniques used to ensure you make your field... ie. making allowances for strong headwinds and turning a little tighter so as not to get blown too far downwind, carrying extra speed to get better forward penetration, losing altitude faster initially to get out of higher winds sooner, not using flaps until completely sure you're going to make the field etc.

The good news is that I "made" every approach and I think I have a much better appreciation for the approach profile that I should be aiming for when doing practice forced landings.

This Flight: 0.6 Dual
Total Hours: 214.0 (96.9/92.8 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.4 IFR)

Going around in circles...

2009-08-10T12:19:00.003+12:00

Saturday was meant to be a Sim session in the 'Tron, watching Trevor get put through the multi-engine emergency procedures wringer... However, due to some confusion over dates, we got all the way there to find no instructor!

So we decided to do a BIG circle and headed over to Matamata for a look-see... great 'little' airfield with quite a bit happening... at least on the gliding front.

Sunday, was 'revision' day for me. Trevor and I headed out to the Training Area for the first time in months to see if I could remember how to actually handle an aircraft. Medium Turns, Steep Turns, Basic Stalls, Approach Stalls and a couple of Forced Landings. Not too shabby, but definitely not perfect my any means.

Then we tried some of the CPL level manoeuvres... Steep Gliding Turns and Max-rate Turns.

After getting a good bicep workout trying to hold the aircraft level while whizzing about in circles as fast as possible, we went through the basics of the CAA's new favourite topic 'slow flight'. As the name suggests, you fly slow... maintain straight and level and then try a couple of turns. Not exactly rocket science, but is now part of the flight tests... yay! :-/

Was a good blowout... and really emphasised how different the aircraft handling is compared with flying 1 hour legs from A to B!

This Flight: 1.4 Dual
Total Hours: 213.4 (96.3/92.8 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.4 IFR)

One step closer...

2009-07-27T11:48:00.005+12:00

and another sticker in the log book.

The latest one declares that I have successfully completed the CPL Cross Country Syllabus and passed the cross country flight test. :)

After not being anywhere near an aircraft for almost a month due to weather and prior commitments, I got a call from CFI Rob last wednesday... "Long range forecast looks good for the weekend, let's go flying!"

Saturday was just too good a day not to go flying. Light winds, and visibility forever.

I flight planned Ardmore (NZAR) - Hamilton (NZHN) - Taumarunui (NZTM) - Taupo (NZAP) - Ardmore (NZAR).

Being a cross-country flight test, I knew that out of all of those, I was likely to only visit Hamilton (and Ardmore :P) and everything else would be a combination of lost procedures and diversions!

We started with a simulated engine failure after take-off (yay... lots of sports fields and paddocks off the end of runway 21!) and then headed for Hamilton. We made it in and out of NZHN relatively unscathed... and then we started the various "fun activities" that Rob had planned.

First of all we had the forced landing, cunningly disguised as "a ground speed check". Obviously I was caught a little off-guard, but I did OK. It was not great and I got a little low, but I made my field. Climbing out, Rob handed me the instrument hood. This is where the lack of currency really showed. I got the leans about 3 seconds after putting the hood on and it took me a minute or two to really get on top of the aircraft :(

We flew around for 10 or 12 minutes at which point Rob told me to take the hood off. My first reaction was "How the !@#$@# did I get into this valley?" We were at 1700' and had been holding a steady altitude the entire time I was under the hood, as I was in this bowl shaped valley, completed surround by hills that were higher than we were flying!!

My next reaction was "Where the $##@$^ is this valley?" when Rob said to me "Ok, remain at 1700' and tell me where we are and what that town over there is called."

We circled over the top of the town, while I put my "Lost Procedures" into practise... "Ok, about 10 minutes flying at roughly 90kts, should put us around 15nm from where I put on the hood... we were mainly flying headings from 090 to 130 magnetic... so that should put us in this general area on the map..."

"How can you confirm that?" asked Rob.

"Ok, we have a railway line over there... some transmission lines... and the road following the railway line and then curving away through the valley while the railway goes through a tunnel. That would match up with these features on the map... so we are here and that town is XXXXXXXX." (removed to keep it secret for future victims... errr I mean students -ed.)

"Excellent" said Rob, "Spot on!"

I must at this point give a big shout out to Trevor for giving me the low down on lost procedures. Despite knowing where this spot is, he had refused to tell me... no matter how much bourbon I offered! ;)

But his advice of noting the time when entering IFR, so I could calculate the time spent in IFR conditions, plus keeping tabs on the general direction of flight so as to be able to narrow down the area on the map was spot on.

Rob then instructed me to set course for Tokoroa, work out how far it was and how long it was going to take to get there. So out came the map, a rough course hand drawn and heading worked out. Distance calculated using fingers (2 of my fingers = 10nm ;) 30 nautical miles at roughly 90kts will take us around 20 minutes. I called up Christchurch Information to amend our flight plan, give them our rough ETA at Tokoroa[1] and amend my SARTIME.

After Tokoroa, it was VFR nav back to Ardmore, doing ground speed checks and amending my ETA at Ardmore[2] all while avoiding controlled airspace around Hamilton and trying really hard to ignore the cramp that was developing in my bum from being stuck in a 152 for 3 hours!!!

After landing, we debriefed over a cup of tea at which point Rob said somewhat matter of factly "oh.. by the way... you passed" and shook my hand ;)

This Flight: 3.0 Dual (0.2 IFR)
Total Hours: 212.0 (94.9/92.8 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.4 IFR)

[1] - My mental arithmetic was actually not too bad... I was only off by about 1 minute ;)
[2] - You get +/- 2 minutes for your ETA's at CPL level... I was bang on ;)

One engine good, Two engines better?

2009-07-07T13:47:00.004+12:00

Not necessarily!

Saturday, I was back in the Sim at Waikato Aero Club, watching Trevor get back up to speed with Multi-Engine flying...

Light twins don't traditionally cope too well with an engine failure... and watching what happens when one dies was certainly a wakeup call!

As the old saying goes "When one engine fails on a twin-engine aircraft, you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash."

In a single engine aircraft, when it all goes quiet, you're basically a glider and the aerodynamics are pretty much the same (minus of course the thrust). The aircraft will generally fly pretty straight... but, of course, not so much level! ;-)

In a twin, when one engine goes out, everything changes. The thrust line is now offset from the centreline of the aircraft (asymmetric thrust), with the result being that it wants to constantly yaw left or right, depending on which engine has died, as one side of the aircraft is trying to fly faster than the other!

You're then left trying to troubleshoot while trying to maintain control of an unstable aircraft... and for added fun, you can try it with only reference to instruments!

The idea of keeping aviation as a 'fun hobby' is starting to look more and more appealing! :-/

Following the sim session, I almost scored a ride in the back of WIT (WAC's newish Archer III), but unfortunately, they were pushing a little close to maximum weight as it was full of fuel :(

Meanwhile, I'm hoping to catch some nice weather soon so I can get the Cross-Country Syllabus completed and tick another of the CPL boxes!

Things that DO suck

2009-06-25T12:37:00.002+12:00

Sadistic Flight Instructors

Flat batteries in your Camera

Trevor managed to get yesterday off work, and the fine weather was still hanging in there, so we decided to finish the dual flight that we had aborted on Sunday due to the vacuum pump failure.

AR-(AP)-(MA)-TG, Divert (TH)-AR
The "plan" was to fly Ardmore (NZAR) - Taupo (NZAP) - Matamata (NZMA) - Tauranga (NZTG) - Ardmore (NZAR). But as I have discovered with dual CPL cross countries, what you plan and what you fly are two very different things :P

The trip to Taupo was pretty good. The winds were 'lightish' so the flying conditions were relatively smooth and the visibility was excellent. We could actually see Mt. Ruapehu while overhead Drury, which is a distance of about 250km!!!

I was really looking forward to getting some good photos of the mountains and Lake Taupo, until I handed my camera to Trevor and asked him to take some photos and he discovered that the batteries in the camera, which had been working perfectly in the morning, were now completely flat :( As I was too busy flying the aircraft and trying to do ground speed checks, plan my top of decent, look out for other aircraft and make radio calls, I couldn't be bothered trying to dig my cellphone out of my flight bag to try to get some pics on that...

I think I know what I want for my BDay/Christmas now... a nice little 'point and shoot' digital camera with a battery life longer than about 3 minutes :P

Anyway, we stopped in Taupo, gassed up, I had a bite to eat and visited the little boys room while Trevor checked out a car he is thinking of buying. Then we headed off into the clear blue skies and bade farewell to the snowy capped mountains and silky smooth lake and headed for Matamata.

After deciding I was a little bit off course, Trevor decided I should do a "1 in 60" to get to Matamata. Effectively you work out "Distance Off course divided by Distance Flown" and "Distance Off Course divided by Distance to Go". The first gives you the track error so far (usually a result of the wind not being what was forecast), and if you correct by that much you will end up paralleling your original track, but you will still be off course. In my case 2 nm miles off course after 25 miles flying or ~4 degrees. The 2nd calculation gives you the closing angle to arrive at your intended destination, so I needed to correct 2nm over the remaing 37 miles to Matamata (~3 degrees), resulting in a total correction of 4+3 or 7 degrees.

Now if it all sounds a bit like hard work trying to divide all sorts of random numbers in your head... you are right! That's why we use an "E-6B Flight Computer"... basically a fancy circular slide rule that makes a lot of aviation related calculations really easy ;)

The E-6B "Whizzwheel"
The "1 in 60" worked out pretty good, and I ended up pretty close (less than 1 mile) from Matamata. We dodged our way around the gliders, tanked up with gas and made ready to depart. At which point I learned that a 152, with 2 people on board and full tanks doesn't really depart that well from a runway consisting of relatively long grass! Even with shortfield technique we burned an awful lot of runway, but made it into the air eventually and with plenty of room to spare.

I was just commenting to Trevor that it was an awfully long take-off roll when he pulled the throttle 1/2 closed and called simulating. Lower the nose, Carb Heat On, Throttle Closed, Pick a paddock, Fuel/Mixture/Ignition Off. I hadn't seen the Engine Failure after take-off coming!!

He was satisified with my choice of paddock and we would have made it quite comfortably, so he called go-around and we climbed away on track to Tauranga. I had just got up to 2500' feet and managed to get Christchurch Info on the radio and pushed my SARTIME out when Trevor looked at me with a big grin and "Did I say Tauranga?? Oh, I meant Thames... oh and look at all that crappy weather (Clear Blue skies, visibility of around 60km :-/), ceiling is now 1500'"... So I started my diversion to Thames.

Due to the "crappy weather", I ended up with a ceiling of 800', so I was low (and slow) flying at 700' at 70knots. I called up CH Info and amended my flight plan and started heading for Thames. Eventually, "the weather" cleared and I was allowed to climb back up to 2500'. Just as I got there, and had everything sorted out and was planning my approach into Thames, Trevor pulled the throttle and said simulating.... AARRGGGHHH!!!

I was a bit rusty on the procedure for the forced landing, but I picked my paddock, planned an approach and would have put it in without too much trouble.

The nice long runway (14/32) at Thames is currently closed for maintenance, so I had the really short 500m runway (05/23) with a lovely approach for runway 23 that takes you quite close to some seriously high ground. I flew a really nice shortfield approach, touching down right on the threshold at minimal speed and blasted off again with plenty of room to spare. :D

I set heading for Ardmore and as usually seems to be the case, ended up arriving at the same time as everyone else :( I was just coming up to Hunua at 2000' and was about to report my position and intentions, when no less than 3 other aircraft all reported claiming to be exactly where I was! :-O I could only see one other aircraft and he was about 5 miles away!!!

I decided to stay out of the mix and gave everyone plenty of room and I slotted myself into a gap in the circuit traffic and landed without too much bother.

I was quite happy to be back on the ground after such an 'eventful' flight... and I definitely need to go and do some forced landing procedure revision before my cross-country flight test!

This Flight: 3.7 Dual (242 nm)
Total Hours: 209.0 (91.9/92.8 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.2 IFR)

Things that don't suck...

2009-06-23T23:01:00.004+12:00

Broken Vacuum Pumps

Getting released from Jury Service on the first morning

Large High Pressure weather systems covering the country in blue skies and sunshine

On Sunday, I had been planning a dual cross country with Trevor. Everything was looking good until about 1/2 an hour into the flight. We were overhead Lake Waikere, about 5 miles east of Huntly and noticed that the AH had fallen over. Thats when I noticed the Suction Gauge was reading right off the top end of the meter. Just as I said to Trevor "I wonder how long until the DI plays up?", The DI started doing it's best impression of a roulette wheel. Technically, an AH and a DI are not required for VFR flight, but seeing as we were so close to home, I decided to abort the flight and returned to Ardmore.

Monday, was the beginning of Jury Service... I was actually kind of keen (read as: curious) to go along and see what it was all about. So I headed down to the courthouse on Monday and sat in a room with about 100 or so others (most of whom were just interested in when they could go home).

After an hour or so, they did the 'lottery' and called up a whole bunch of people and sent them off to the various courtrooms... The rest of us sat around for another hour or so at which point they did another lottery for a trial that was due to start on Wednesday and then told everyone else they could go...

Seeing as how I had already arranged for most of the week off and the weather for the next couple of days was looking pretty good, I called my boss and asked if I could have Tuesday and Wednesday as annual leave.

So instead of debating guilt or innocence, I spent the week flying :)

Trevor was unable to get Tuesday off work, so I headed off for another Solo cross country. This time, I headed up North, hoping it might be a little warmer up there... I was wrong :(

Cold, frosty start
AR - WR - KK - KT - o/h WP - AR
I had planned for Ardmore (NZAR) - Whangarei (NZWR) - Kerikeri (NZKK) - Kaitaia (NZKT) - Ardmore (NZAR). The winds were a bit shifty at Whangarei, and even with full flap and power at idle, I was only descending at about 100' per minute! The end result was that I ended up high and executed a go-around. The next approach was much better and I got in with no trouble. I taxied back to the holding point and departed for Kerikeri. It was as quiet as always at Kerikeri, so I filled up with avgas, paid my landing fee in the Honesty Box and headed for Kaitaia.

Welcome to the Bay of Islands!
Tiger Country!
I noted on arrival in Kaitaia that the aircraft seemed to be burning a lot more fuel that it should be... I filled up again and made a mental note to check this with Chris when I got back to Ardmore. As it turns out, the dipstick was calibrated incorrectly (it was under-reading by about 5 litres), so I actually had more fuel than I thought.

Kaitaia Airport
Kaipara Harbour at 4500', Nice and smooth but hazy
Following a suggestion that Chris had made before I left, after departing Kaitaia, I amended my flightplan to fly down the Kaipara Harbour and overhead the airforce base at Whenuapai (NZWP) and cut across their control zone back to the city. Some new airspace for me, and a slightly different perspective of the Harbour Bridge and CBD :)

Cleared to overfly the tower, 2500' VFR, Juliet Foxtrot Yankee
Approaching the Harbour Bridge from the west
Overhead the Harbour Bridge - Awesome weather
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. Ardmore was actually pretty quiet for a change. Usually about 10 aircraft all arrive at the same time that I do! I secured the aircraft and went to have a well earned beer ;)

The trusty steed - JFY

Flights: 1.0 Dual + 4.3 Solo (295 nm)
Total Hours: 205.3 (88.2/92.8 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.2 IFR)

Upstairs, Downstairs

2009-06-20T21:48:00.008+12:00

The atmosphere is truly a strange and bizarre place...

Take today for instance, downstairs on the ground it was light and variable winds, while upstairs at 2000' it was 30+ knots!!

I was somewhat apprehensive, given some of the forecasts were for 45 to 50knots, and some of the terrain on my planned route was "less than flat" ;) But given that the skies were clear and this is CPL level you cannot let a little bit of wind stop you!

I had flight planned for Ardmore (NZAR) - Tauranga (NZTG) - Taumarunui (NZTM) - Raglan (NZRA) - Ardmore (NZAR), a nice little 265 nautical mile route that was a bit of a mix of new and old.

The flight out to Tauranga was fairly uneventful and relatively smooth until crossing the Coromandel Ranges where, as expected, the southerly winds were generating some turbulence. I met a student from CTC, also on a solo cross country, at the fuel pumps and we traded some small talk about the cold weather and how annoying leaky cabin air vents are when you're trying to keep warm at 3500'! ;)

Clear and smooth
I tanked up just in case there was no fuel at Taumarunui and made ready for departure. Despite there being a quite a few arrivals and departures, everything was flowing pretty well so I didn't have much of a wait and was cleared ontrack to Taumarunui (yay, no complicated departure procedure).

The leg to Taumarunui was a little more interesting than the first one to Tauranga. At one point I swear JFY was moving left, up, right and down all at the same time! The lenticular cloud forming over the central mountains was a fairly good indication that the forecast winds had indeed arrived... as was the concrete mixer like flying conditions! :-/

The terrain was also more 'interesting'... a series of deep gullies with very steep sides and large sections of almost perfectly flat land between. As opposed to the normal 'rough' terrain that appears to be sharp ridges rising up, this looked like large areas of earth had been scooped out.

A great shot, ruined by turbulence dropping a wing
NZ's answer to the Grand Canyon?
After topping off the tanks again, I finally had a chance to pickup a tail wind as I set course for Raglan. While it made the groundspeed faster, it didn't help all that much with the turbulence ;) Still, the views were kinda cool...

There was a small airforce at Raglan... several Cessna 185 tail draggers, a Cherokee 140, a Fletcher, a Cessna 206 Stationair and a Hughes Helicopter. An RV 'homebuilt' and another Cherokee arrived shortly after I landed. I just hoping everyone wandered over to the camp ground office and paid their $5 landing fee like I did!

Busy busy at Raglan
And then back home... in somewhat record time. I had flightplanned 21 minutes flying at something like 135 knots groundspeed. I had landed, taxiied back to the Airline Flying Club apron and shutdown in 20!!! :-o

In other news, I have reached (exactly) 200 hours total time! :D

CPL here I come...

This Flight: 3.8 Dual (265 nm)
Total Hours: 200.0 (87.2/88.5 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.2 IFR)

An expensive week...

2009-06-08T11:39:00.004+12:00

I think that must be the most money I have spent on aviation in one week that didn't involve international air travel!!

After the first 2 CPL cross countries, I decided that a 3rd seemed like a good idea :-/

Originally, the intent had been to have CFI Rob as PinC again, with Trevor in the back getting a bit of a "live" refresher on CPL Cross Countries, so I could finish off the syllabus with him. We had a spare seat, so invited one of Trevor's PPL students along so she could get some practise at map-reading, navigating and the use of AIP aerodrome charts etc.

Unfortunately, about 15 minutes prior to our planned departure, Rob decided he was not feeling to flash (turns out he had an ear infection), so decided that Trevor would conduct the flight. They disappeared into a briefing room to plot all manner of evil schemes for the flight, while I filed the flightplan.

The planned flight was Ardmore (NZAR) - Kaikohe (NZKO) - Kerikeri (NZKK) - Whangarei (NZWR) - Ardmore (NZAR), but being a CPL cross-country, I was expecting diversions, so I made sure I had the AIP plates for the surrounding airfields like Dargaville, Kaitaia & North Shore handy. As it turned out, the 'surprise' exercise for the day was instrument flying... I had not done any IFR flying for a looooong time, October 2008, so I was a little alarmed when flying the first leg Trevor turned around and retrieved the instrument hood from the back seat and handed it to me :( I had not even seen him put the hood in the aircraft, so it was something of a shock.

Anyway, I managed to keep the aircraft the right way (shiny side) up, and pointing in the general direction that I was instructed to, and managed to hold my altitude fairly well despite the lumpy conditions. After about 10 to 15 minutes, Trevor told me to take the hood off, which I was really thankful for... until he asked me where we were!!

I had figured we were flying for a little of 10 minutes, and roughly knew the direction we had been heading in, so had a vague idea... but trying to pinpoint your location is a real exercise. Thankfully, the 'Far North' is a relatively 'thin' piece of land, so there is not too many places to go... there is also the enormous Kaipara Harbour to help pinpoint your position. I was trying to using railroads, transmission lines and tunnels to help pinpoint where I was. As it turns out, we were a long way off track and it actually took me a couple of goes to figure out exactly where I was... but I soon had it nailed down and we proceeded to Kaikohe without any further problems... until all the wind disappeared as I was crossing the threshold and the cherokee decided it didn't want to fly anymore :-/ Exciting stuff... not!

We tanked up with gas, triple-checking the fuel drains as I don't trust the watertightness of these 'out of the way' airfields that don't get a lot of fuel turnover. I dropped some coins in the honesty box to cover the landing fees and with everything in order we headed to Kerikeri and I got a lesson in time management. The leg is quite short... only about 10 or 12 miles and we had a 20 to 25knot tail wind... making it a planned leg of around 7 minutes! Pro-tip: Listen out on the destination frequency and see if you can get an idea of traffic and runway in use before you depart!

I joined overhead, established wind direction and best runway to use, landed, back-tracked and departed for Whangarei. After dodging a Beech 1900D and a much better approach and landing, we headed to the Terminal Building to enjoy a bite to eat... only to discover the cafe was closed while the owner had gone to pick up her son! We waited around for about half an hour or so and they returned and I finally got to enjoy the 'Double Happy' (double sized sausage roll) that I had been looking forward to all day!

Fed and watered, we all climbed back in and departed for home. The final leg becoming a lesson in weather avoidance as we "dodged, ducked, dipped, dived and dodged" rain showers on the trip south. As I had discovered on my trip to hamilton a few weeks ago... making sure you have an escape route is a really good idea. Thankfully, I didn't need to use any of them, as most of the large patches of weather were just that, patches... so we were able to fly around, between and under them.

There were lots of backup plans, like Omaha Flats airstrip, Spring Hill, Kaipara Flats and North Shore available should anything really bad come our way, but soon enough the Whangaparoa Peninsular and Auckland City came into view and we could see the weather was, not necessarily nice but clear...

So we ducked down to 1000' to use the VFR transit lane through Whenuapai's airspace and VFR'd our way back through the harbour area to Ardmore.

Plenty to talk about in the debrief, with lots of really useful tips from Trevor which I have filed away for future reference.

So I am now about 1/2 way through the CPL Cross Country Syllabus... and about 3/4 way through the available credit on my credit card!!! :-O

This Flight: 3.7 Dual (241 nm, 0.2 IFR)
Total Hours: 196.2 (87.2/84.7 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.2 IFR)

On the clock...

2009-06-05T14:18:00.014+12:00

I've taken the plunge and commenced my CPL Cross Country training... I have 12 months to finish it off. Tick Tock... Tick Tock.

Rather than wait for the good weather and a weekend to arrive at the same time, I caught myself a bad case of 'Midweek Altitude Sickness'... Twice! ;) 9 hours over 2 days...

Wednesday and Thursday were ideal VFR flying conditions. A big fat high sitting over the country (Pressure was 1033 over the entire country on Wed!), with clear blue skies and temperatures in single digits.

I went flying with CFI Rob on Wednesday, with the route Ardmore (NZAR) - New Plymouth (NZNP) - Taumarunui (NZTM) - Ardmore (NZAR). I was told to expect a diversion in there somewhere. This turned out to be between New Plymouth and Taumarunui... where I was instructed to fly to Ohakune. It is shown on the charts, but not in the AIP. Turns out it is a private strip, owned by CFI Rob's 2nd Cousin, who owns one of the Ski shops in Ohakune.

A very interesting little one-way strip with a curved approach, sitting at 2000' AMSL. Good fun!

I was concentrating on height and heading holding, and over all I think I did a good job. During the debrief Rob said flying-wise there was not too much to be concerned about, but I needed to improve the efficiency of my ground work, as you only get 1 hour once given the route to flight plan and pre-flight. I took about probably about 1hour 10mins... No real drama's, just a little out of practise.

During the flight itself, Rob emphasised the things they were looking for in 'professional' pilots... constantly assessing the situation and always planning ahead. The necessity for this became apparent during the diversion when we flew over some real 'tiger' country. Very rugged with large expanses of forest that would just swallow a light aircraft. Being constantly on the lookout for likely landing spots should an emergency arise, while accurately flying, map-reading, being aware of controlled airspace etc... makes for a very busy pilot ;)

Quite a long day at 4.6 hours of flight time, over 300+nm's distance and a shade over 6 hours of 'real' time (7 if you include the groundwork).

During the debrief, he asked when I would be interested in doing a solo flight. I told him I already had the aircraft booked for the following day!

So on Thursday, I got up and did it all over again... only on my own and without the diversion. I decided on another 300+nm flight, as it is a requirement for a C-Cat, so will help out later on. Rob (and Trevor) suggested Gisborne, and while it sounded like fun, I didn't fancy spending 2+ hrs flying back on a westerly heading directly into the sun. So, I flight planned for Ardmore (NZAR) - Whakatane (NZWK) - Opotiki (NZOP) - Taupo (NZAP) - Raglan (NZRA) - Ardmore (NZAR), which is just over 320nms. I checked the weather, and it looked like I was going to fly a large circle around a huge patch of fog covering most of the Waikato and north of the Central Plateau. Which, as you can see from the pics below, I did!

I ended up delayed a little, due to the severe ice buildup on the aircraft overnight and a minor "technical difficulty" (read as: Engineers taking aircraft for a compass swing), but other than that it was a great day.

Please excuse the photo-quality, I was sure I'd be too busy flying the aircraft to be fluffing about taking photos, so I didn't bother taking a camera. However, the views were just too good not too, so they're off my cellphone. They really don't do do justice to the stunning sights to be had around our country!

Overhead the southern end of the Hunua Valley, looking south towards Lake Waikare and Huntly.

Tauranga and the Mount... looking pleasant as always

Whakatane was it's usual deserted self... and despite the "Variable 5knots" winds, it still managed a nice crosswind :). I soon, after about 5 minutes of looking, discovered that they've moved the landing fee honesty box. It's now tucked away in the airside entrance to the terminal building.

Opotiki was much nicer than my previous visit. And my approach and landing was about a million times better!

The 'Cloud Factories' north of Taupo

Taupo was busy with helicopters in the circuit, about 3 different sky-diving operations running and various transient aircraft. I thought about stopping here for lunch, but parking space was at a bit of a premium, so I decided to head off after a quick snack (mmmm One Square Meal).

Not going anywhere in a hurry

Notice the fog to the left, clear to the right

Picture Postcard Perfect

Raglan was quiet. REALLY quiet. But the locals are very friendly and after paying my landing fee at the camp office, I asked if there was anywhere close by that I could get a bite to eat and a drink as I needed a break after being couped up in a 152 for 4 hours. The office lady suggested the camp store. So I called the National Briefing Office and added an hour to my SARTIME and went for a look.

Pro-tip of the Day: The camp store at Raglan makes great fish and chips ;)

It was perfect afternoon... blue sky, sunshine, great food and a cold drink...

I thanked the ladies at the store and headed back to the airfield before departing for home, once the people walking their dog across the airstrip were safely out of the way! :-/

Glad I decided against that return trip directly into the sun...

All up, 4.4 Hours flight time and 320+nm's... Much better than sitting at my desk :P Must remember to thank my (very understanding) boss!

Flights: 4.6 Dual (334 nm) + 4.4 PinC Night (326 nm)
Total Hours: 192.5 (83.5/84.7 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Doing a favour

2009-05-30T07:46:00.001+12:00

My Boss recently got married, and as such, had a lot of his family from the UK visiting. As a favour to him, I took his dad, who is quite keen on flying, and his dad's partner for a scenic flight over the city. As it turns out, my boss also tagged along, despite his "concerns" over flying in light aircraft ;)

We had originally planned to go the day before (which, of course, had perfect weather), but it clashed with the Champions League Final, so my boss and his dad were busy getting wrecked watching ManU lose (muahahaha!), so I didn't think it was the best time to put them in a light aircraft...

It wasn't the best day for it... as there were a few showers in the area that meant we couldnt get much higher than around 1500' and the visibility was pretty variable. You could just see Great Barrier Island in one direction (about 50nm's) but the North Shore was hidden in a dark grey murk (about 5nm's). Over the central city was nice and clear though, so we managed to get to see some good sights and the ride was surprisingly smooth.

Despite my feelings that it wasn't the greatest day for it, everyone else had a great time (even my boss the nervous flier!) and got a lot of pics and videos and declared it to be a fantastic flight :)

This Flight: 1.0 PinC
Total Hours: 183.5 (78.9/80.3 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

A "Free" prize

2009-05-25T21:14:00.000+12:00

I had received a call from Edna at the Waikato Aero Club to tell me that I had won a spot prize after filling in an entry form at the Open Day a few weeks ago.

So I decided that I would claim my "free" prize by flying down and picking it up (and spending about $300 in the process :P)

Weather was looking good, although the forecast was for a front to move up from the south later in the day bringing some rather crappy weather. As it turns out, this front was moving a little faster than forecast! It probably didn't help that we were steaming into a 20 to 25knot headwind all the way to Hamilton.

We ran into a wall of grey just as we were entering the control zone at Hamilton. The rain was quite heavy and the vis dropped pretty rapidly, but I could still see the airport and behind me was clear blue sky, so I was happy to continue with the approach.

Following some interesting vectoring from ATC and a real greaser of a landing (20 knots on the nose always helps ;), I commenced the long taxi to the aeroclub. This was due to the fact that the airport company has decided to dig up the grass 18/36 runway... and pave it! creating what will be NZ's only parallel paved runways (Technically, NZAA has parallel runways, but they're using one as a taxiway)...

I secured the aircraft, ran inside and claimed my prize. Due to the weather I thought it prudent to depart immediately, so I headed back out into the rain.

By this time we were operating Special VFR, as we were at minimums. Nothing too bad, just poor vis. But it was still clear to the north and we had the luxury of radar and ATC, so away we went. By the time we got to Te Rapa, the rain had eased, we easily had 10k vis and By the time we were over Ngaruwahia, we were back in brilliant sunshine with clear blue skies!

The 20 knot tailwind made for a quick trip home, and we were back on the ground at Ardmore in no time.

Trevor commented that it was good experience, flying in marginal weather, and that he was impressed with my decision making and that I had at all times been keeping an eye on my 'escape route'.

The only downer on the whole experience was that the prize, a really nice jacket, didn't bloody fit!!! So jade now has a nice new, warm, waterproof, fleece-lined jacket :P

This Flight: 1.9 PinC
Total Hours: 181.6 (78.9/79.3 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Wet and/or windy...

2009-05-06T21:43:00.003+12:00

So after finishing all my CPL exams, I have been busting to get stuck into the CPL flying... a large component of which is the CPL Cross Country Syllabus.

Unfortunately, the weather gods are once again tormenting me by hurling large amounts of wind and rain at me on weekends... and making Mondays and Tuesdays lovely and sunny :(

And of course, the day after my mate's "Stag Day" (when I was no where near passing the "I'M SAFE" check) it was blue sky and sunshine... *sigh*

However, as my wife will no doubt attest, I am very very VERY stubborn... so I shall continue to defy the weather gods and continue booking aircraft on weekends until I get these flights done... or it becomes summer again ;)

I am once again thinking that, as this winter is looking a bit nasty, I might push the IR up the schedule... that way I will get to spend the crappy days in the simulator... rather than sitting on the couch at the aeroclub drinking tea and talking bollocks...

In the meantime, I will continue to read the Instrument Rating study guides and prepare for the exams, do the odd flight when I can (I have done a couple of scenic flights and some night flying) to help keep my hand in...

And keep prepping for my cross-country flights ;)

Flights: 0.8 PinC + 0.8 PinC Night
Total Hours: 180.6 (78.9/77.4 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Membership has its privileges...

2009-04-04T21:10:00.021+13:00

Air New Zealand Technical Operations held an open day out at Auckland International for staff and family today... and jade (knowing how much of a 'Tech Geek' I am) was more than happy to take me along. She also invited her sister Pearl, a naturally 'inquisitive' person ;) and Pearl's husband Greg, who is an engineer by trade and, like myself, a bit of a 'Tech Geek'...

I suggested we get there as early as possible, which turned out to be the best decision of the day, as we finished looking at the last of the things to see pretty much right on finishing time.

The various trades amongst TechOps had setup various displays in their departments and we wandered around looking at some pretty cool stuff... and talking to some very interesting characters who were, in general, pretty eager to talk about their world.

We started with the calibration unit, which tests and calibrates a lot of the equipment used by the various TechOps departments. One of the highlights of which was completely unrelated to their actual function... They had a little laptop connected to a projector and webcam which was using motion tracking as you walked past the webcam to pan the view on the projector[1] ;)

They other highlight was the little 'pads' they use to weigh aircraft. A group of kids were trying to get the scales to read 747... as the info sign said a 747 weighed something like 178,000Kg's... They were happy that such a big guy as myself showed up[2]... and not just because I helped them cheat by changing the display to pounds! :P

Following this, we made our way to the main hangar and apron area where they had several aircraft on display like a 777-200, a couple of 747's, an RNZAF Hercules, a 737, an old jetstream j32, the warbirds DC-3, an old tiger-moth and the little Cri-Cri...

First up we had a nosey around and in the 777-200. It is a truly impressive piece of kit... the sheer size of everything just blows you away. I'm sure the wheel wells are bigger than our old apartment and the tyres themselves are almost 5ft in diameter! This one was in the shop having an internal refit to put in more premium economy seats.

Plenty of room under a 777-200

Jade thought it was quite amusing that the tyres had Boeing Part numbers on them... mind you, she also thought the person dressed as B1 (from Bananas in Pajamas) was amusing too...

need a spare? just calling Boeing and order one!

Then we 'queued' our way up the stairs for a peek inside... not much to see as they had walled off the main cabin due to the refit, but at least we got to visit the flightdeck.

Made it... LHS of a heavy :)

They had some engines in various states of repair on display and had set one up for photo ops. To give you some sense of scale, I am 6' 3".

Yeah, they're pretty big...

We wandered outside to have a peek at the RNZAF C-130 Hercules, as I was hoping to get some flightdeck shots. While we were climbing up the ramp they towed another 747 onto the apron area and jade got all artistic...

The world famous Koru... from the belly of a C-130

As is usually the case, we queued... and queued... This led to jade getting a little bored and, being part of the AirNZ Safety and Employment Wellbeing team, she started taking some very random 'safety related' pics...

Safety first...

In case you didn't pay attention...

Surprisingly comfortable

We finally made it to the front, only by the time we got there, the guys keeping an eye on things must have decided they needed a bit of a rest and had pulled the ladder out and taped the flightdeck off, so all we could do was poke our heads up into the flightdeck area for a nosy :(

So, we headed off to what jade likes to call 'A Real Aeroplane'(tm)... otherwise known as a 747. After an enormously long wait[3], we finally made it onto the upper level and onto the flightdeck...

Let's take this puppy for a spin!

jade getting artistic again...

A nice bit of tail

We wandered around the 'hobby' section, where various TechOps guys had their 'toys' on display... everything from model RC aircraft, drag bikes, blo-karts, a hovercraft, a Ford 429 Cobra, a simply stunning Mini Cooper, a tiger moth and the Cri-Cri, to a 'world famous' brewer displaying some of his wares (here's hoping I win the raffle for 4 bottles of his limited edition India Pale Ale! ;)

We then headed off to some of the quieter sections... like the 'Safety' section, which was all about fire fighting equipment and life rafts... The staff member on hand was really friendly and seemed thrilled that we were interested in something as 'boring' as life rafts... but when you find out they can inflate a liferaft the size of my double garage in less than 6 seconds, well I find that kind of thing pretty cool! What actually surprised me the most, was they way they actually inflate. I always thought they were like the lifejackets and they had gas stored in a little canister and this is used to inflate the raft.

However, the gas canisters are not used directly to inflate them as they are actually only about the size of normal scuba diving tank (although they're made of aluminium and carbon fibre and pressurised to 3,000 PSI), so they don't hold anywhere near enough gas to inflate the huge liferafts... What they do is feed the gas into an 'aspirator' (basically a large venturi tube arrangement) which creates a huge vacuum and basically sucks in all the air required... quite ingenious really.

We also found out that as the material the liferafts are made out of had a limited lifespan, they don't just keep rolls of it on the shelf waiting for you to order a US$85,000 liferaft for your 767. Nope, they make the material when you place your order, which results in a lead time of some 120 days to get a new liferaft! So, if you want one for christmas, you'd better order now ;)

Pearl testing out a liferaft...

Following this we went to Air New Zealand Gas Turbines... who, ironically, don't actually service the gas turbine engines for aircraft... but for ships and oil-rigs!!! We ran into a really nice guy who, when he figured out I was actually genuinely interested[4], gave us a personal mini-tour and answered all of our questions. He quoted some very impressive numbers... 25,000 hours between overhaul for the engines... 10,000RPM when running near maximum... each blade on the turbine is worth about USD$7,000 and just the turbine component of the engine was worth around USD$1.85million... they had a unit on display with about 4 or 5 blades that had huge chunks taken out of them... "Most probably a nut went through the engine"... yikes!

Then he showed us a unit they had recently finished overhauling and were packaging up ready to ship out. Apparently, they don't come in quite as clean as this :P

General Electric LM2500 - Ready for export

We wandered through the composites section and had a look at various bits and pieces of carbon fibre, fibreglass, honeycomb and the way repairs are made etc... It never ceases to amaze me how something so thin and light can be so strong! We headed back to the main hanger to see if the queue for the scissor lift had got any shorter, as jade was keen for a ride, but if anything the queue was even longer, so we decided to give it a miss and call it a day.

On the way out stopped off to have a look at the 'Simulator Simulator'... I'm not sure what the purpose of this unit is exactly, but I get the feeling it is used to let crew familiarise themselves with the layout of the instrument panel.

I think this gauge is faulty...

All in all, a very fun and informative day out...

[1] I really am a geek...
[2] We made it to 747 too!
[3] At least they had plenty of seats :P
[4] I do after all have to study Basic Gas Turbine theory at some point... oh and I am a geek ;)

Under pressure...

2009-04-03T16:28:00.003+13:00

1033 hectopascals to be precise ;)

A (very) high pressure system has been sitting on the country for the last couple of days... and as they pointed out during "Principles of Flight and Performance", High Pressure + Low Temperature = Awesome Performance. So, I figured I was in for a little fun last evening.

I was somewhat un-current at night, so I decided I would take the 152, 172 and Cherokee and do my 3 take-offs and landings. I pre-flighted DJU (the 172) and LMA (the Cherokee) and double checked I had enough gas... which I did. Chris and CFI Rob were taking JBL (the 152) for a quick jolly, so the plan was to go 172, 152 and finish with LMA.

I was under a little time pressure, as the night circuits curfew kicks in at 2230hrs local, but thankfully the circuit was pretty much empty, so I didn't have to worry too much about other aircraft. With the conditions the way they were, DJU leapt off the ground and I struggled to keep the airspeed below 80kts and was still climbing at over 1000' per minute!

I was feeling a little rusty... and the GPS track (yay, the GPS on my new phone + OziExplorer works really well!) kind of bears witness to this.

What a mess...

After taxiing back in, I pre-flighted JBL as Rob and Chris had returned, double-checked I had enough gas, had a quick pitstop and taxied out. I was feeling more comfortable for the 2nd lot of circuits, as the GPS track for that flight shows... Not too shabby if I do say so myself ;)

The way it should be...

And then it was time to take LMA... I was really pushing the curfew cut-off, taking out at 2210, but I snuck in 2 circuits before 2230 and vacated to the city for a quick scenic cruise. After flying up the harbour, I rounded SkyTower, headed out to One Tree Hill and requested (and was given) permission to enter the control zone to overfly NZAA and take a shortcut back to Ardmore.

And then things got interesting as the tower informed me I might have a bit of a hold at Mangere Town due to some departures... unless I wanted to turn left, head east until I crossed the southern motorway and then direct to Ardmore. I was more than happy with that, as I didn't really want to overfly NZAA, I just wanted the shortcut ;)

So I turned east, and enjoyed the slightly different scenery... before realising that I was heading towards my house :) Unfortunately, just as I was nearing the motorway and before I got too close to home, I was advised I could track direct, and as I didn't want to overstay my welcome, I set heading for Ardmore and watched my house slip by the port wing.

Looks like a giant sock puppet!

A most enjoyable evenings flying... and I am now current like a current thing ;)

This flight: 0.5 + 0.5 + 0.8 PinC Night
Total Hours: 179.0 (78.9/76.6 Day, 8.6/14.9 Night, 7.0 IFR)

A complete set

2009-03-30T11:21:00.003+13:00

Well Euan was right... I did indeed kick some arse on my CPL Met exam... 96% to be precise ;)

So now I have the full set of CPL exams completed, which has now earned me a 'CPL Exam Credit' which is valid for 3 years. I'm really hoping it does not take me that long to actually get the CPL :P

Seeing as how I am in 'exam mode', I have decided to push on and do my Instrument Rating exams as well... so it is more book time for me. I am hoping to get started on the CPL cross-country syllabus as well.

I have also been tagging along with Trevor on some of his Instrument Rating adventures... Eyes Open, Mouth Closed... 'Sponge' mode engaged!

I have picked up quite a lot and I'm hoping this will pay off when I am the one in the hot-seat trying to do fifty million things at once :P

I successfully managed to miss the Whenuapai Open Day... but I was in the back of a PA28 going around the hold at Tauranga and shooting the missed approach etc... so it was a fair trade-off ;)

On the "New Gadget" front, my boss made me an offer I could not refuse... and I have upgraded from the Nokia 6275i to an Okta Touch (Windows Mobile 6.1) PDA-Phone. Was bummed to find that it had no GPS or wifi... until I found out a firmware upgrade enabled the GPS ;) (Still bummed about the lack of wifi tho)

I have successfully got Garmin Mobile XT running on it which allows routable car navigation and am investigating my options for airbourne GPS. Unfortunately the Windows Mobile version of the software I had been using on the Nokia, TrackMyJourney, does not seem to work with the GPS on my phone... I will continue to test it, but am thinking I may need to look at OziExplorer...

Which means I will need to redo all my maps *sigh* :(

Deadlines...

2009-03-09T13:51:00.003+13:00

Nothing provides motivation like a deadline ;)

1 more week to figure out how "The Weather"(tm) works... Not sure how I am supposed to understand it all, given that the MetService, who get PAID to understand this stuff, still can't seem to figure it out! :P

Optimism pays dividends...

2009-03-03T10:19:00.006+13:00

It was looking like another crappy weekend... with a big storm rolling on through. However, it looked like it was going to arrive a little earlier and move fairly quickly, so I had been hoping that Sunday would in fact be a 'Sun Day'...

and it was!

I had been planning on going and doing some flying with Nick in the afternoon, but decided not to waste the conditions, so I I headed out to Ardmore fairly early to get the aircraft pre-flighted and fueled. This turned out to be a great idea, as there were a number of visiting aircraft in town for the Pilot Expo which was putting a strain on the refueling guys. One of the club members had been waiting for an hour for fuel when I got there! So when the tanker finally arrived, I got the guy to fill up my aircraft as well.

I had been keeping an eye on the weather and it was steadily improving so I figured it would be all go for the afternoon. As I was really early, I decided to take ETZ for a few quick circuits to get it warmed up, so when Nick arrived we could get airborne relatively quickly.

I totally messed up the first landing... the conditions in the circuit were a little bumpy due to some blustery winds and mechanical turbulence coming off the terrain to the northwest. My approach was a bit messey, so I ended up high and consequently I was descending quite rapidly and I flared a little late... and a little too much... and proceeded to balloon and then hit a little hard.

The 2nd circuit I opted for a flapless... extended my downwind, and flew by the numbers... everything came together beautifully and I greased it onto the runway.

The 3rd and final I tried for a short-field approach. I flew the final leg at 60kts all the way down (theoretically the approach speed should be 54, but I was carrying extra speed due to the gusty conditions). I managed to be 50ft over the threshold and still get it down and stopped (without excessive braking) by taxiway Bravo. A landing roll of maybe 150 to 200metres, so I was pretty happy, especially given the wind conditions.

I taxied back and waited for Nick to arrive... only to get a text message saying he had been called into work and wouldn't be coming. So I decided to solo. Grabbed the weather for the far north which looked decent. Put in a flight plan to overhead Dargaville then on to Kerikeri, Whangarei and back to Ardmore. Double-checked the fuel onboard and then grabbed my gear and headed off.

Flying across the harbour to Rangitoto and the VFR transit lane by Whenuapai I was dodging aircraft left right and centre... seems everyone was doing city scenic flights! After that I saw a grand total of about 4 aircraft the rest of the flight, until I got back into the circuit at Ardmore.

Once I reached the far edge of the Whenuapai Control Zone I set course for Dargaville and climbed up to 2500' for the cruise north. It was a little bumpy so I tried 3000' and it was a lot smoother.

I also got a chance to test out the GPS on my phone after having spent ages getting the aeronautical charts loaded. It seemed to work really well. My reckoned position on my paper chart matched up pretty well with the GPS, and the actual location. The only issues I had were that it was giving bearings in degrees True. Which is problematic when you're navigating using a magnetic compass and a DI aligned to the magnetic compass ;) Not a huge problem... just have to allow the -20 or so degrees for magnetic variation. The other issue was that the phone battery died after around 3 hours... into a 3.5 hour flight! Might have to see if the cigarette lighter is compatible with the cigarette lighter charger I have... or go on shorter flights :P

Overheading Dargaville, I set course for Kerikeri and flew over some real tiger country. Some 2500' ranges and dense forests. A little unnerving and somewhat bumpy in spots. I found Kerikeri pretty easily and landed without incident and taxied to the pumps to fill up.

Heading back south at Whangarei, I thought I was going to run into some issues with myself, a parachute jump plane and one of the EagleAir Beech 1900's all arriving at the same time, but thankfully being in the little slow 152 meant I was able to sequence in behind everyone else pretty nicely without any hassles. The weather off to the east of Whangarei looked pretty bad... some massive cloud development and lots of rain. However it stayed where it was and I was able to touch and go and set heading for Ardmore without getting anywhere near it.

I made it back without further incident and managed to slot into the traffic pattern without too much hassle. Just a 172 from AFS that was overheading at the same time I was joining non-traffic side. Again, as I knew he would be faster than me, I just slowed up a little to get the spacing right and it all worked out pretty well.

If you look closely, you can see where the GPS died

A nice little afternoon jaunt, another 3.4 hours of cross-country time and another little personal milestone...

I now have more PinC time (89.7) than Dual time (87.5) ;)

This flight: 0.4 + 3.4 PinC
Total Hours: 177.2 (78.9/76.6 Day, 8.6/13.1 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Where's my snorkel?

2009-02-20T09:04:00.006+13:00

Unfortunately, Yellow does not equal sunshine
AUCKLAND (NZAA):

METAR NZAA 191900Z 02015KT 9999 SHRA FEW006 BKN010 BKN013 21/20 Q1009
TEMPO 4000 RA BKN008 =

SPAR NZAA 191658Z
360/20KT X/W MEAN15KT 15KM RED 4000M SHRA FEW006 BKN010 BKN015=

TAF NZAA 191701Z 1918/2018
02018G30KT 9999 -SHRA FEW012 BKN035
TEMPO 1918/2001 4000 RA BKN008
BECMG 2001/2003 32015G25KT
TEMPO 2001/2006 3500 TSRA BKN012 FEW020CB
TEMPO 2006/2012 6000 SHRA BKN012
BECMG 2012/2014 26008KT
2000FT WIND 02025KT
BECMG 1918/1920 35035KT
BECMG 2005/2007 31015KT =

New Zealand is hiding in there somewhere!

Anyone got a bucket?

All quiet on the western front?

2009-02-18T22:50:00.004+13:00

Despite the mostly good weather[1] we have been fortunate enough to enjoy over January and February, I have managed about 3 hours worth of flying.

This is not to say that I haven't been flying, I just have not been doing the actual flying.

Went with one of the other club members up to Whangarei as safety pilot so he could rack up some instrument time under the hood. I commented it was the first time I had been to Whangarei in the daytime... I got that same "WTF?!?!?!" look I usually get when I tell people I like flying around doing cross countries in the dark ;)

And the past few weekends I have been down in the Tron picking up tips on an instrument rating again as Trevor has been preparing for his Instrument Rating Flight Test. I did actually fly us down one trip. Just to help with the currency.

Also, I have been told to consider doing an IR before I do my CPL... as a bonus I can use the IR hours towards the 200hr minimum requirements for a CPL, so in a way, the hours are 'free'. Plus it also teaches you about precise flying.

One stumbling block however will be the 50 hours PinC Cross-country time as I currently have around 35. So I would need a couple of decent 4 hour trips to top it up to the minimums. Maybe a weekend down to see my folks near Palmerston North.

And of course, the exams required... *sigh*... I am currently struggling through the study book for my last CPL exam, which is meteorology. If only it were as simple as the weather rock ;)

Something to think about anyway...

In other news, I received a new mobile phone from work as we recently moved from Vodafone to Telecom... not really news, except for the fact that my new phone (a Nokia 6275i) has built-in GPS. And a really shitty built-in GPS application which does little more than give you your co-ordinates. Which got me thinking[2]... I wonder if anyone has written any cool little GPS apps for these phones???

I found a couple of things... MGMaps, which was relatively easy to install and setup and I even found a complete copy of the GoogleMaps street maps for New Zealand that someone had thoughtfully compiled for this application, so you could put it on a memory card and not get horrendous data charges for downloading maps on the go.

I thought it would be useful to get a 'rough' idea of where I was while flying around the countryside, as a handy little backup device. I even tested it when I was safety pilot for Joseph on the trip to Whangarei and it worked really well. I even had the crazy idea of scanning in my aeronautical charts and using them instead of googlemaps, and had some initial success, except the application kept crashing if you scrolled around and zoomed in or out too much.

Aside from the odd crash, this program had one serious flaw. It did not do 'tracking'. So, at the end of the journey, you cannot see the path you took. It has an online service so you can see live updates of where you are, and people have written scripts that simply poll the server every 30 seconds and log all the individual points as you move about... but that was a bit clumsy and too much like hard work[3]...

So I went looking for a better solution. Which is when I discovered TrackMyJourney. At first it looked like a service similar to the live update feature of MGMaps... but it turns out that is just part of it. This application is pretty much a full-featured GPS system for your Java capable phone/pda etc...

It did not suffer from the same application crashes when scrolling about or zooming in and out... it offers all sorts of views, options, waypoints, routes and most importantly tracking! :)

So then this idea of scanning in my aeronautical maps popped into my head again. TMJ provides a little utility for generating your own maps from picture files. So all that was needed was images of my maps, so I:

'Patiently' scanned in all my VNC's for the North Island (thank heavens for the A3 sized colour scanners at work!)...

Then I stitched them back together using photoshop...

Then I loaded them into a really nifty tool called 'MapCruncher' by Microsoft Research... essentially you take "your" map and load it into the application which displays it alongside "Virtual Earth". Then by lining up exact locations on each map, you calibrate your map to the 'real world'. In my case, the aeronautical charts have the latitude and longitude graticules printed on them, so I could mark fairly precise locations all over the map giving a decent rendering. I actually had to write a Perl script that would go through and 'edit' the map (or Mashup) config file generated by MapCruncher, as it was just too tedious to edit 50 or 60 points on each of the 6 North Island VNC's...

Then I rendered out the re-projected map using MapCruncher... which broke it down into little 256x256 pixel tiles, named in 'Quadkey' format... If you're really interested you can read about it here, but be warned it is not exactly riveting!

As this format is not in nice rows/columns, it was going to be a total mission to stitch these tiles back together to create a nice copy of the map to load into TMJ. So I wrote another Perl script that renamed the files into the format Y_X_zoomlevel.jpg so I could use some handy cut+paste and macro's to generate some commandlines to stitch these back together using the commandline batch processing options of a handy image utility called IrfanView...

Once I had stitched all the tiles into a big giant map, I could load it into the TMJ image utility, and use it to generate the required map files the program needed... only I need to know the "Top-Left" and "Bottom-Right" 'Real World' Co-ordinates of my image... but I only had QuadKey's and/or X,Y values... so I wrote a third Perl Script that would automatically calculate it for me...

Once I had those I was able to generate TMJ map files and load them onto the phone... and then repeat the entire process of stitching/aligning/rendering/stitching/re-aligning etc. for the other 5 maps!!!!

Quite simple[4] really! :/

All in all, it has been about 2 weeks of trial, error, head+desk, face+palm, lightbulb moments and extreme elation upon finally getting it all working.

The end result is a fairly useful little backup tool that should come in handy should I ever find myself situationally challenged while out flying.

I have already started 'upgrading' the functionality, as my scanned map is effectively still just a picture, so you cannot search for an aerodrome or anything like you can with a 'normal' aviation GPS. So I have also started messing about with the "waypoint" features of TMJ... I've added in all the North Island Aerodromes listed in the AIP with their co-ordinates and frequencies, so I should be able to pick an aerodrome and generate a direct track to it etc. and even do some basic 'flight planning' if required.

Now I just have to pray they don't update the charts in the near future ;)

[1] I'm choosing to ignore the ridiculous 30+ weather with 98% humidity ;)

[2] Always a dangerous thing

[3] Kind of ironic when you see what I ended up doing :/

[4] See... told you!

Another Year...

2009-01-23T11:13:00.003+13:00

another truckload of money converted into noise+fun :)

Looking back over 2008, it certainly was quite eventful. I reached some personal milestones... like getting my PPL ;)

And started knocking off my CPL exams... only Met to do (and I am currently working my way through the study guide)

I managed to get rated in the 172 and the PA-28. I even did some aerobatics in the Warbirds CT-4A.

And I managed to get around a few different locations like Taupo, Rotorua, Whakatane, Opotiki, Pauanui, Whangarei, Keri Keri, Kaitaia, Kaikohe and even a scenic flight out to White Island.

I managed to do the odd bit of night flying and even managed a couple of night cross country's!

Hopefully 2009 will prove just as fruitful in terms of hours in the book... and hopefully might even include a sticker labeled "CPL" ;)

In other news I flew down to Hamilton on the weekend with the aim of joining up at the Waikato Aero Club... this should hopefully provide a couple of benefits (like access to a certified sim, membership in the RNZAC along with reciprocal rights at other RNZAC clubs and access to other training should I need it etc.)

Unfortunately, the usual office administrator was away, so I will need to go back again at some point and complete the paperwork. Although, I did run into Chris while I was chilling out in the Pilots Lounge... although I did not realise until I read his posting about failing to make it to Masterton. Nice to finally put a face to the name.

I also got a good wake-up call... as I finally came face to face with 'Cessna Bounce'. The grass runways at Hamilton have been baked pretty hard in the summer sunshine and it showed when the 172 hit it and bounced like it was on a trampoline. Thankfully, I had read somewhere that the trick is to give it a bit of power just after you reach the peak of the bounce to lessen the descent rate and break the cycle. So after the 2nd bounce (at which point I was starting to picture the aircraft stalling and nosing into the ground), I gave it a quick burst of power.

It worked a treat and the aircraft settled onto the ground nicely.

The landing after the return journey was much better ;)

This flight: 1.5 PinC
Total Hours: 172.0 (78.9/71.4 Day, 8.6/13.1 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Satisified Customers...

2008-12-29T22:34:00.003+13:00

My Mum and Dad arrived in Auckland yesterday to meet up with some old friends who are due to fly in from the UK on Tuesday...

I had been watching the weather all day (in between various "OMG! my parents are coming, I'd better clean up the house"-type activities) and it looked like the nasty weather that was forecast to arrive from the North was going to hold off...

After they had settled in and had had some dinner, I asked them if they were keen to "go and see Auckland by night" ;)

We headed out to the airfield and after I pre-flighted LMA and had taxied to the pumps and back to top up the fuel we headed off into a relatively clear, calm evening at around 2230...

LMA ready to go (I had never noticed the different window tints before?!?)

My dad is somewhat of a photography enthusiast (he used to do his own developing back in the day), so he has a slightly better grasp of how to work these fancy pants Digital SLR camera's... hence, instead of his nighttime photography looking like this shot I tried to take of the Marsden Point Oil Refinery a few weeks ago:

jade kindly dubbed it 'Spastic Fireworks'

His shots ended up looking like this:

The North Shore

Looking out West...

CBD at Night

Port, CBD and Eastern Suburbs

Sea of Lights

After whizzing about the sky tower a couple of times, we went for some sight-seeing over the rest of the city. LMA has 2 radios and I had been listening out on the NZAA frequencies and noted they were very quiet (as you would expect at 11pm on a Sunday ;)... so I thought I'd chance my arm and see if I could get M+D a treat and requested clearance to overhead the tower and then onwards to Ardmore via Karaka. I was cleared straight in, and as an added bonus, one of the late night Air New Zealand flights was just lining up and departing as we approached.

Approaching NZAA

I think this is the international terminal

A couple of satisfied customers...

Mum and Dad were still buzzing about it this morning... Dad said to me 'Auckland by Day is pretty spectacular... but at night? Wow! It's something else...'

Awesome! ;)

This flight: 0.7 PinC Night
Total Hours: 170.5 (78.9/69.9 Day, 8.6/13.1 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Ho Ho Ho...

2008-12-26T21:05:00.003+13:00

What better way to finish Christmas Day than with a nice afternoon scenic flight... Took Trevor and 2 of his kids for a jolly out to Great Barrier and back in LMA.

Decided against landing at NZGB for two reasons. Firstly, I was a wee bit cramped for time as jade was wanting her dinner at a reasonable hour and, secondly, the south-westerlies would have made it awfully bumpy at ground level.

Instead, we climbed up to 5,500' (through an inversion layer at 4,500') and enjoyed the almost unlimited visibility... coped some bumps coming back down through the inversion and approaching the mainland again, but nothing too severe.

LMA, as usual, provided another pleasant flight and silky smooth landing... I am soooo glad the owner did not take her away for xmas :)

I only wish I had remembered to take jade's camera :(

Here's hoping I sneak in another flight or two, before I let the professionals have a go when I blast off for Hong Kong on New Year's Eve.

This flight: 1.3 PinC
Total Hours: 169.8 (78.9/69.9 Day, 8.6/12.4 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Easy like Sunday morning

2008-12-15T14:41:00.003+13:00

but after lunch ;)

I had been planning on taking a friend flying on Sunday morning, so of course I jumped out of bed first thing (read as: I overslept and was running late!) and headed out to the club to pre-flight and double check the weather. Thankfully I got a txt about 9am requesting we reschedule for around 1pm, so I could stop with the headless chicken impersonation.

I was trying to decide if I should take the Cherokee (LMA) or Cessna 172 (DJU) and decided that when doing scenic flights over the city, it is more important to be able to see straight down when cruising (easier with high wing), rather than when turning (easier with low wing), so I went for the 172.

My passengers duly arrived and after a quick brief about what we were going to do and getting everyone on-board and strapped in we taxied out.

It was a little windy, which made it a bit bumpy initially, but once we got out over the coast by the Wairoa River Mouth, it was relatively smooth. We headed over Maraetai and Beachlands and then tracked towards the harbour and the city centre. It was quite busy for a change with a Great Barrier Air Tri-Lander transiting to Auckland International, and a couple of rescue helicopters heading for the Hospital.

We played the 'Where is my house?' game and then as it was starting to get really choppy, I decided to head back out towards Rangitoto and Waiheke to find some smooth air. We found it on the northern side of Rangitoto and along the north coast of Waiheke before heading back to Ardmore.

As is usually the case, I was an aircraft magnet... complete silence on the radio and no aircraft in the vicinity until I called up joining downwind for 03 at Clevedon. Suddenly, no less than 5 aircraft appeared. One taking off and turning crosswind ahead of me, one coming in from the Hunua Valley, and 3 others on short final, medium final and quote: "very long final" ie. he had joined wide right base in front of me... *sigh*.

The thing that really surprised me was how smooth it was in the circuit, just a little bit of windshear on short final and a nice smooth landing to finish.

I secured the aircraft and my passengers left with big smiles and then I spent the rest of the day hanging out at the club, doing some odd admin jobs and avoiding mowing my lawns ;)

This flight: 1.1 PinC
Total Hours: 168.5 (78.9/68.6 Day, 8.6/12.4 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Meteors, Parties and Fires

2008-12-14T07:06:00.001+13:00

After a day of shopping malls, seafood risotto and gnocchi and a 6km walk, I figured I had done enough for a mallowpuff and was thinking about some night flying. Jade asked why? Because I can... duh!

Anyway, as I was staring at the twilight sky debating whether or not the weather was going to be suitable, Trevor sent me a text message asking if I was keen for some night cross country action...

We headed out to the club, pre-flighted JBL and gassed her up and then Trevor did 3 circuits for his night currency (before curfew kicked in) and then I jumped in. He told me the weather looked a bit suspect for a cross-country. After we got airbourne, I could see that the cloud build-up looked pretty bad in pretty much every direction except out over the Tasman Sea. While I am sure I would have enjoyed a 15 hour flight across the Tasman, the lack of long range tanks on the 152 and the fact we had no life-jackets on board made the idea a bit of a non-starter ;)

We decided for a quick jolly over the city instead and our assumption about the weather seemed to have been confirmed when the clouds to the south were light up by what we thought was lightening... I heard on the radio this morning that it was actually part of a meteor shower! Either way, it was an impressive, and somewhat un-nerving sight.

We headed out towards the city, and overflew the domain and saw the remnants of the 'Christmas in the Park' show... Heading over towards Ponsonby we saw some flashing lights and long queues of traffic at what we initially thought was a police breathtesting checkpoint. Turned out to be a huge fire in a laundry. A little disconcerting as we smelled the smoke from 1500' and Trevor said "I hope that is not us!"

We hooked around the SkyTower looking very 'Christmassy' in its green and red lights and then we decided to call it a night and headed back to Ardmore.

This flight: 0.6 PinC Night
Total Hours: 167.4 (78.9/67.5 Day, 8.6/12.4 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Proper Preparation...

2008-12-12T18:14:00.004+13:00

prevents piss-poor performance... or so the saying goes.

After passing my Principles of Flight exam a couple of weeks ago, I had been studying for my CPL Nav, hoping to squeeze it in before Christmas. Things had been going fairly well so on the closing date for applications, I had booked my exam. According to the timetable, it would be next Tuesday (16th December), or so I thought!

The exam acceptance slip and practice paper duly arrived, via CourierPost, about a week after booking (like it always does). After checking the bag to make sure everything was there (but not actually reading any of it), I put it all to one side, intending on doing the practice exam over the weekend (most probably the night before the exam!)

Thankfully, I went to check the practice exam on Wednesday afternoon this week, as I wanted to see what 'area' the planned flight was in, to see if I had the appropriate chart(s). That is when I just happened to notice that the exam date was listed as 12/12/2008.

Me: "WTF?!!?!? The 12th?? That's this Friday... not next Tuesday... something must be wrong, I'd better call ASL to double check."

Then I noticed the little box that said in somewhat small writing, 'Dear Mr Yates, please note change in date due to heavy bookings'

Me: "OH SH*T!"

That only gave me 1 day to finish all my study... instead of the 5 that I had budgeted for! Thankfully my boss was very understanding and let me take the day off at short notice, so yesterday was filled with revision and practice exams... I finally went to bed around 1am, satisfied that if anything CPL Nav related was not already in my head, it:

A. Wouldn't get it in, in my half awake state
and
B. Wouldn't fit anyway

Woke up late this morning as my alarm didn't go off, despite the fact I checked it twice before I went to bed! Got ready and headed off to find the exam venue which was different from the usual location. Was a bit of a mission trying to find it... somehow I missed the building with 'Taha Wahia Woodside' emblasoned in big letters on the front... twice! :)

Apparently, several other people seem to have fallen into the same trap. There were supposed to be around 18 people sitting various exams this morning, but only 5 of us showed up! I imagine there are going to be some unhappy campers making phone calls to ASL...

Despite everything, the actual exam went surprisingly well!! There were only 1 or 2 questions that caused me to pause and scratch my head, so I am fairly confident that I have passed (famous last words ;). This, of course, means one of two things... I have either passed comfortably or failed spectacularly.

I always considered Nav to be one of the easier subjects. As it is essentially learning processes, and then applying them to the situation given... which I find relatively easy. It is the exams that rely on you remembering obscure 'facts' (ie. Air Law and P of F) that cause me the most problems.

Now I get to play the excruciating 'Wait for your Results' game... However, we were told today that ASL are shutting down for the holidays next Friday (19th December), which is why they have moved everything around, so it should be marked before then. Yay!

Fingers Crossed...

Mr. Yates goes to Pauanui

2008-12-08T21:54:00.004+13:00

Saturday dawned a nice clear blue... so it looked like my day trip to Pauanui (NZUN) would be a go. The plan was for me to help fly some of Joseph's friends over to Pauanui for a 'Hens Day' around 10am and then we'd head back around 3pm-ish... He had already reserved LMA (grrr! ;), so I was to be using DJU.

Everything was looking good, pre-flight OK, weather looking great etc... Right up until I went to take DJU for a couple of quick circuits before my passengers arrived.

I had wanted to warm up the aircraft and get the run-up's done, so when I had the passengers on board, we would not be sitting on the ground in the sun for too long, as it was already pushing 22 degrees at 9am!

Anyway, during pre-start I went to prime the engine and the little ring on the front of the panel, that the primer locks into, popped out and the entire primer barrel came loose :(

I called our maintenance controller and he arranged for one of the engineers to pop over and have a look. It turns out that the locking nut on the back of the panel had come loose, so after the assembly was all screwed back together tightly and double-checked I was good to go. Phew!

By the time I got back, Joseph was finishing the pre-flight safety briefing... so we loaded the girls and their baggage into the 2 aircraft and taxiied out to 21. It was a little bumpy until we cleared the coast and headed for the Coromandel and then it was a nice smooth ride. I saw the warbirds DC3 doing some 'interesting' maneuvers out over the firth... Definitely not a standard scenic flight! :P

We cruised overhead Coromandel in 'semi-formation' and then tracked down the eastern side of the peninsula to Pauanui... I joined overhead as I wanted to scope the place out as I had never been before and just wanted to double-check the windsocks at either end of the strip as I have heard they can often indicate completely different things! Thankfully they were not, and I setup for a nice right-hand circuit for 23 and landed without too much incident, although there was some nice thermal activity as we crossed over the beach.

The girls headed off to the beach to get their fill of sun and sand while we secured the aircraft and headed off to the local shops to get something to eat (Pro Tip #1: Pork and Apple pie from the Pauanui Bakery = WIN!).

After filling up (Pro Tip #2: Yo-Yo's from the Pauanui Bakery = DOUBLE WIN!) we wandered along beach to the surf life saving club and found a nice spot in the shade to relax... Joseph attempted to do some study for his Met exam and I did my best to distract him with aimless chat about flying, Pauanui, life in general etc. as we chilled out waiting for the girls to get bored...

About the time we first started walking along the beach, the sea-breezes I had been expecting had started. Indeed, the windsocks at either end of the strip were pointing in different directions! We saw a couple of aircraft come in with what must have been 10-15kt tailwinds... and, somewhat belatedly in one case, execute missed approaches. There really is something to be said for joining overhead at unattended aerodromes and checking out conditions before attempting to land!

On this trip I was a bit busy flying the aircraft to play shutterbug, so all I got was some snaps of the bay while relaxing in the shade after lunch. The quality is pretty crappy as it was taken using a cellphone, but I managed to photoshop them into a pretty reasonable panorama (as long as you don't zoom in too much!)

Late afternoon we headed back to Auckland and took the girls on a quick city scenic over Waiheke, Rangitoto, around Sky Tower and then out over One Tree Hill so they could find their house!

It really was a great start to the weekend... another new aerodrome to add to my list. I think I am in love with Pauanui... It was so peaceful and quiet, I will definitely be heading back there again before the summer is over and a 30 to 40 minute flight has to be better than a 3 hour drive right? ;)

This flight: 0.5 PinC + 1.7 PinC
Total Hours: 166.8 (78.9/67.5 Day, 8.6/11.8 Night, 7.0 IFR)

New cure for the flu...

2008-12-03T10:49:00.001+13:00

"Take 2.6 hours of flying and call me in the morning"...

After spending last Thursday and Friday in bed feeling crap, I was happy to see some lovely sunny weather for the weekend... Saturday, I was still feeling a little under the weather, so did not bother with the flying.

Sunday, I had arranged to take some friends for a city scenic. I woke up feeling good and the weather was just stunning. As you can see from the video, it was clear blue skies and light winds... Perfect!

My friend has improved his camera skills somewhat, I am getting better at video editing and I think the results speak for themselves!

Later that afternoon, I went joy riding again... three times! 3 quick scenic flights out over the gulf islands in LMA as a favour for a friend. The sea breezes were getting quite strong, so it was getting a little bumpy but the beautiful weather and spectacular views more than made up for it ;)

Lovely jubbly!

This flight: 1.0 PinC + 0.5 PinC + 0.5 PinC + 0.6 PinC
Total Hours: 164.6 (78.9/65.3 Day, 8.6/11.8 Night, 7.0 IFR)

That's my house!

2008-11-24T11:02:00.006+13:00

Finally got a chance to overfly my house on Friday night. This is a particularly unique experience for me as my house is buried in the middle of Auckland International's Instrument Sector... traditionally a bit of a no-go area for Cessna 152's flying VFR!

After the failures of the previous week, Nick and I decided to laugh in the face of adversity and try again to fly up to Whangarei. Nick pre-flighted and fueled up ETZ while I went ahead and did the Nov 20 Volume 4 AIP updates so we had all the 'legal' bits of paper required.

Evening Civil Twilight arrived and we taxied out just before 2100... I took the first leg, so Nick could have a chance to read the map and familiarise himself with the surroundings.

Climbing out of Ardmore and heading towards the north via Brookby and Whitford Town, I called up Auckland Control and got a clearance up to 3500', so we could just point ourselves in a straight line and go. No drama's there and we cruised along quite happily, if somewhat slowly into the 20knot headwind!

Whangarei is not that hard to find, especially with the Marsden Point refinery acting like a light house... the big flame they have for burning of venting gas was pulsing and looked just like a light house!

Upon arrival at Whangarei, I showed Nick the lead-in light system and did a quick touch and go before he took over for some circuits and then tried a couple of tailwind ones as the windsock was showing about 2 or 3 knots at ground level. Unfortunately, the winds above were a different story and we were catching some pretty severe chop off the hills to the east of Whangarei, so Nick decided to call it a night and we headed back to Ardmore.

Coming up to Auckland, he called up Control and asked for permission to track direct to Ardmore. It was around 2300 hrs and most of the 'big boys' are safely tucked up at this time, so the airspace is pretty empty. I think the controllers are happy to have something to do, to be honest, so the controller cleared us through his airspace and had even checked with the Tower Controller that we were fine to cross the airports Control Zone as well... Talk about service!

So, we made a direct track to Ardmore which resulted in flying right over my house! YAY!

Still working on getting a videocam... and the only pics I got look like "weird, blurry fireworks" according to jade :(

Nevermind... It was the perfect start to an excellent weekend... with my Mum's 60th bday party on Saturday and the Kiwi's winning the Rugby League World Cup! Not to forget the awesome brekkie my dad cooked on Sunday morning... ham off the bone, hash browns, eggs, tomatoes... all fried up on the BBQ!

I think I may have to move back home! ;)

This flight: 1.1 PinC
Total Hours: 162.0 (78.9/62.7 Day, 8.6/11.8 Night, 7.0 IFR)

P of F and level 6 Engrish...

2008-11-21T12:01:00.003+13:00

After stressing out about what I thought was a pretty poor 'Principles of Flight and Performance' exam on Monday... it turns out that I got 89%!

Don't tell ASL, but I think they may have mixed my answer sheet up with someone elses :-/

Oh, and apparently after 33 years of being born in and living in and attending school and university in an English speaking country... I can, officially, speak English! Wow... amazing! Who would have thought?!?!!

Apparently not the aviation overlords... hence my heading along to Heliflight on Tuesday morning to do a "Level 6 English Language Proficiency Demonstration" (aka. the 'Engrish' test, aka. how to 'tax' pilots another $99)

Basically, you talk to an automated recording on the phone for 10 minutes and then a couple of days later they tell you that you can speak english. As you have probably figured out, I am not exactly a fan of this ridiculous system... and had to bite my tongue when one of the questions during the test was:

"People in Aviation have differing views on the need for English Language Proficiency Testing. What are your views on this subject?"

Talk about red rag to a bull!

Somehow, I resisted the (very strong) urge to tell them what a complete waste of time and money this whole process was! Instead, I gave them an answer that expressed my disagreement with methods and costs but viewed it as a necessary evil for safety reasons, citing historical incidents involving break downs in communication.

Anyway, I have Level 6 which is valid for life (or until they decide to change the system!)... now I just need to pay another $50 to get it endorsed on my license! I reckon I should just get my pay direct credited to the 'Campaign Against Aviation' (CAA)...

meh.

Jared and the Volcano

2008-11-17T12:43:00.001+13:00

After the disappointment of Friday night, the weekend weather turned out to be awesome... and I had cunningly done all my chores (read as: shopping with jade) on Saturday, so Sunday I headed out to Ardmore expecting a greay day, and I was not disappointed.

I had booked the 172 (DJU) despite the A/H being a bit wobbly during my city scenic the day before. Not a big deal, as they're not required for VFR flight.

I planned for Ardmore to Whakatane, a quick side trip out to White Island, then back to Opotiki, then onwards to Taupo and finally back to Ardmore. The weather reports for cloud from Opotiki to Taupo were looking a little marginal, but I always had the option of diverting back to Tauranga or Rotorua.

One of the other club members, Tony, was kicking about the club and had not been flying for a while, so Nick and I invited him to come along for a joyride, which he duly accepted.

As you can see from the flightpath, things didn't go quite to plan...
Managed to climb up to 3500' once clear of the Auckland Control Areas that stretch out to Orere Point and then cruised across the Firth of Thames heading for the Waihi Gap. I tried to contact Christchurch Control over Waihi Beach, to get clearance into controlled airspace, so that I could just cruise over the top of Tauranga, but they either forgot about me, or were just busy with 'real' traffic, so after an orbit or two, I gave up, descended to 2500' and called up Tauranga Tower.

A new trainee ATC was on watch, but thankfully it was pretty quiet, so I was cleared into the zone and flew along the coast without too much bother and popped out the other side at Maketu. Then on towards Whakatane where I executed a missed approach and then departed to White Island.

Just passing Whale Island... the camera man was a bit slow ;)
Approaching the volcanic island, you can see the way the warm air rising from the crater condenses
The view from up high
Not the most hospitable looking place in the world!
You can see the full album over at photobucket.

Unfortunately, Nick had forgotten to charge his camera, so the batteries ran dry soon after White Island, so no pics of Opotiki, Tauranga or the flight home :(

After a couple of laps around the island, we headed back towards the coast looking for Opotiki. Descending down to circuit altitude at Opotiki and with the prevailing crosswind, it got very bumpy which made for a messy approach. So I went around and setup again. The second approach was a lot more stable and was looking good except for the last few feet. Quite a bit of float and then we just dropped. Not my best landing ever thats for sure!

We climbed out and headed back towards Whakatane while I decided whether or not to push for Taupo. I could see that Mt. Edgecumbe was bumping the bottom of the clouds, which would mean around 2000'. I figured, we would be able to maintain 1000' AGL through the low ground to Taupo, but given how 'lumpy' the flying conditions were inland from the coast, I decided I could do without the concrete mixer action and diverted to Tauranga. I called up Christchurch Information and amended my flight plan and then set course back along the coast.

We were cleared in and joined downwind for 07 Grass. As we came abeam of the threshold, I got cleared for a short approach and landing. So, Carb Heat hot, throttle to idle, and turned in. Bled the speed off, dropped the flaps and dropped it in on the threshold.

After gassing up and watching a couple of Q300's land and drop off their passengers, we strapped in and got clearance to depart back to Ardmore. I had been expecting the standard 'Matakana One' VFR departure clearance, but was simply cleared "2500' or below, on track Ardmore". Sweet, climb out, turn left, point the aircraft back to Ardmore :)

A great day's flying and 4.0 hours for the logbook.

This flight: 4.0 PinC
Total Hours: 160.9 (78.9/62.7 Day, 8.6/10.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Must be the full moon...

2008-11-15T20:59:00.006+13:00

I don't recall breaking any mirrors, walking under any ladders or seeing any black cats recently... but I just defected my 3rd aircraft in under 24 hours.

WTF?!?!?!?!

I was out at the aeroclub, hoping to run into one of the instructors who specialises in 'Principles of Flight' as I have my exam on Monday and just wanted to pick his brain on one or two things. Unfortunately, he was not sticking around after his flight, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Seeing as how it was another sunny, blue sky day, I decided to take the 172 (DJU) for a bit of a jolly. There were a couple of young guys hanging around the club, both new members of the club who are planning on beginning their PPL's soon. Unfortunately, they've both recently injured themselves so are unable to fly 'hands-on'. Knowing how much that would annoy me and seeing as I had a couple of spare seats, I offered them a ride. Being aviation enthusiasts, they naturally jumped at the chance.

Anyway, everything was going well... DJU is a nice smooth aircraft and the conditions today were simply stunning. We went up the harbour, around the SkyTower and then I was heading back out towards Rangitoto Island and Waiheke and noticed the AH was showing 30 degrees of bank while I was straight and level!?!?!?

I knew it had been working, as I had (triple) checked it during taxi and run-up... and it was working fine climbing out of Ardmore, as I had checked my climb angle on take-off.

I checked the suction gauge and it was reading OK... so another AH has toppled on me! arrrrgggghhhh!

Thankfully, an AH is not required for Day[1] VFR flights, I had almost unlimited visibility and the weather was near perfect, so I just continued on and defected the aircraft once we got back to base.

I am planning on going flying with Nick tomorrow... He has told me, I am not allowed to Pre-flight and/or "Drive"... in fact, I'm not allowed to touch anything!

Who said pilots were superstitious???? :-/

This flight: 0.9 PinC
Total Hours: 156.9 (78.9/58.7 Day, 8.6/10.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

[1] Technically, an Artificial Horizon is not required for Night VFR either, but as a club rule the AH must be working for night flights

You gotta know when to fold 'em

2008-11-15T13:50:00.006+13:00

Two of my shortest 'flights' ever last night... so short, I never got off the ground :-/

We had have clear blue skies all day, and it was looking perfect for night flying... full moon, relatively light winds (only 10-15 knots) and clear skies. Nick and I were planning on flying up to Whangarei so he could check it out after I had already had a go with Chris.

Due to daylight savings and the longer days, ECT was not until just after 8:30pm, so we had plenty of time to prep, pre-flight and gas up JBL. Everything was going fine until we were taxiing from the pumps after gassing up, and noticed that the Artifical Horizon (AH) was looking a little lop-sided... turning a corner and it just flopped over to the other side. Suction looked OK, so figured it must be the AH itself. Shutting down, it just started spinning around and around...

Can't fly at night without and AH, so we filled in the defect log, terminated our flightplan and notified the CFI of the problem. Strike one...

We decided we would take ETZ, so we transferred out gear over, pre-flighted and then taxiied off to the pumps to fill up. Everything looking fine, instruments all working as they should. Run-ups were OK and we lined up. Made my 'rolling' call and applied full power. As we started trundling along the runway I did my usual scan:

RPM OK

Temps & Pressures OK

Airpseed Increasing... ummm... NO?!?! its stuck at 0... ???????

Closed the Throttle... Applied the Brakes... "Ardmore Traffic, Echo Tango Zulu stopping on Zero Three".

Taxiied back to the club, filled in the defect log and terminated our flightplan AGAIN... "Not your night is it?" was the response from Christchurch Information... :-/

I'm looking on the bright side... My training has obviously given me the skills and abilities to:

Identify Problems/Issues that may compromise the safety of the flight

Make the correct decisions in a timely manner

I'll chalk last night up as another valuable learning experience, and a timely reminder not to get complacent!

Video Update

2008-11-12T09:09:00.004+13:00

Based on some feedback... I made it a bit shorter... and put in the cheesy music. Apparently some people don't like the soothing dulcet tones of the Lycoming O-235. No accounting for taste I guess :P

Pilotics...

2008-11-10T12:23:00.020+13:00

So I got up early on Saturday to go down to the polling booth and vote for Bill and Ben[1] and then headed off for some brunch with jade followed by the mandatory flying/brownie point earning shopping expedition to one of the local shopping malls. I just happened to txt Nick to see if he was still keen for flying on Sunday, and he replied saying he was out at the club and planning on flying that afternoon!

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:

Paeroa - World Famous in NZ

Catalina coming the other way through the Waihi Gap

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.

Cruising along the coast towards Tauranga

Joining Non-traffic side at Whakatane

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.

The rather 'unique' Terminal building at Whakatane

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.)

Whiritoa - No airfield unfortunately, as a friend has a beach house here!
Slipper Island - nice looking private island resort with its own strip

Pauanui - must stop for a coffee one of these days

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! :-/

Long (wet) weekend indoors

2008-10-30T12:15:00.009+13:00

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!

2008-10-21T18:24:00.004+13:00

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

2008-10-20T12:33:00.008+13:00

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?

2008-10-18T23:33:00.001+13:00

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

2008-10-14T10:00:00.005+13:00

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

2008-10-13T10:04:00.003+13:00

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)

Staying out late on a school night.

2008-09-29T10:51:00.005+13:00

I woke up on Sunday and instead of the expected grotty weather, I was greeted with blue skies and sunshine.

Nick had a booking in the afternoon to go for a "refresher" flight, so I tagged along after he went and got himself current. A nice little bit of sightseeing around (as in, all the way around) Great Barrier and then back down the peninsula to Coromandel before cutting back across the gulf to Ardmore.

Was a nice joyride and it left me wanting to go do some flying of my own. By the time we got back to was around 4:30pm and more than enough light to go for a quick hop (Daylight savings started that morning, so it gets 'officially' dark around 8pm now). But I did not just want to go for another city scenic, and I did not have enough time to re-fuel, plan, pre-flight and execute a decent cross-country and make it back before the club curfew.

So I asked CFI Rob if he was interested in going down to Hamilton for a night cross country and some circuits... "Sorry guys, you're about 10 minutes too late... I've just had a beer, but give Chris a call, he might be interested".

So we called Chris, who said he would be there about 8:30pm... plenty of time to pre-flight, refuel etc...

Unfortunately, by this time, the fuel tankers had packed up for the night, so we taxied LMA around to the pumps to fill up. Which was a bit problematic as the handle on the fuelhose was leaking fuel everywhere!!! I tried calling the 'BP Emergency Response' number and was told "We don't deal with the aviation side of things, you'll need to talk to the maintenance contractors, please hold"... the maintenance contractors come on and say "We don't deal with that anymore, I'll just see if I can find the number you need"... I was waiting for her to give me the original number I called, but after 5 minutes she came back and said she could not find the number, took my details and said they'd arrange to get it fixed.

We used the other pump.

About an hour later, some guy calls me and says "you reported a leaking pump?"... I explained what had happened and he was like "Oh there is another pump? The call centre says the pump needs to be fixed by 10pm tonight, but if there is another pump, we'll leave it until tomorrow"... "errr its leaking fuel"... "That's ok, can you put a sign on it saying out of order?" ?!!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!

Anyway, Chris eventually showed up, and after a briefing and review of the weather and plates for Hamilton, we took off around 9:30pm with Nick taking the first leg. A really nice flight... some excellent landmarks at night (like Huntly and the Prison near Mercer) and visibility was pretty much unlimited.

We made it to Hamilton and the tower was off-watch and everyone else was asleep, except for the fire rescue guys who appeared to be doing drag races on the runway and spraying water everywhere... I think they were "training" :)

Nick did a few circuits, and seemed to struggle a little bit due to the fact that he hasn't flown LMA much (he does not currently have a rating on it)... so he had to consciously look for controls and instruments etc. To be honest, I thought he did fine... and his landings were pretty smooth.

On his last circuit, we taxied to the apron and parked up between a couple of AirNZ Link ATR's... and swapped over. A bit of a mission in a cherokee, as you only have 1 door, so the choreography was a little interesting. :)

Once we were all setlled in, I taxied it out, back-tracked up the runway and did 3 pretty uneventful circuits before departing for Ardmore. Climbing out of the Hamilton zone, I called up Christchurch Control and got cleared for a non-standard 3000' altitude, VFR to Ardmore. No drama's there and we cruised all the way back before dropping out of controlled airspace coming over the Bombay Hills.

The wind had swung around from 230 to 060, so I opted to go straight in for 03... and then proceeded to hit the deck pretty hard... nothing really bad, but definitely not one of my better landings :(

After a debrief and cuppa, I headed home and crawled into bed at around 12:30am... Needless to say, systems are running a little slow this morning! ;)

This flight: 1.1 Dual Night
Total Hours: 140.5 (78.9/47.6 Day, 6.0/8.0 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Three-peat...

2008-09-23T15:05:00.008+12:00

Woohoo... 3 days in a row! Sometimes the "4 Seasons in 1 Day" nature of Auckland weather works in your favour...

I woke up on monday morning to the predicted 'gray and horrible'... indeed by the time I got to the train station, I was regretting the lightweight jacket I had decided to wear as the rain was starting to fall.

However, by mid-morning/lunchtime, it was all blue skies and light winds!

So, I decided to see if my mate, who was the unfortunate one who came along for what ended up being my shortest flight ever, wanted to come along for a proper night flight. As luck would have it, he was going to be down in Manukau (near Ardmore) playing Indoor Cricket until about 8pm.

So I headed out to the field after work and pre-flighted and refueled JBL while I still had some daylight, and then blasted off for my 3 take-offs and landings to ensure night currency in the Cessna 152. Despite the circuit being very busy, everyone seemed to be behaving themselves, so I managed to get up and down without too much hassle.

By the time I had done that, it was just after 8pm, so once my my friend arrived and I had triple-checked the weather forecasts and current conditions (I was getting paranoid about fog), we climbed into JBL and taxied out into the darkness.

By this time, there was only one other aircraft operating (none of the AFS guys like paying the night circuit fees, so they are generally back on the ground before 8pm ;) I asked him what the weather was looking like and if there signs of any fog forming. "Nothing much, just a bit of haze" was the reply.

Climbing up off 21, the haze was pretty apparent, with lights in the distance looking a bit fuzzy. We turned downwind and headed out to the rivermouth to fly up the coastline towards Maraetai.

After the usual 'Up the harbour, around the Sky Tower, let's find your house' kind of stuff, I sprung a bit of a surprise on him and called up the tower at Auckland International (NZAA) asking for clearance into the zone to overhead the tower and transit to Ardmore via Karaka. Thankfully, they were fairly quiet, so after 1 orbit overhead Mangere Town Centre, we were cleared over the tower and then onwards to Ardmore.

Needless to say, my friend enjoyed the rather unique view of Auckland Airport from 1500', all lit up in the dark :)

He also had a video camera, so he managed to capture some video... apologies for the camera shake (and the flicking from 'Night Shot' to regular mode)... he was testing it out :)

Having said that... after some careful editing, we have 8mins of video with some pretty stunning shots of the Auckland CBD/SkyTower... I am not a fan of stupid songs on YouTube videos, so you can listen to the lovely droning of the 152 instead :)

In other news, I got 88 for my CPL General Aircraft Technical Knowledge exam :) and I just got a call from a friend who, after enduring the aptitude and psych testing and flight grading and anxious wait, has just been accepted for the Cathay Pacific Cadet Program... BASTARD! Enjoy life as a Second Officer carrying bags! :P Good on ya mate!

This flight: 0.6 + 1.0 PinC Night
Total Hours: 139.4 (78.9/47.6 Day, 4.9/8.0 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Two for Two!

2008-09-22T09:06:00.004+12:00

I can not believe it... 2 fine days in a row! I cannot remember the last weekend when both Saturday and Sunday were flyable...

Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I headed out to Ardmore with no real plan other than wanting to go flying.

I had been thinking about heading down to Hamilton to play in the control zone, or perhaps Tauranga for the same, when Trevor suggested I might like to go over to Great Barrier Island for a look.

Sounded like a great idea, so I pre-flighted the club cherokee 180, LMA, plotted a course for the main airfield at Great Barrier (Claris) and strapped in. Unfortunately, our club has rules about being "checked out" on certain airfields, including Great Barrier. As, the field can be a little tricky depending on which way the wind is blowing, coupled with the fact that it has a fairly narrow seal strip and some rather high terrain at one end, you need to be on your game when going in there. The CFI is determined that Airline Flying Club will remain incident free and prefers students to get a briefing and a check ride when going to some of the more 'interesting' strips. This meant it was just going to be an overhead, but as Trevor said "Landing and taking off again just uses up gas, tyres and time" :)

In any case, it was an absolutely gorgeous day over the gulf. Pretty much clear skies and unlimited visibility and a slight tailwind made for a nice smooth cruise out to Great Barrier. It has some spectacular scenery, and I have already made informal arrangements to get checked out so I can go back and land this time.

The 'slight' tailwind made things a little interesting when flying over the big ridge that runs the length of Great Barrier. The mechanical turbulence was a fun ride :) To be honest, the airfield did not look too threatening... the windsocks showed a fairly steady crosswind across the main strip, so I would have opted for the shorter, grass cross-runway if I had been intending to land.

After a quick orbit overhead the field, I decided to head back to Ardmore as Trevor had a trial flight booked at 1600 and needed to get back to prepare the briefing. A relatively uneventful flight back, cruising at 4500', enjoying the wonderful scenery of the Hauraki Gulf.

I also got a good look at the 'Colville Gap', near the northern tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, that Chris, one of the instructors, had previously suggested as an alternative route around the Coromandel, when the cloud gets low and the Waihi Gap is unsuitable.

A most enjoyable way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon. I believe Trevor has some video (he was testing the battery in his camera), so I'll post it up when I get a copy of it.

This flight: 1.4 PinC
Total Hours: 137.8 (78.9/47.6 Day, 4.9/6.4 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Old territory

2008-09-20T22:12:00.000+12:00

I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and the fact that I had finished all my chores (read as: taking jade to the Shopping Mall) by lunchtime by going for a quick flight.

As I was seriously lacking in flight time in recent months and what I had done was simply flying in straight lines, I decided some 'basic' revision was the order of the day.

I strapped on JBL and headed out to the training area. Once again, I found the area out towards the coast by Kaiaua and Miranda to be aircraft free. For some reason, everyone else seems to prefer training over the Pokeno paddocks.

Anyway, I warmed up with some medium turns, a basic stall or 2, a couple of approach stalls and then pulled the power to see if I could still do a forced landing. It was not too bad, so I headed back to Ardmore for some circuit practice.

What a huge mistake... every man and his brother seemed to be flying circuits! At one point, I was mid-downwind, with 4 aircraft in front of me, and 2 on final... making me number 7... and there were 2 more behind me!!!

Made for interesting times, with some aircraft going for the grass... some for the seal... and others not really sure what they were doing!

Was a good exercise in spacing... and I managed some decent landings including a couple of nice flapless. To finish, I went for a shortfield landing on the grass and landed right on the threshold. It was pretty much perfect.

All in all, a good afternoon and it felt good to get back in the air.

This flight: 1.1 PinC
Total Hours: 136.4 (78.9/46.2 Day, 4.9/6.4 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Everything's coming up Milhouse...

2008-09-09T22:45:00.005+12:00

Ahhh... what a great day! 'Why is that?' you ask...

1. I was not at work
2. The cloudbase was above 1500'
3. Enough wind to make it "interesting"
4. I have a PPL

If you've been following this journal for any period of time, you should have worked out that this means I got to go flying today :)

The added bonus being that today is my birthday... so not only did I skive off work, I got to do it by flying ;)

Trevor called me around 0930 and said "you still interested in going flying?"... does a one legged duck swim in circles? Of course I was interested, I just did not think that we would get anywhere with the weather being as marginal as it was.

Turns out we made it all the way to Hamilton for a $300 coffee. As it turns out, it actually cost a bit more than $300, and they don't have a cafe at the Waikato Aero Club, so we had to settle for a drink from the water cooler! hahahah... (Any suggestions Euan?)

According to Trevor, the weather actually made it a perfect day for cross-country flying. Lot's of weather to avoid, some decision making required, navigation more difficult due reduced vis etc. I have to agree, it was actually really enjoyable... and no-one else was around, so the only traffic I had to contend with was a 172 doing circuits at Ardmore, and a Beech 1900D doing Instrument Training at Hamilton.

Was kind of weird seeing a packed carpark at AFS, and a full flight line... and it is probably the first time I've been to Hamilton and seen the entire CTC fleet on the ground!

LMA, as always, was flying like a dream and now that I know it has a fine pitch prop on it (great for short field take-offs!), I can actually get it to cruise at a decent speed... such a lovely aircraft for cruising in comfort...

All up, not a bad way to spend a bday! ;)

This flight: 1.8 PinC
Total Hours: 135.3 (78.9/45.1 Day, 4.9/6.4 Night, 5.1 IFR)

3rd time's a charm...

2008-08-11T11:57:00.009+12:00

Finally made it to Taupo... and my "World Tour" of NZ finally got underway on the 3rd attempt.

Woke up yesterday morning, to some severe blue skies and a nice crunchy frost. Headed out to the field just before 0800 to pre-flight JFY and flight plan for Ardmore - Taupo - Rotorua - Tauranga - Ardmore (AR-AP-RO-TG-AR).

After taking care of the paperwork and filing a VFR flight plan, Nick and I strapped in and I ran through my checks. Despite not moving for almost 2 months, good old JFY started up first time and showed no real issues during run-ups etc.

However, things changed after take-off and heading out into the clear blue skies... I had called up Christchurch Control to get clearance into controlled airspace up to 6500', so I could just cruise along at high level and avoid the bumpy conditions down low.

Unfortunately, the transponder decided to play silly buggers... "JFY, can you please confirm your transponder code is 0334"... "Affirm, JFY"... "JFY, ok, can you squawk ident"... "Squawking Ident, JFY"... "Ok, I have you squawking 7344"... "Standby, JFY"... much fiddling with transponder dials later... "Now, I have you squawking 4342, try one of my sector codes 4000"... some more twiddling... "Ok, now I have you showing 7010"... more dial fiddling... "Ok, I now have you idented with 4000, cleared to climb to 4500', VFR direct to Taupo, expect further instructions"... "Climb 4500', direct to Taupo, JFY".

We eventually got cleared up to 6500' and flew over Hamilton and headed down towards Taupo without further incident. The view was pretty spectacular, pretty much no cloud and soon the mountains were clearly visible and looking postcard perfect all covered in snow.

We parked up at Taupo, gassed the tanks, paid the horrendous landing fee ($4.50 ;) at the honesty box and went to get some lunch at the cafe. Watched the parachuting (including one guy who I think was about to go up for a jump... he looked as white as a sheet and was doing some deep breathing and meditating! hahahah), the crazy jump plane pilots descending from 11000' in about 3 1/2 minutes (do the math!) and getting on the ground almost before the parachutists and a couple of AirNZ Link Beech 1900D's arrive and depart.

We had been considering a bit of a tiki tour down to the mountains for some photos, but the weather looked like it was starting to arrive from the south, and with the fairly solid 20-25kt wind, we figured it would be a fairly unpleasant experience, so decided to just continue on our way and head for Rotovegas.

Nick commented that the easy part was behind us... and boy was he right! Taupo to Rotorua is only about 15 minutes... and Rotorua to Tauranga is not much more... you get very busy, very quickly!

While we were on the ground, I had checked with the National Briefing Office (NBO), to see if the controller had updated our flight plan with the 4000 transponder code she had given us, as we were a little loathe to play with the transponder anymore. Unfortunately, they had not, so we changed back to 0334... or so we thought.

Heading in to Rotorua, we were informed by the tower, that we were actually squawking 4334. But she had us idented, so was happy for us to continue. We were cleared into the zone at 3500' or below and to report again at the green lakes. I had initially asked for a Touch and Go and then onward to Tauranga, but given the continuing issues with the transponder, we thought it wise to just head straight back to Ardmore, so I informed the tower that I was going to amend my flight plan. At which point she informed us that we were now showing the correct code of 0334!! Nick and I looked at each other and asked "did you touch it???"

Seeing as how it appeared to be working, I decided to go ahead and continue on to Tauranga. Which proved to be an interesting decision, as the controller there was juggling about 7 aircraft all arriving from different directions... and 2 gliders!

Luckily though, Tauranga has published VFR arrival and departure procedures... which makes radio calls nice and simple... "JFY, cleared for a Papamoa One Arrival", "Cleared Papamoa One Arrival, JFY"... "JFY, cleared Matakana One Departure, Right Turn approved", "Cleared Matakana One Departure, JFY". It also makes it easy to plan and brief your arrival beforehand, which helps lighten the load a little.

So, despite there being a ton of traffic, things flowed pretty well. Nick was getting a little anxious (and constantly reminding me) that we were short final without clearance, but having 'grown up' flying at a controlled aerodrome (Palmerston North, NZPM), you get used to the controllers doing things last minute... I once got cleared to land when I was only about 3ft off the ground!

So we were in and out of Tauranga pretty quickly (next time I think I'll execute a missed approach to avoid the $24.50 landing charge!!!!) and tracking along the coast towards Waihi. Then it was through the Waihi Gap, across the plains and Firth of Thames and back to Ardmore without further incident.

The first thing I did after landing was terminate my flight plan and the first thing I did after shutting down the aircraft was to write up the transponder issue in the Defect Log.

Here you can see the planned route (in red) vs. the actual route (in blue):

Nick took some photos along the way, so if any of them come out looking halfway decent, I'll post them up.

All in all, a great days flying... which was a huge relief after only getting 3 flights in June and only 2 flights in July due to all the crappy weather!

This flight: 3.6 PinC
Total Hours: 133.5 (78.9/43.3 Day, 4.9/6.4 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Online Results

2008-08-07T11:50:00.006+12:00

are not necessarily a good thing... because you end up spending all day constantly pressing F5 to reload the webpage to see if your marks have been posted! :-/

It does not help that, for the last couple of days, I have been in bed with the 'Man Flu'(tm) as the missus likes to call it... so have had nothing better to do that watch daytime tv and refresh the results page.

Thankfully mine finally have been posted... and even more thankfully, I need not have been so concerned about my results for Air Law...


ASL Exam Results for
[ZK-JPY]

Date      Subject            Result  Mark
29/07/08  CPL Air Law        Pass    90
28/07/08  CPL Human Factors  Pass    100

I am not sure how, but I got 90% for Air Law... wtf!?!!? Still, I'm not complaining, that is $108 I definitely did not want to have to spend again!

And I guess I was right to feel confident about Human Factors... 100%! woohoo!

On to Air Tech now... not exactly my strong suit :-( I do electronics and computers... not internal combustion engines, carburettors and fuel systems... I thought that was why we had LAME's? ;-)

(Hopefully) Two down...

2008-07-30T10:20:00.003+12:00

CPL Air Law... *ugh*

Yesterday was not a pleasant experience... needless to say I am not as confident about that exam as I was about Human Factors :(

It was 30 questions... and you need 70% (or 21 questions for those who aren't good at maths)...

I think I knew about 22 or 23... and after the exam, I checked a couple that I had guessed and found I had got them right.

There was also one question that appeared to not have any correct answers!?!?!! It was asking about GAA areas (specifically G277, Lake Waikare) and what the Frequency and ATC requirements were. I think the reason why it was wrong, may have somthing to with the fact that the entry for G277 in the AIP had been updated on 10th April 2008... I am guessing that the exam question had not been updated to match. So, I wrote a critique at the end of the exam explaining why I thought there was no correct answer and why I picked the answer I did.

So, hopefully, I have passed... but it will definitely be a nervous "7 working days" waiting for my results to be posted.

One down...

2008-07-28T14:30:00.003+12:00

Five to go!

Had my first CPL exam this morning... at 8am!!!?!!?

But now I know why people say you should start off with Human Factors. It is only 40 multi-guess questions and they give you 1 1/2 hours... I took 25 minutes ;)

I think I did OK, as there were only 3 or 4 that I was unsure of and of those, I checked the study guide after the exam and I know I got 2 of them right! So I am expecting a mark somewhere around 90% (you need 70% to pass). 7 working days until the results are posted...

I have Air Law tomorrow morning... at 8am!!???! Unfortunately, I am not feeling quite as confident about this one, but I have been studying hard which was made a little easier by my decision to start taking the train to/from work again, which 'gifts' me study time that would normally be wasted on road rage! ;) And, I have completed a couple of practice exams and did OK, so hopefully I can keep all this info in my head for 1 more day!

Land of the long white cloud...

2008-07-14T09:35:00.004+12:00

So I wake up and find that indeed the weather forecasters had got it right and all the crappy weather had blown through... and we would get to go flying. I had been planning a flight for a couple of weeks, with some NZFF associates to Tauranga to go and meet some of the guys from the Bay of Plenty area and visit the Classic Flyers Museum etc...

But Mother Nature was to have the last say. This pic shows the very nice conditions at Ardmore on departure at 1030 after all the fog had burnt off:

This pic shows the conditions around Paeroa and Te Aroha as we approached the Coromandel/Kaimai's:

:(

One big U-Turn and a city scenic later (Pics available here and here), and we landed back at Ardmore around 1230 a bit bummed that we had not made it to Tauranga.

One of the pax was kind enough to video the landing... thankfully he warned me he was recording, so I made sure it was a good one... note the stall warning light that flashes right on touchdown ;)

And then, to rub salt into the wound, around 1600 while I was hanging around at the clubrooms, I saw a Bayflight 152 (KID) do a Touch and Go at Ardmore... so the cloud had obviously cleared...

Still, not a total loss, I got to go flying (which is always a good thing!), and the guys seemed to have a good time. We, the Auckland based crew, have decided that next time we have a meet, it will either be in summer, or in Auckland!

This flight: 2.0 PinC
Total Hours: 129.9 (78.9/39.7 Day, 4.9/6.4 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Take what you can get...

2008-07-10T15:10:00.003+12:00

Was heading out to the club last night, for some going away drinks with Trevor... and thought to myself "Quite nice weather, might just take my kit and do some night flying if anyone is interested"... checked Metflight and the conditions seemed to indicate we would not get fog.

Driving out to the airfield, there did not seem to be any fog forming, and I could see about 5 or 6 aircraft in the circuit... I arrived at the club, walked in the door, and, jokingly, the first thing Trevor said was "Are you going flying?"... not expecting me to say "Well, my stuff is in the car... who is keen?".

Found myself 3 passengers pretty quickly... so I pre-flighted LMA and we blasted off... I had been intending on doing a city scenic, but by the time we were taxiing out the temperature and the dewpoint were almost the same, which is ideal conditions for fog... and some of the other members were wanting Trevor back for drinks, so I decided to blat around the circuit a couple of times instead.

Was good until the children in the back, who shall remain... Trevor and Nathan, decided that playing at white-noise generators over the intercom was a good idea. Unfortunately, the intercom did not have an isolate function... *sigh*...

Anyway, as it turns out, the fog never arrived... Still another 0.7 in the logbook and was good to keep current at night... might have another go tonight if the weather holds.

This flight: 0.7 PinC Night
Total Hours: 127.9 (78.9/37.7 Day, 4.9/6.4 Night, 5.1 IFR)

What do you call...

2008-07-08T12:08:00.008+12:00

a day of clear blue skies after 2 days of rain/hail/snow?

MONDAY! Ok, so it was actually 3 days of brutal weather... and it is actually Tuesday, but you get the point!

Despite the abysmal weather, I did get to go flying over the weekend... I just happened to be in Seat 3C, as opposed to 0A ;)

On the saturday we flew from NZAA to NZPM and as you can see from the pics, the weather down below would have been 'interesting'... we had a couple of bumps on the climb out, but nothing too serious once we were up above the weather...

On the way back, we were a little lucky to make the flight... arrived 10 minutes before departure, yay for online check-in and pre-printing boarding passes... to discover the inbound flight had not even arrived... yay for regional air travel :) So thankfully had plenty of time to queue up and pay the $5 departure tax... sorry, "Development Levy"... boo for Palmerston North International Airport :(

I was hoping to get some lovely pics of the central plateau that was all covered in snow... well that is what I heard... what I think I saw was Mt Ngauruhoe poking out from amongst the clouds... the photos are a bit crap, but oh well.

In typical fashion, it cleared up from the Hamilton, but it was still interesting flying along and spotting all the familiar landmarks like Hamilton, Huntly, Lake Waikare, Pukehoke etc..

Oh and if you were wondering, there is more room in a Cessna 152 than row 3 on an Air New Zealand Link ATR72-500 :P

Hopefully this weather will stick around so I can fly over to Tauranga on Sunday... hoping for a scenic flight out to White Island! *crosses fingers*

Getting my fix...

2008-06-29T17:36:00.004+12:00

Finally made it back in the air after a 4 week hiatus... this morning was looking pretty grim, with every other line on the weather reports including CB's, aka Cumulonimbus aka Thunderstorms :-/

Not really a big deal, as I went to a poker night last night and was not feeling too pleasant this morning anyway ;-)

Instead, I went for some Helifun with Nick in his R44... My first time ever in a 'moving' helicopter... my verdict? they move funny... probably not helped by my feeling so shifty! Was very good fun, and hopefully we will go play up in the bush sometime in the future and see some of the more 'interesting' landing spots.

Following that, I was thinking about calling it quits and coming home, when CFI Rob asked me if I would mind whipping up a couple of logbook sticker templates in Word. By the time, I had finished, and had visited the local and legendary bakery (Calum's) for lunch, the sky was looking quite blue.

So I decided to go for a flight to blow out the cobwebs... I had been planning on taking JBL to help get the hours off, when I found out that it was already able to do circuits, having just had its 25Hr check. So I decided to take LMA, as it had not flown for a month!

Glad I did, it is such a smooth aircraft, with lots of grunt and just handles so well. I took Nathan (the club captain) for a quick city scenic, and around Waiheke...

The arrival back at the airfield was interesting, after I called joining long final, UNICOM informed that I might like to try joining non-traffic side, as they had around 9 or 10 aircraft in the circuit! Glad I decided to take their advice, it was an absolute log jam! Luckily, I managed to slot into a nice big gap in the stream without any drama's.

Another 1.2 for the logbook... and my addiction fed for another week ;-)

This flight: 1.2 PinC
Total Hours: 127.2 (78.9/37.7 Day, 4.9/5.7 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Nothing to see here, please move along...

2008-06-23T11:41:00.008+12:00

*sigh*... I hate winter... Actually that is untrue, I hate bad weather :(

3 weeks and I am starting to get itchy... Have spent the last couple of weekends in Hamilton with Trevor. First one was in the Sim, I am actually picking up a bit of the instrument flying stuff and can follow along quite well.

This weekend just gone, we actually got airbourne in FWS. Massive frontal system was moving in from the North-East, so the planned trip to Tauranga and Rotorua was out, so he decided to just bash the Hamilton approaches. This was the view climbing out from Runway 36.

For someone who, as an instructor, does not actually do a lot of hands-on flying, I thought he did great. Notice the perfect (climbing) Rate-1 turn! Very smooth... I actually thought the auto-pilot was flying... but turns out he did not even use it!

Top Down view of NZHN... looks quite small really, but they put 737's in here. At least, they did, before Air New Zealand shut down Freedom Air. Believe it or not, but the small area on the right is the commercial terminal building. All of the stuff on the left is the Aeroclub, CTC, maintenance hangers etc.

Glad someone can "see"... This, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason people get instrument ratings! Unfortunately, Instrument Meteorological Conditions are not very conducive to photography... and neither is the Blackberry Curve 8310! ;)

I also got a chance to compare my in-ear homemade headset to my normal headset and deduced that it it indeed quieter... not a staggering amount, but once you factor in the comfort value of not having your head in a giant vice and getting hot, sweaty ears, I can definitely see the value in it! :) Now I just need to decide if I want to drop some $$$ on an ANR headset.

Given that I have not been flying for 3 weeks, I can probably afford it now! :P

Diversions and a different perspective

2008-06-01T18:10:00.003+12:00

Woke up this morning and figured that flying today could be a bit problematic weather-wise, given that I could barely see my back fence through the fog!

Was hoping that it would burn off while I pre-flighted, had breakfast, did the flight planning etc. It was starting to burn off quite nicely around Ardmore by the time Nick and I had had breakfast at the aeroclub cafe, so the plan was to fly to Taupo (NZAP), Rotorua (NZRO), Thames (NZTH) and back to Ardmore.

I gathered all the weather and did the flight planning. The forecasts at the various locations were all for early morning fog that was due to have disappeared by around 11am.

So we gassed up JBL and headed out. On take-off we discovered the cloud base was only around 1500' through the Hunua Valley but it appeared to clear over the training area. Unfortunately, this only lasted until just north of Hamilton. When the tower asked if we wanted 'Special VFR' when we requested a clearance to transit their zone, we knew it was pretty much over :(

We decided to divert towards Tauranga, as it looked relatively clear over towards Matamata. As we flew up the valley it appeared that the cloudbase was down towards 800'... so we headed back up past Lake Waikare and out into the Firth of Thames. Here the cloudbase was well up over 1000' and we could see all the way across to Thames and the Coromandel. So I called Christchurch Information, amended my flight plan to Thames and then onwards to Ardmore and extended my SARTIME out by a half hour.

I flew over to Thames, made a missed approach and then a Touch and Go and then headed back to Ardmore.

1.7 hours of PinC, a new airfield and some valuable lessons learned... like call the airfields where you are planning on going and get some 'on the spot' weather rather than relying on forecasts.

After debriefing with Trevor and discussing decisions made etc. CFI Rob called wanting to know if I would like to get some paid for flying tomorrow. All I had to do was fly a guy around over by Glenbrook and Waiuku following a steam train so he could video it. I was happy to go, but Rob then realised that I would need to do it from the right hand seat as they wanted video of the left hand side of the train. Flying from the right hand seat is a bit different and Rob was not sure whether or not it would be a good idea. I said that I was more than happy to go and do some flying with Trevor then to prove competency. Rob agreed but noted that I would need to pay for that which I was happy to.

All I can say is that it is a very different experience flying from the right hand seat! Left hand on throttle, right hand on the control yoke is very interesting, as my brain has become used to the opposite... so on a couple of occasions I found that when I was needing to push the throttle in, my right hand was still reacting and pushing the control yoke in!

Also, the parallax error on the instruments like the AH and Turn Co-ordinator have to be taken into account... on the positive side, I was always at the targeted RPM, as that Tacho is right in front of you on that side!

The end result being that, weather permitting, I am going train spotting tomorrow :)

This flight: 1.7 PinC + 0.8 Dual
Total Hours: 126.0 (78.9/36.5 Day, 4.9/5.7 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Animated Sandbag

2008-05-27T15:24:00.010+12:00

Got the chance to go along for a ride with Nick (the guy in the picture) while he was doing the first of his solo CPL cross countries. Yes, you can fly 'solo' with passengers :) I though it would be a useful opportunity to get a preview of what a CPL cross country entails while inflight (timing, ground speed checks, ETA's etc.) And I think Nick was happy to have some company... even if I was just an 'Animated Sandbag' as he put it. Rob the CFI was clear that I was not to aid Nick in any way.

As the weather people had been wrong about the weather, the weekend was actually not too bad, so I headed out to Ardmore and got my crap sorted while Nick was working on the flight planning. The plan was to head up to Keri Keri, Kaitaia and Kaikohe. As an exercise you get 1 hour to complete it all, which is not too difficult as long as you follow the 'more speed, less haste' philosophy.

Planning complete and Flight Plan filed, we strapped into JBL and headed out. The engine is still being run in at high power settings, so Nick had planned for slightly faster speeds. It was nice to just observe see how other people do things, but I soon discovered it is a little uncomfortable trying to remain free of the controls in a 152 when you're 6'3" :)

Nick had done most of his planning to/from Musik Point, so after climbing out of Ardmore we headed towards the city getting ready for Nick to start his timings and navigation etc. Nick decided to keep a nice low 1000' and use the Transit lane to get past the Whenuapai Airspace and then climb up to cruising altitude. It was at this point that we could all the weather towards the north, and to be honest it did not look very nice.

As you can see in this pic approaching the Whangaparoa Peninsula, some of the areas up north looked a bit grey. We continued on and I clowned around with my phone (A Blackberry Curve 8310), trying out the GPS on it and taking crappy pictures like the 2nd one above, showing the effects of 'strobing' where the shutter speed of the camera and the prop RPM aren't in sync :)

I also snapped this great pic of yours truly, trying out my homemade, lightweight headset that I built from an old headset and a coat hanger (seriously!) I really love this headset, as it means I can wear sunglasses easily and I don't get a hot sweaty head from the big ear cups and headband of a conventional headset.

Unfortunately, the weather really started to close in as we started to approach Whangarei... the cloudbase was down to around 1700 or 1800' and the MSA for the area was around 2600'!! The rain was starting and the visibility was getting a bit crap. The view to the north was just a big dark gray wall. Nick asked me what I thought and remembering Rob's words, I replied "I'm just sitting here, you're PinC"... To his credit (and my relief) he decided that it was time to turn back.

So we headed back to AR and discovered the airfield had become very very busy. The most annoying thing was, that as we were heading south, we could see how good the weather that way was :( Oh well, as Nick said, it is all PinC time and useful experience. I am hoping to get started on my CPL cross countries at some point, but am still busy studying for the exams... so far I have read the Human Factors book and the first couple of chapters of Air Law. I am getting to know the CAR's, AIPs and AC's pretty well...

Tidying up loose ends

2008-05-22T21:36:00.004+12:00

So after my careful calculations (and misreading the requirements!), I had ended up 0.1 short of Night Dual and 0.4 short of the 10 hours total required for a CPL Night endorsement.

I had spoken with Trevor and he said we would wait for a dark night (aren't they all?) and go and do some 'revision' on turns etc. Well tonight was looking good, fine with a high layer of cloud which would hopefully:

a. Block the full moon (thus making it somewhat dark)
b. Help keep the fog away by helping maintain some of the warmth

Turns out it was not so good at part a, but worked well at keeping the fog at bay :)

We started with some circuits to guarantee I would be 152 night current (and to avoid the night circuit fees charged after 8pm NZST. Climbing out, Trevor says "You can make the first one flapless and lightless"...

Was not too bad, perhaps a shade high, but was down comfortably in the end. Next one was a shortfield. I had it configured nice and early, but thought that I may have perhaps been a shade high. I continued the approach and in the end when ended up touching down right by the APAPI lights like we were aiming for. And then, to finish, we did a glide approach. In hindsight, I felt I took the last 10 degrees of flap about 3 or 4 seconds to early and consequently landed a little short of the APAPI lights, but it was still a good landing and I learnt a valuable lesson in the process.

We then departed from the downwind and headed out towards Drury and Pukekohe, climbing up to 2000', for some 'fun'. A rate one turn to the right. A medium turn to the right. A rate one turn to the left, A medium turn to the left. Followed by some steep turns... these are quite tricky at night, as you really have no decent horizon to work with and it really does throw your senses out. But I managed to hold my nomiated altitude really well, which is fairly unusual for me in steep turns, to be honest!

Then back to the field for an overhead join... which I almost messed up, by forgetting that you need to add 200' to all circuit altitudes at night... including overhead join altitudes. Trevor casually asked me what altitude I should be at as we were approaching the field. "DOH!"... luckily I was only 100' short so a quick zoom climb back to 1810' and we were fine.

Trevor decided to make it a flapless, lightless landing to finish which went without too much drama, although in the still air we floated a fair way along the runway.

Another great nights flying... I rediscovered the joys of the 152, I got a great demonstration of how flaps bring the landing point closer on final approach and I got to enjoy some of the great night views again.

I am kinda hoping the weather will hold for the weekend, so I can do some cross country flying up North with Nick (another CPL student), but the forecast is looking a little grim :(

This flight: 1.0 Dual Night
Total Hours: 123.5 (78.1/34.8 Day, 4.9/5.7 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Playing it safe

2008-05-18T12:52:00.003+12:00

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)

Pulling the pin...

2008-05-16T08:37:00.001+12:00

One of my shortest flights ever last night :( Not quite as dramatic as Euan's shortest flight, but some valuable lessons learned.

I had been planning on taking a friend night flying, unfortunately the temperature and dew point were a little too close together for my liking... like 1 degree!

This increases the likelihood of fog and with a very still night meant it was almost a certainty. Indeed driving out to the airfield, there were already wisps of fog about.

We decided to play it safe, and just fly in the circuit, but even that would prove to be a lost cause. I checked the ATIS that indicated that we should be using runway 21 (wind was only a couple of knots from 180), however another aircraft was already in the circuit using 03... they had set the runway direction, so we had to follow.

On the the 1st circuit, aside from being ridiculously high (more on this below) there was already a fairly heavy fog rolling up the valley and across the field. So I decided to make the next one a full stop and call it quits. As the saying goes:

There are old pilots... and bold pilots... but no old, bold pilots!

As I mentioned before, I was really high on the first approach. I didn't think the 1 or 2 knots of tailwind would make that much difference and could not figure out why the 172 with full flaps at idle power was refusing to come down. Not having a good view of the illuminated windsock (it's on the wrong side of the aircraft when you're using 03), I figured the wind was stronger than 1 or 2 knots. So I executed a go-around rather than forcing it in and decided to extend the downwind to give myself more time to setup.

Turns out I was correct in my assumption about the wind. Indeed, the other aircraft in the circuit obviously had a GPS, as he called up as I was doing my downwind checks to let me know that it was showing an 8 to 10 knot tailwind!!

I setup a nice long approach and was able to put it down relatively easily. Landed a little deeper than usual of course because of the tailwind, but no real drama's. It was actually a really good landing (flare, stall warning, 2 dogs barking)...

Given the fog that was around after we landed, I am very glad I called it quits when I did. After all, as the instructors have told me several times, it's a long walk back from Auckland International... and then you have to go back to get the aircraft!

This flight: 0.3 PinC Night
Total Hours: 121.3 (78.1/34.8 Day, 3.9/4.5 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Spontaneity

2008-05-11T23:22:00.004+12:00

The great thing about having your licence is the ability to just go and fly...

I headed out to the club today, not really intending on flying as the weather looked atrocious. Lots of showers, gray/black clouds floating around everywhere and it was blowing fairly strong, gusting 22 knots. But Auckland being Auckland... well as they say, if you don't like the weather, just wait 10 minutes :)

Around 4:30pm, the sun had come out, the wind had dropped down to around 10knots and I decided it was time to take DXP for a run before the owner takes her offline later this week.

I managed to find some company in the form of another club member who was keen to come along for the ride, and after a quick pre-flight we taxied out to do our run-ups. For an aircraft that had not moved in around 3 weeks, DXP was an absolute dream. Started without any fuss, no hiccups during run-ups and she flew as straight as an arrow.

So we decided to go for a quick city scenic and headed over the city, enjoying the view around the port, Harbour Bridge, Sky Tower, One Tree Hill, Rangitoto etc. before heading back. A most enjoyable flight, and Tony even bought me a beer afterwards!

The only issue I had was that it was really heavy on the elevator... requiring a lot of force to get the nose up on the take-off roll, and a lot to prevent the nose wheel 'shimmy' on landing... other than that, an absolute dream to fly.

This flight: 1.0 PinC
Total Hours: 121.0 (78.1/34.8 Day, 3.9/4.2 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Mince pies and aerobatics...

2008-05-10T22:09:00.003+12:00

Was out at the club sitting in on an IFR study group that I had been attending all week, not really necessary at present, but I figure it can't hurt to get a heads-up on what is involved with IFR... actually learnt quite a bit and even understood some of it!

The guys decided to go over to the cafe at the auckland aero club for lunch as the cupboard was bare... Unfortunately by 2pm the cafe was running a little light on stock and I had the choice of mince or mince and cheese... So a mince and cheese pie (and a florentine slice :) it was. This would prove to be an interesting choice.

After the study group finished, Simon decided the cloudbase had lifted enough to go and try his new aerobatics routine and offered a ride along Trevor, who said I should go instead... Did I want to come for a ride in a CT-4 airtrainer? Hell yeah!

Turns out that DGY is actually the original CT-4 prototype... S/N 001.

So, strapped in, run-ups complete and off we went (airsick bag at the ready ;)... Climbing out over Papakura, Simon says "You have control"... All I can say is that aircraft with push-rod controls are quite sensitive ;) The little electric trim switch on the stick was nice though.

Simon then gave me a bit of a crash course in CSU's (Constant Speed Units) and the relationships between manifold pressure, RPM and ambient air pressure. Most of which I forget, but the QNH of 995 was not helping.

By now we were over the training area and Simon walked me through an aileron roll. Dive to increase speed to 140 knots, pull nose up to about 10 degrees above the horizon, check positively forward and then push the stick hard over and into the roll and then back to straight and level.

Then it was my turn... Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

Following my roll we were still carrying about 140 knots so Simon said "May as well do another". Double Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

Then it was a loop. Dive to 150 KIAS, pull back and hold, keeping straight with ailerons, releasing the pressure to let the aircraft float over the top and then pulling back out of the dive to straight and level.

And again it was my turn... Wooooooohooooooooo!

Following that I sat back and enjoyed being turned inside out while Simon started on his routine... Not sure of the exact maneuvers involved, but the view went something like blue, green, green, blue/green, green/blue, blue, blue, green, green, green/blue, green/blue, blue, blue/green, green, blue, green... straight and level.

After completing the first half and deciding it was not going well (I'm sure the 105kgs of ballast, nearly full tanks and low air pressure were not helping), Simon called it quits and we headed back to airfield.

If you ever get the chance to do aero's... Just do it!

For the record, the airsick bag was unused... And I don't recommend mince and cheese pies as pre-aerobatic food :)

This flight: 0.6 Dual
Total Hours: 120.0 (78.1/33.8 Day, 3.9/4.2 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Long weekend

2008-04-28T09:57:00.004+12:00

Friday (ANZAC Day) looked like it was going to be the only 'flyable' day given the forecasts, so I headed out to NZAR on a bit of a whim and decided to go and do some 'revision' in a 152...

I am very glad I did, it was so smooth and still that I was running over my own wake doing medium turns!

So I did the basic stuff - medium turns, steep turns (need to work on the right hand turns a bit more!), basic stalls, approach stalls, FLWOP (was very happy with this), Overhead Join, Go-Around (more on this below), Shortfield Landing...

All in all, a relatively relaxing and pleasant flight...

except for the itinerant pilot visiting NZAR who:

1. Had not read the NZAR AIP Plates (had to confirm with UNICOM that circuit direction for 03 was right hand)
2. Had no idea how to join at an uncontrolled aerodrome (got talked through an overhead join by UNICOM and another aircraft)
3. Stopped in the middle of the runway and asked for taxi instructions... while I was on short finals! Hence the Go-Around... spoiled a really good shortfield approach :( Here's an idea, taxi off the runway first and then ask! grrrrr

It seems to me that this pilot (who said he was from Christchurch) has spent a lot of time flying in controlled airspace... and is so used to being told what to do and when to do it, that he is a little lost in an uncontrolled environment... He even asked UNICOM for permission to cross the runway when taxiing.

I guess another way to look at it, is that he was unsure so he did ask for help... as opposed to blindly flying into a busy aerodrome and making it up as he went along. Which should be commended.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this guy is a crap pilot or bagging him out, if anything I blame his training establishment for not preparing the guy properly. Just as lots of guys from Ardmore struggle when introduced to the controlled environment, eg. flying to Hamilton, it would appear that pilots who have spent most of their time in a controlled environment struggle when they are left to fend for themselves in an uncontrolled environment.

Saturday was a little marginal, but I decided to take JBL for a blat to work some of the 'run in' hours off... the new engine requires 25 hours at high power to bed it in... so you have to fly everywhere at full power... which makes the approach and landing a little interesting :)

jade had taken me out to Karioitahi Beach on Friday morning to show me where she went for her team building last week, so I decided I'd fly out to Port Waikato and then up the coast to Karioitahi for a bit of a look from the air, as I could stay clear of airspace... beautiful place (no cellphone reception! :) I reckon I could live out there quite happily... although it is a bit of a drive to Ardmore! ;)

On the way back I was orbiting over Pukekohe, watching some cars going round the racetrack... and had a laugh as one of them went off the end of the back straight and into the gravel trap!

Heading back I was hoping that no-one else was stupid enough to be flying so I could join straight in so I would not have to come in on low power... thankfully only 2 other aircraft were in the circuit, so I came straight in. Was a fairly messy approach given that I was doing 80 or 90 kts, but I got it on the ground well enough.

Sunday I went to Hamilton with Trevor... I had been hoping to get a ride in a real aircraft, but unfortunately the ADF in the cherokee he is planning on using for his instrument flight test was out of action... that and the weather report mentioned isolated and embedded CB's... not the sort of weather to be out and about in... so we ended up in the Sim again...

This flight: 1.1 PinC (Fri), 1.0 PinC (Sat)
Total Hours: 119.4 (77.5/33.8 Day, 3.9/4.2 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Who needs night-vision goggles...

2008-04-22T11:42:00.005+12:00

when you have a full moon!

A simply stunning flight last night... full moon, clear skies, no wind, unlimited vis... After finishing off some paper work for the type-rating, I took Trevor and 2 of his kids for a Night Scenic in LMA...

I am officially in love with this aircraft, it is just so smooth and a real dream to fly... once you trim it up, it really is hands off flying... and I had forgotten the joys of low-wing aircraft and the extra ground effect making for nice soft landings...

The 180HP engine also makes a lovely, reassuring grumble... :)

Conditions really were perfect, and as I was getting established on long final, Trevor commented he could see the moonlight shadow of the aircraft on the ground!

Hoping to go again tonight if the conditions hold...

This flight: 1.0 PinC
Total Hours: 117.3 (77.5/31.7 Day, 3.9/4.2 Night, 5.1 IFR)

Adding to the collection

2008-04-20T23:06:00.006+12:00

Climbed behind the controls of a Piper Cherokee (PA-28) for the first time in almost 8 years today...

And it was fantastic... this particular aircraft (ZK-LMA) was a very tidy specimen of the 180HP variety... with 3 people on-board that could afford to miss the odd meal or three, it was still climbing at over 500' per minute while maintaining 80kts! When I took it solo I was getting over 1000' per minute!!!

LMA is a lovely (if somewhat expensive) aircraft to fly... and I will certainly be racking up a few more hours in it now that I am officially rated in it and approved to fly it.

So I now have C-152, C-172 and PA-28 ratings... that will pretty much cover the world in terms of aircraft, meaning that I should be able to go almost anyway and find something that I can fly...

In addition to the Type Rating, I was also able to provide Trevor with the 1.4 hours that finally took him over the 100 hours required of 'direct' supervision on his C-Cat... well done mate!

now about that remaining 65.1 hours PinC time required for my CPL ;)

On another note, I spent yesterday in Hamilton watching Trevor get put through the wringer in the Sim as part of his prep for an instrument rating... although I was actually able to follow along fairly well this time, I can tell I have a LOT still to learn... am hoping to tag along next week while he's doing the same thing but in a real aircraft :)

This flight: 1.4 Dual + 0.5 PinC
Total Hours: 116.3 (77.5/31.7 Day, 3.9/3.2 Night, 5.1 IFR)