Needles and Racetracks...

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...

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


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


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


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


5. 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)

View from the Right Hand Seat...

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

Pilot for Hire...

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...

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

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 ;)

Glide time...

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...

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)

Things that DO suck

1. Sadistic Flight Instructors


2. 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...

1. Broken Vacuum Pumps


2. Getting released from Jury Service on the first morning


3. 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

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)

On the clock...

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)

A "Free" prize

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)

Pilotics...

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! :-/

3rd time's a charm...

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)

Diversions and a different perspective

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)

Tidying up loose ends

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)

Sharing the wealth

Took a friend up for a Night City Scenic this evening...

Was a little 'interesting' to begin with, as he is a little nervous about heights and not that sure about flying in light aircraft... his comment when we arrived at the club was 'wow, those planes parked next door are quite small'... He was referring to the 172's for sale at Denis Thompson Aircraft Sales... we were going to be flying in a 152! :)

After I showed him JFY, he looked a little nervous, but I walked him through the pre-flight, explaining what I was doing and why (safety) and he seemed sweet.

Strapped in and headed for the city... was a clear night and very smooth... and the city looked simply spectacular! After a couple of orbits of the Sky Tower, my friend was feeling a little more relaxed and even got out his camera to get some pics. After trying to take some photos, without flash after I pointed out blinding your pilots is not a good idea, and getting lots of blur, he decided to try a video. The results can be seen here:

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=790574270&k=6WDYX3P5S55MZ1LGWAVXV

note: you may need a facebook account to view this... I'm working on getting a copy of the original, so I can add it to youtube

It came out quite well... and I'd just like to point out that the camera shake has nothing to do with my flying! :)

Back to Ardmore for a relatively smooth landing and he was really buzzing and wanting to do it again with his Fiance... :)

He did mention to me at work that he got a little nervous when I chopped the power back to idle beginning the approach to land... so I must remember next time, to advise the pax what I'm up to so as not to cause any concern!

The ulterior motive behind my flight was to test out the LightSPEED Zulu headset that I have on demo from Phil at SpecialFX Supplies (the NZ LightSPEED Distributor)...

all I can say is "WOW!"... this puppy really does live up to the hype... very light, very quiet and extremely comfortable... I'm hoping to give it a good test on my solo high level cross country this weekend... fingers crossed for good weather!


This flight: 1.0 PinC
Total Hours: 111.9 (76.1 Dual Day, 28.7 PinC Day, 3.9 Dual Night, 3.2 PinC Night, 5.1 IFR)

The Ultimate Night Experience

WOW!

I had been told that it was an unbelievable experience... and it really was! Tonight I went for my night scenic check flight with the CFI. At Airline Flying Club we are in the lucky situation of being in good standing with the Air Traffic Controllers at Auckland International. This is down to CFI Rob who works hard to maintain a working relationship with the controllers at NZAA so that, provided they are not busy with 'real' traffic, they will allow us to execute a low approach and overshoot...

Quite an experience to join the 'Big Boys'... although the pilot of QF189, who had setup a nice 10 mile final, sounded a little bewildered when the Tower told him to "Expect a TCAS warning, traffic is a 152 orbiting just south of the threshold"... "Confirm Traffic Type"... "A Cessna 152 orbiting just south of the threshold"... "A 152?!?!? at night??!?!? He's Brave!"...

After our 2nd Orbit we were cleared "Number 2 behind 767 on short final, caution wake turbulence"... you think?? ;)

I set up for the final approach (missed the centreline due to the 17knot crosswind... oops!) and as we were coming in... "Juliet Foxtrot Yankee... cleared low approach and overshoot and then direct to the city, 1500' or below".

I make the readback and then continued with my sideways crab along final... at which point QF189 pipes up with "awwww, I wanted to see him land with the 17knot crosswind!"... cheeky sod!

I really had to fight the urge not to say "Well if you pay the $50 landing fee I will!"... Rob told me later he was wanting to go back with "We would, but we wouldnt want to show you up!"... hahahahaah :)

We zoomed along the runway doing 100kts at 100' and then executed the go-around... I was very happy with my track, given the ridiculous crosswind and we made our way to the city thanking the controller for their help.

A quick turn around Sky Tower, out over the Port and then across to Musick Point. The city looked absolutely fabulous... I cannot wait to take a few family members and friends up at night... Then around the coast to Maretai and Clevedon river mouth, before heading back to NZAR... The wind had swung around so we were able to make a straight in approach for 21. Thankfully I managed to get the runway lights on. A relatively decent landing and Rob says to me "Excellent, feel free to go flying at Night" :)

Stoked!


This flight: 1.1 Dual
Total Hours: 110.9 (76.1 Dual Day, 3.9 Dual Night, 28.7 PinC Day, 2.2 PinC Night, 5.1 IFR)

Flying High

6500' to be precise... Although we almost did not make it!

I arrived at the club to open up, and Xavier was waiting with a friend to go on a City Scenic. Unfortunately, ETZ had an issue with the mixture control lever. The real downside to this, was the fact that I was due to be flying ETZ on my High Level Cross Country... doh!

While we were unable to contact the maintenance guys, we were able to play some musical aircraft and shift a couple of bookings to keep everyone happy...

The end result being that I would get to take JFY :)

Went ahead with my flight planning... checking weather, calculating estimated elapsed times etc. Then we filed a VFR flight plan, which we did by FAX as a learning exercise...

The weather forecasts were not looking to bad, the sun was shining and there was little wind. However, it was not looking so good when the booking before us, got back and the instructor told us it was not looking too good, cloudbase-wise, towards the south. Trevor said "We can try (and possibly fail) or we can pull the pin now"... Feeling optimistic as always I opted to try.

We strapped into JFY and taxied out to the holding point at 03... to discover a Thunder Mustang, a Kittyhawk, a Birddog and a 172 taking up all the room. Thankfully, the Mustang, Kittyhawk and Birddog were ready to go, so I just slowed my taxi and by the time I got there they were gone :) Not sure the tecnam behind me was happy about it, but it was better than trying to weave around 3 or 4 aircraft doing run-ups!

We got into the air, called up Christchurch Info to relay my departure and ETA times and then we started assessing whether we would be able to get our planned 6500' cruise altitude. To fulfil the requirements of the high level cross country, you have to get to at least 6000' and VFR cruising altitudes in New Zealand (above 3000') are remembered by the Mnemonic NOSE + 500... North = Odd Thousand + 500', South = Even + 500'... As we were flying in a southerly direction, we needed Even + 500'...

There was a big band of cloud around 3500', but it looked like it ended around the Bombay Hills area and was clear behind that. So we decided to re-assess once we got there... and thankfully there was indeed some clear air.

So we called up Auckland Control, who seemed friendly enough... "JFY Cessna 152, requesting clearance into controlled airspace, Tracking direct to Hamilton at 6500', squawking 0317"... unfortunately, I realised that I had forgotten to give my current position just as I heard "JFY, please report current position"... "JFY is overhead Mercer 2100'"... Thankfully they were feeling kind and I got back "JFY, identified on screen, cleared to climb and maintain 6500', track direct to Hamilton"...

After reading back and then confirming that I was aware that the danger zone by Taupiri was activating (someone was launching rockets, but I didnt see any) soon, I pushed the throttle all the way in and we began the slow climb up to 6500'... at 500'/minute it takes a while to climb 4500'... 9 minutes does not sound like a lot, but it seems like forever!

Once we got there, I could not believe how smooth it was... no bumping about and you really could trim the aircraft and fly hands off... fabulous!

Heading towards Hamilton we were handed over to Christchurch Control who wanted to know if our destination was Hamilton... we advised we were overheading Hamilton, and then on to Te Kuiti... After reaching Hamilton, we were given an unrestricted descent into uncontrolled airspace and as we reached Otorahanga were told "No more requirements from this frequency, have a good day"...

The overhead join at Te Kuiti was a bit messy, not helped by my descent planning being a little off, meaning I was coming into the pattern quite fast and also an aircraft doing a simulated engine failure overhead the field... so I messed up the overhead join a little bit, but it worked out OK in the end.

We topped up with gas and then headed for Raglan. The overhead join into Raglan was much better and I got a good look at the field, the windsocks and worked out the approach. Unfortunately the final execution of the approach was poor.

I was high and should have gone around, but thought I could make it. Unfortunately, there was no wind whatsoever and JFY just floated... I was about to Go-Around when we touched down, so I decided to make it a fullstop instead of a Touch and Go and started to apply brakes... at which point we hit a huge lump in the middle of the strip and we bounced back into the air! Thankfully, we got back down and pulled up well before the end of the strip...

A poor landing as a result of a poor approach and poor decision making... As Trevor said "If you're airbourne and you have power, landing is optional".

We taxied back to the end of the strip, executed a Max Performance Take-off, and headed for home...

We did a couple more groundspeed check exercises on the way back which was a bit challenging, given the lack of decent ground features... back was still good to practice.

Coming in to AR, I terminated my flightplan and was setting up to join wide right base for 03, dodging a couple of gliders out of Drury, when a 182 flew around and across in front of me and declared he was doing the same!!! He then did something really dumb and started flying, at circuit height, the wrong way downwind, before making his turn to base leg.

Not wanting to be anywhere near that sillyness, I just called for the parallel grass strip and setup for a good shortfield landing, which I nailed and then taxied back to the club.

Trevor and I had a debrief, and I acknowledged that my overhead join into Te Kuiti was a bit messy and while my overhead join into Raglan was much better, my decision making on the final approach had been poor... Other than that, a fairly solid cross country and I'm looking forward to doing it solo!

This flight: 2.7 Dual
Total Hours: 109.8 (76.1 Dual Day, 2.8 Dual Night, 28.7 PinC Day, 2.2 PinC Night, 5.1 IFR)

Circuit Groping?

Can't really say 'Circuit Bashing'... coz I could not really see it, more like groping in the dark :)

Despite a day of rubbish weather, it came good at just the right time... and once you get up into the circuit and turn the landing light off the view is just amazing... with Auckland City, the Southern Motorway snaking off into the darkness and the stars even came out! Beats me why no-one else is night flying at the moment... the only traffic I had were a couple of light twins returning from some night IFR and one of those was back on the ground while I was doing my run-ups!

My night landings are definitely improving, with just one 'firm' one out of 12... it's amazing how quickly you can get around the circuit with no other traffic around!

I now have the minimum requirements for Night Flying (5 hours with at least 2 dual and 2 solo). All I need to do now is a night city scenic with Rob (including a low approach and overshoot at Auckland International!) and as long as I perform satisfactorily I will be able to get the night restriction lifted!


This flight: 1.2 Solo
Total Hours: 107.1 (73.4 Dual Day, 2.8 Dual Night, 28.7 PinC Day, 2.2 PinC Night, 5.1 IFR)