Cloud punching

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

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

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...

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)