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

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...

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" ;)

Committed

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)

When you least expect it...

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)

Optimism pays dividends...

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)

That's my house!

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)

You gotta know when to fold 'em

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:

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


2. 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!

Long weekend

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)

Free and Clear

It is official. I am now the proud owner of an unrestricted PPL(A)... I completed my solo high level cross country today and as luck would have it, the flight examiner showed up at the club about an hour after I got back, so I was able to get the CFI to certify my logbook as having completed the cross-country syllabus and then the flight examiner removed the cross country restriction from my licence. :)

"Feel free to go fly 1000 miles at night" he said with a smile...

As for the flight today... it started a little shaky... I got all the way out to the airfield and realised I had left the latest lot of AIP amendments behind... rather than fly with an 'outdated' AIP, I elected to return home and get them, which meant I was running around 1/2 hour late... not really the start I was hoping for.

I was starting to get a little concerned by the cloud that seemed to be building up, but once again, when you got out to Bombay it was fine. The top overcast layer being up around 20,000' to 24,000'. Underneath that it was completely clear, at least where I was heading.

So I called up Auckland Control, they instructed to me remain clear of controlled airspace and that they would get back to me shortly... after a couple of minutes they cleared me for a non-standard VFR level of 6000'... enough to qualify as high-level and out of their way I guess.

ETZ really is a fabulous aircraft and without an instructor on board, the cool air and relatively high pressure, it was flying like a dream... I managed to maintain a steady 500'/minute climb, so made 6000' pretty quickly.

Overhead Hamilton and onwards to Te Kuiti, I was expecting to get a descent clearance, but had not by the time I got to my top of descent point, so I asked for clearance and they basically said go for it.

I had timed it pretty much perfectly and arrived over Te Kuiti as I wanted too... at overhead joining height at a good speed. No traffic around, but some smoke was indicated a slight northerly breeze (the windsocks were not showing anything)... so I elected to use 34 and made a really good shortfield landing onto the (very) narrow sealed strip.

I taxied to the pumps to find a helicopter operator filling about 20 jerry cans on the back of his ute... he was kind enough to help pull ETZ closer to the pumps and push it back when I had finished refueling... I dropped my $5 landing fee in the honesty box and then got ready to depart, at which point a Turbine-powered fletcher top dresser arrived... it didnt bother with the runway and just made a very short landing onto the grass area next to the strip! Then taxied round behind me to refuel... man those turbines are LOUD! I was more than happy to put the LightSPEED Zulu on and turn on the ANR :)

Speaking of which, the Zulu was just fantastic today... if I am going to get an ANR headset, it is going to be the Zulu... Now I just have to drum up the courage to part with $1200... yikes!

I headed out to Raglan, made another good overhead, and sequenced in behind (another) fletcher arriving low level... I gave myself plenty of room, not wanting to crowd the strip, and was able to pull off a pretty decent touch and go in the first half of the strip... I'm told if you T+G you dont have to pay a landing fee ;)

Then back home to Ardmore. Was fairly bumpy at 2500'... I'm thinking I'll have to start flying in controlled airspace everywhere... its so much smoother up high. The weather in Auckland had taken a real dive, with a front moving across the area... luckily it had blown through by the time I got close and I was able to join overhead and land without any issues...

I am very relieved to have completed my cross-countries before the nasty winter weather sets in... one of the other students has both his high levels to do, and I reckon he is going to have to make some substantial sacrifices to the weather gods with winter approaching.

As for me... well I still want to do an aerobatics rating and once LMA gets back from the mechanics, I am going to get a cherokee rating. Then onwards to the CPL ;)


This flight: 2.5 PinC
Total Hours: 114.4 (76.1 Dual Day, 31.2 PinC Day, 3.9 Dual Night, 3.2 PinC Night, 5.1 IFR)

Wild and Windy

was what Trevor was wanting so we could finish off the low flying part of the syllabus... and we got it!

Cloudbase was down around 1500', light showers passing through and the wind was up over 20 knots (the reported 2000' wind was 35 knots!)... thankfully almost straight down the runway, so not too trick for the take-off or landing...

We headed out to the low flying zone, and the strong headwind was quite obvious as despite the 75 knot (around 140-150 km/h)indicated airspeed on the climb, the cars on the roads below were crossing the ground faster than us!

First up, some Steep Turns... at 2500', this is almost fun... at 300' while setup in the bad weather config (20degrees flap, 70 kts) it is a little scarier! The optical illusion of sliding into the water is very dramatic and you really have to fight the urge to yank the yoke back.

After successfully completing a few of those, we started on Coastal Reversal Turns... basically used when we need to turn around and runaway (ie. thunderstorm ahead) but performing a standard 180 degree turn is impossible due to terrain etc... essentially you head away from your coast or line feature on a roughly 45 degree angle and (allowing for wind) roll back with a steep turn and roll out when you're confident of completing the turn within the space left...

The first one was OK... I managed to complete it fairly comfortably, the second one was a little closer... at 300', you really get to see the effects of a 20 to 30 knot wind!

After nailing the coastal reversal, we tried some constant radius turns... sounds easy flying round in circles, but with a strong wind your circle fast becomes an eggshape if you're not paying attention! Good fun!

All in all a good flight... the day would have perfect had I not hit a small patch of oil and performed some unintentional 'aerobatic maneuvers' in my car on the drive to the airfield and backed it into an embankment... thankfully it was a relatively low speed impact, as I had slowed right down for the corner due to the wet conditions, but my brand new bumper (only been on the car for about 3 or 4 weeks after getting rear-ended on the motorway) is a little messed up :( I know for a fact that its around $600 to $700 to replace, but I only have 3rd party insurance and the car is only worth around $2500, so I don't think i'll bother... besides, thats like 4 hours flying! ;)

This flight: 0.9 Dual
Total Hours: 74.9 (59.1 Dual, 15.8 Solo, 3.2 IFR)

Preparing for the worst...

Yesterdays lesson was about precautionary landings... in simple terms, a landing made 'off-field' for safety reasons (ie. bad weather making it too dangerous to continue flying). Another one of those 'Proper planning and good decision making means you should never need to do this, but just in case...'-type lessons.

Not quite as stressful as a forced landing, as you still have power, so you can be a bit more choosy about where to land, and if things do not look good, you can always go-around.

It's still a little unsettling flying around at 500 feet though... but I am slowly getting more comfortable with it.

Learned some handy tricks, such as when flying past the chosen landing site on the 1st pass, to reset the Directional Indicator to north, so that when flying the 'circuit' around the field, you do not have to try to calculate unfamiliar headings on the fly, you can just reference the cardinal points (north, east, west & south)... not a huge deal, but it does reduce the workload a little in an already stressful situation.

I also found that I am not having to try so hard to keep my eyes outside... its becoming more of a natural instinct now... as Trevor said 'You want to be looking outside the majority of the time, and only use the instruments to confirm attitude and performance, not set it!'

Also, with daylight savings starting to kick in and ECT (evening civil twilight) getting close to 9pm, Trevor suggested the possibility of midweek evening flights. I am happy with that, as jade often works late, so I'm just sitting round the house waiting for her to come home anyway... may as well make use of the daylight!

This flight: 1.3 Dual
Total Hours: 73.3 (58.2 Dual, 15.1 Solo, 3.2 IFR)

One more milestone...

I knocked off another milestone today... I have passed the 15 hour minimum of solo time required for a PPL.

Trevor was away this weekend, and no other instructor was available so I decided to build up the solo hours... I had not planned to break the 15 hour minimum, it just turned out that way.

It was a simply fantastic day for flying today... blue skies, a light breeze (just enough to keep you on your toes when landing) and a cloud base high enough to enable forced landing (FLWOP) practice...

First flight of the day I took JFY and went to practice my compass turns some more. I am fairly confident with these now, having figured out that I was rolling out too soon and too hard. Like most things when flying, nice and smooth is the secret ;) Now I just need to work on the mental arithmetic required to work out the correction factors...

Then I nailed a couple of FLWOP's and headed back to the field for a couple of circuits. Unfortunately, I got stuck behind what I suspect was a relatively newly solo student doing circuits so large that a battleship would have been ashamed of them! After getting a little frustrated I called a full stop on the 3rd circuit. On the positive side, I got some good flapless practice due to the extended downwind legs ;)

After a bit of a pit stop I headed back out to the Training Area in ETZ... I was working on keeping my eyes outside and trying to fly by attitude instead of looking at the instruments... nice and challenging!

Did some Steep Turns and some more FLWOP practice... then decided to take a bit of a Tiki-tour about the Training Area. The training area was very busy with several aircraft practicing forced landings, a couple doing parachute drops and glider activity as well. However, everyone was making position reports so things went pretty smoothly.

After a lap of the TA, I headed back to Ardmore (dodging a tow-plane and glider), did an overhead join and slotted into the traffic for some circuits finishing with a nice shortfield landing on the grass.

A fantastic days flying...

This flight: 1.3 Solo + 1.5 Solo
Total Hours: 72.0 (56.9 Dual, 15.1 Solo, 3.2 IFR)

How low can you go?

Was not looking good when I drove out to NZAR this morning... weather was gray and was raining lightly... but there was not a lot of wind... and I figured I could do some groundwork if flying was a no-go...

However, the cloudbase was high enough (around 1200' AGL) to do some circuit work, so I had a "B-Cat Check" first up... an hour of circuits with Chief Instructor Rob... Basically a QA check to make sure I am learning what I am supposed to be learning... and that Trevor is teaching what he is supposed to be teaching... it had a little bit of everything thrown in... Glide Approach, Short Field Grass Landing, Max Performance Grass T/O, EFATO, Flapless, Go-Around...

busy but good fun, although I made some minor errors and was given some things to work on by Rob during the debrief... Most importantly, keeping my eyes outside... I think that in doing the basic IFR training, I have become a little bit addicted to the instruments... and have been finding it hard to get back to flying by reference (ie. attitude to horizon). Definitely something I will work on over the next few flights.

I have no idea why no-one else was flying... it was perfect weather for circuit work... not that I am complaining, with only the 3 AFC 152's in the circuit everything went like clockwork :)

Then an hour of low flying... no need to worry about the cloudbase when you are cruising around the low flying area at 250' :) some of the visual illusions (slip in) are a little disturbing, as it feels as though the aircraft is sliding down into the water!

The weather closed in about 10 minutes after we had landed and shutdown... so we were certainly the lucky ones to have got some flying done... something to be said for being the early bird I guess.

I am slowing ticking off the few boxes left (Precautionary Landings, Instrument Flying - Full and Partial Panel, Unusual attitudes) and only a few more solo hours before I have the minimum requirements...

If the weather plays ball (touch wood) I will hopefully have myself a PPL for christmas! :)

This flight: 0.8 Dual + 0.8 Dual
Total Hours: 69.2 (56.9 Dual, 12.3 Solo, 3.2 IFR)

More Practise

Sunday morning dawned somewhat gray... but fairly calm and the cloudbase looked OK, so I headed out to the field. I was a little concerned as I hit a light shower on the drive out, but it was nothing heavy and it seemed to pass...

Getting to the field, Trevor informed me that I should go and have a look at the Training Area, do some basic revision (stalls + turns etc) and then if it was looking good after that, we could go and do some more forced landing practise.

So I headed up, just as one of the other students was coming back in from his first solo... I imagine I had the same silly look on my face when I did mine too!

I asked his instructor what the cloudbase was looking like while they were doing circuits and was told 'at least 3000 feet'... and that it was 'a little bumpy in the circuit'...

So I fired up JBL and headed off... I'm not sure what work (if any) has been done on JBL, but it did not seem to have the plug fouling/rough running issues... as I throttled up for the Run-up and the Max Performance Take Off it was smooth as silk.

On climb out, I found the bumps as they had indicated at around 700' but passing through around 1500' it was smooth sailing...

Cloudbase was at least 4000' as I was in very clear air at 3500'... so I did a few basic stalls, some medium turns and then started the compass turns... Now I'm not sure if my maths was off or what, but it seemed like every one that I did, I ended up 10 degrees off! I think I may have been rolling out too early... so I will have to try those again on my next solo run...

I headed back to the field, and Trevor suggested we go and do some FLWOP practise as the cloudbase was good and the winds light... I jumped at the chance for more flying... he was still a little hesitant to use JBL given its rough running history so we took ETZ.

We went and did 2 FLWOPs and I nailed both of them... I have figured out what my issues were (spacing) and am now purposely choosing my 1000' and 1500' reference points that are a good distance away from the chosen field so that I do not get too close...

Next week a progress check flight with Chief Instructor Rob and a lesson on the glide approach.

This flight: 1.0 Solo + 1.0 Dual
Total Hours: 67.6 (55.3 Dual, 12.3 Solo, 3.2 IFR)

Early bird...

Tried for an introduction to the glide approach today... not good... the circuit was not really busy, but when people are flying circuits about the same size used by 747's it makes it really hard to get your spacing correct...

We chucked it in after 3 attempts (including a Go-Around) and decided to try again next week...

I have purposely booked first thing to try to beat the crowds and get a nice empty circuit. If not, we make look at heading to Matamata and trying there.

The only positive outcome today, was that I figured out why I had issues with ETZ the other week... someone had raised the seat up! duh!

And in other news, the AB's (reduced to 14 men) were beaten by a blind referee, 2 equally blind linesman and the French this morning... Full credit to the french, we did not play smart rugby and the french took their opportunities (read: dodgy officiating) with both hand :P...

On the bright side, I might actually get some decent sleep, as I no longer have a reason to sit up till the wee hours watching the world cup! ;)

This flight: 0.5 Dual
Total Hours: 65.6 (54.3 Dual, 11.3 Solo, 3.2 IFR)

Hour Building

So I am now at the stage were its practice, practice, practice... and I am trying to get the minimum hours...

I need 15 Solo, 5 IFR.

I had been intending on going and practicing stalls, turns and forced landings today, but the cloud base was around 1500 to 2000ft so I decided to bash the circuit for an hour instead.

Took ETZ for a change today (but mostly because JFY was already booked) and discovered that the seats are a little high, so while the view over the nose is great, I have some troubles getting my legs under the dash... so lifting my feet to use the toe breaks is a little tricky, and I find that when trying to turn the control column all the way to the left, it bangs into my knee...

A real shame, as ETZ is a little pocket rocket, and I love it... but I just do not think it is safe (or comfortable) for me to try to wedge myself in :(

So I practiced Max Performance Take off, Standard Approach (x4), Flapless Approach (x3) and Shortfield Grass Approach (x1) today... 8 circuits in 1.1 hours... sweet as!

Also, some really nice approaches (flying the the numbers) and some nice flare and touchdowns. I am very happy!

Next week, Forced landings and Glide Approaches.


This flight: 1.1 Solo
Total Hours: 62.4 (51.6 Dual, 10.8 Solo, 2.8 IFR)

More of the same...

OWWW!!

So i decided to go for some more circuits... what a big mistake... I gave up after I smashed my head into the roof of the cockpit for the 3rd circuit in a row and almost said 'bad words'(tm) over the air as I was in the middle of doing my downwind call.

Turbulence = BAD

I think I will no longer do circuit practice if the winds are coming from 090 thru 150! Hopefully the mechanics will be able to get the headshaped ding out of the cockpit roof!

On the plus side, I got some good crosswind circuit practice ;)

This flight: 0.7 Hours Solo
Total Hours: 51.0 (45.1 Dual, 5.9 Solo, 1.3 IFR)

Use the force Luke...

thats how I feel after the latest flight... that scene from Star Wars where Luke has the helmet on with the blast visor down and is trying to battle the little floating ball... only I was wearing these... they're called Foggles and work on the same sort of principle ie. you can't see.

So instead of looking out the window, it was scanning instruments and making turns and climbs as instructed... only today it was not "climb to 2500 feet"... "ok now, turn right to 040"... "now turn left to 250"... it was "turn right to 040 while climbing to 2500.... at 80kts"... "now, climb to 3000 while turning left to 020... at 70kts"... "now climb to 3500 at 90kts"...

I think the phrase is "Busier than a one-armed paper hanger"!!

And then a couple of FLWOP before back under the foggles and heading for home... Was making little 5 and 10 degree course changes and when I finally got the ok to remove the foggles I was about 15 seconds from making the overhead rejoin... its very disorientating :)

Managed to pull off a decent overhead join despite 2 others doing the same thing... at the same time... from different directions... NZAR is a busy place on a sunday afternoon!

Have been told that next week I will be flying with a B-Cat to get checked out for solo work in the training area! Sort of a mini-checkride... should be fun :)

This flight: 1.3 Hours Dual (0.5 IFR)
Total Hours: 46.9 (43.1 Dual, 3.8 Solo, 0.7 IFR)

Forget everything I've said...

and don't look out the window.

Those were the instructions as I started my instrument training to cover the required 5 hours of IFR flight necessary for my PPL. Having spent 40 something hours enjoying the view out the window and using the horizon as my reference point, it was quite disturbing to be robbed of all my visual queues, from 300' AGL.

Having said that, I think I did quite well for my first 0.2 hours of (simulated) instrument flying. Just some basic stuff like climbing and descending, and making "Rate One" turns (ie. 3 degrees per second, but i have been told by several people that these 5 hours of training are the ones that are most likely to save my life. Apparently, VFR-only pilots often get caught out in IFR conditions quite a lot and, without the visual references, get disoriented and crash and burn. Something similar to what many think happened to JFK Jr.

So after around 10 minutes my instructor let me look outside and I was amazed to see pretty much everything south of the bombay's and the hunua ranges (pretty much the entire Waikato region) blanketed in fog. This meant that we were unable to head down to the training area, so back to the airfield for some circuits and then shutdown.

On the plus side, as I got back early, I got to go for a joyride in a Cessna 182. Unfortunately, I was not flying (nor in the other front seat)... I was just along as a passenger so one of the other club members could classify his type-rating flight as a full load. The 182 is to the 152 as the Titanic is to a 10ft dinghy :) It was like sitting in the back of a Lincoln Towncar. So comfortable and with all the legroom a 6'3" guy could want... And I got a bit of a view of the V8 racing at Pukekohe :)

This flight: 0.9 Hours Dual (0.2 IFR)
Total Hours: 45.6 (41.8 Dual, 3.8 Solo, 0.2 IFR)

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday...

Not really... just more FLWOP practise... only this time, flying the complete procedure... down to around 100 feet!!! :)

Weather was a little rough, had a real rollercoaster ride heading over the small range of hills to the training area... a couple of light showers (if you can see through it, you can fly through it)... an engine that was 'occasionally' running a little rough (maybe carb icing?)... and about a 20kt westerly wind made for a challenging lesson today.

Good fun though...

The highlight being the circuit fun and games on return to the airfield. Made an almost perfect overhead join (only thing wrong was I made a minor error on one of the radio calls)... was cruising downwind, made my call... then heard '[callsign], Overhead Karaka, joining downwind'... meanwhile, some nonce in a grumman decided to make a straight-in approach for the runway... so I was left with no option but to extend downwind to be number 3 behind the guy trundling in on long finals.

My instructor then heard the downwind call over the craft that had joined downwind and realised that it was a twin-engined plane on a commercial charter and we were going to get squeezed... so we made a direct approach to the runway threshold, effectively making base and final legs into one... as I made my finals call we hear "Where did ETZ come from?"...

My instructor jumps in with "We joined overhead"... after landing, shutting down and securing the aircraft we were back inside the clubrooms and the phone rang... apparently the pilot in the twin was non too impressed with us... whatever, we're not the ones making straight in approaches!

so the CFI from the club went for a word with the other operator... nothing too dramatic, just a quick chat to clarify some things... apparently the twin didnt hear our calls, so figured he could steam downwind as fast as he liked ;)

'Advanced' stalling next lesson... the dreaded 'wing-drop' stall ;)

This flight: 1.2 Hours Dual
Total Hours: 44.7 (40.9 Dual, 3.8 Solo)