The best laid plans of mice and men...

Often go awry, as the quote goes...

I've been planning since June to get my Instrument Rating renewal completed with and ILS endorsement added. The yearly "competency" currency was due to expire on 12 July, so I started nice and early with some simulator and practice flights, hoping to book the Flight Examiner and get everything sorted in a timely manner.

However, the Flight Examiner was having his own currency issues... which caused a couple of weeks delay. Then the aircraft was out of action, then I was unavailable, then the weather was crap, then the instructor was unavailable, then I needed some recurrency training, then the weather was crap, then a new Flight Examiner was the choice, only he was waiting on various tests/paperwork etc, then the weather was crap... ad infinitum... *le sigh*... I had almost given up all hope of ever completing my renewal! :-/

Last week was looking good, I had a "practice run" on the Tuesday, that highlighted some points for improvement and was all set for the "test proper" on the Wednesday. I awoke to grey, dreary skies and rain on the roof... not necessarily a problem, that is what instrument flying is all about... so I checked the weather... The forecast was less than desirable, rain, strong winds and embedded "CB's" (Cumulonimbus... aka Thunderstorms) with accompanying turbulence and hail :-(

I made a nice early call to cancel and rebook for this week... and had it locked in for Wednesday. I then got a call on Tuesday from a 3rd party, who seemed to think that my renewal had been transferred to a "ferry flight" of a completely different aircraft type (Tecnam Twin instead of Partenavia), from a different airfield (Matamata instead of Ardmore) flying a different route (Matamata, Hamilton, Auckland, Ardmore) to the one expected and briefed (Ardmore, Whenuapai, Great Barrier, Ardmore)!!?! Several texts and phone calls later and it was all sorted. I'd still be in the Partenavia from Ardmore, just leaving later so the Flight Examiner could ferry the Tecnam up to Ardmore first.

No problems with a late departure, more time to prepare in the morning (perhaps even a bit of a sleep in! ;-) and less rushing about and less stress... or so I thought!

I woke up on Wednesday to blue skies and sunshine. Things were looking good. I headed out to Ardmore, preflighted and started flight planning based on my expected route. All I needed was the Flight Examiner to confirm a departure time so I could file flight plans with air traffic control and I was good to go.

And that is where it started to go a little pear shaped. I waited... I waited some more... I rechecked the weather... I rechecked the NOTAMs... I waited... I had lunch... I waited... Finally, I got the call.

The Examiner was delayed about 3 hours due to problems picking up the Tecnam... and I was struggling to get a training slot at Whenuapai, due to the military training being conducted in conjuction with the Australian airforce. I managed to get a tentative booking, but was going to be cutting it fine timewise. So much for a nice relaxed flight. The rush was on. I resisted the urge the rush though, fearing I might make mistakes if I didn't take my time and do all my checks thoroughly. A lesson learned from a previous flight. "More speed, less haste" etc...

It did mean that I was about 10 minutes late departing. Then due to traffic, was vectored around a bit and given a "non-standard" join onto the VOR arc at Whenuapai, where I intercepted it from a "random" course, rather than tracking via a radial. Thankfully, it was a scenario that I had already experienced once before (and gotten rather confused by, but had then had a subsequent session in the simulator to work it all out), so I nailed it! :-D

I was still concerned that we might run into trouble time wise, but as it turned out... even thought we arrived in Whenuapai's airspace about 20 minutes late, we were able to get our approaches and vacate before their exercises started. I guess we weren't the only ones running a little late!! :-P

I won't bore you with the details of the test, it was for the most part average at best... certainly not one of my better days at the controls and the phrase "skin of your teeth" was mentioned :-/ I was a bit disappointed with myself, as I know I can do much better and I pride myself on flying well, but I had passed and picked up my ILS endorsement (and some very useful reminders not to neglect the basics!!) along the way.

I now have the complete set of navigation aids (ILS, VOR, NDB, GPS) for my single pilot, multi-engine instrument rating... and a V. large hole in my bank account :-/

Hopefully, things will go a bit smoother next year. For now, the focus will be back into the books and studying for ATPL (Air Transport Pilot License) exams... and the never ending quest for a flying job ;-)

More acronyms to add to the collection...

SP MEIR - ADF, VOR, GPS...

Or in "actual" words... A Single Pilot, Multi-engine Instrument Rating, endorsed for NDB[1], VOR and GPS approaches :-)

Another sticker for the log book

After a few false starts and delays (as covered in my previous post), and a flight test postponed due to the crap weather in the first week of July, the stars finally came into alignment and I ended up with flyable weather, a serviceable aircraft and a flight examiner... all in the same place at the same time.

So (very) early on Thursday morning, I headed out to the airfield, pre-flighted the Tecnam Twin (only thing of note were the muddy paw prints and cat fur located on the top of one of the engine cowls ;-) and extracted it from the hangar... thankfully, no "musical aeroplanes" required... and then taxied it around to the apron at the flying club.

I checked the weather and NOTAMs for my expected routes and noted that the freezing level was a little on the low side (5,000')... which was a bit of a concern, as the cloud base was forecast around 4000' and the aircraft doesn't have any anti or de-icing equipment :-/

The examiner showed up as scheduled at 0900 and we got down to business... working through the copious amounts of paperwork and red tape before commencing with the actual flying! :-P

So after confirming what I was testing for (Single Pilot, Multi-engine, with NDB, VOR and GPS) he checked that I had:

• A valid licence and medical
• A "Written Exam Credit" for the Instrument Rating Theory Syllabus
• Completed the required remedial work as stated on the Knowledge Deficiency Reports (KDR's) from my exam results
• A ground theory endorsement for the GPS equipment to be used in the test
• Met the various minimum hour requirements necessary to hold an instrument rating
• A type rating for the aircraft to be used in the test
• A flight test acceptance slip

the examiner went over the format of the test and what was going to be required.  He outlined the basic structure of the flight which was:

• Flight plan the route NZAR (Ardmore) - NZHN (Hamilton) - NZTG (Tauranga) - NZAR
• We would depart NZAR via a published instrument departure
• At NZHN, make the VOR/DME approach, via the DME Arc (demonstrating a hold before commencing the approach) for the duty runway, execute the standard missed approach and then head to NZTG
• At NZTG, enter the NDB hold, then make the NDB/DME approach for the duty runway, execute the missed approach and then head to NZAR
• At NZAR, make the RNAV (aka GPS) approach, demonstrating a GPS hold at the waypoint ORERE before commencing the approach, and then make a circling approach for the duty runway for a full stop landing.

I was then left to create a flight plan, fuel log, check weather/NOTAMs, check GPS RAIM predications and lodge my flight plans with ATC.

The only issue I had with this particular flight plan, was the fact that, despite planning on making some instrument approaches at Tauranga several times during my training, I had never made it due weather on the days we had planned to go.

I mentioned this quietly to my instructor while I was at the computer lodging my IFR flight plans, and he told me not to freak out... just remain calm and remember: "You don't fly at a particular place... you fly a 'plate'"

What he meant was that unlike visual flying, where you can use various physical references and landmarks to aid in making an approach so it helps to have been to a place before or at least received a briefing on what to expect... with instrument flying you just follow the instructions spelled out on the approach 'plate' aka chart and as instructed by ATC, as you may not necessarily be able to see out the window anyway!

Thinking back on it now... this was probably the best bit of advice I got before my test ;-)

By the time I had completed the flight planning, the examiner had come up with a list of around 10 questions designed to test my knowledge of Instrument Rating theory and law... covering things like:

• The privileges & limitations of holding an instrument rating?
• The currency requirements to fly IFR and make instrument approaches?
• Various approach speed limitations for category of aircraft that we're using?
• Can you make a visual departure at night?
• What are the requirements for making a visual arrival during the day? at night?
• Requirements for nominating an alternate aerodrome?
• Non published alternate aerodrome minima for non-precision approaches?
• What do we need to sight to continue below MDA?
• Loss of comm procedures (In IMC on departure, on radar vectors)?

Thankfully, I had covered all of this material with my instructors so was able to answer all the questions (or at least reference the appropriate sections of the AIP to find the answers) without too much trouble.

We then went over my flight plan and the weather... noting the issues with the freezing level and what our options were.  He left the decision up to me, and I decided that given the cloud forecasts we should be OK and in the event that we did encounter icing, we had plenty of options to mitigate the issue, as we could descend to lower altitudes due to the Minimum Safe Altitudes (MSA's) being below our flight planned cruise altitudes and the predicted freezing levels... or climb out of the cloud as they were predicted to top out at 6000'.

We headed out to the aircraft, started up, set up the radio and navaid frequencies, requested and received our clearance instructions from Air Traffic Control, entered the initial flight plan in the onboard GPS and then I worked through the various pre-Take Off engine run-ups and equipment checks.  With everything in place, we lined up on 03 and I made my departure call.

We got airbourne, I was instructed to put on my "foggles" to simulate entering cloud once we had reached terrain clearance height on the instrument departure and away we went towards Hamilton.

The first leg was going well... I had remembered the "Twist, Turn, Time, Talk, Tune"... Twist my course selector to the required headings, Turn the aircraft and heading bug to the required heading, Time (not applicable to time anything), Talk to ATC as required, Tune radios and navaids to the new frequencies...  We were cruising in cloud, and the outside air temp was only 2 degrees, but I'd noted that while we had some visible moisture on the leading edge and engine intakes, there was no icing... I was feeling good.

Then 30 seconds later, the examiner says "What is MSA on this route?  We're going to need to descend, we're icing up, check the leading edge"... sure enough, and less than a minute since I had checked, ice was building up at an alarming rate.  We requested a descent to "non-standard 5000' due icing" and were immediately cleared as requested.  We dropped down from 6000' and popped out the bottom of the cloud and into slightly warmer air.  This was my first experience with icing whilst flying... and the sound the ice made as it started to crack and shed from the wings was a little disconcerting... the examiner commented that it was "some pretty impressive icing".

The rest of the leg to Hamilton was relatively uneventful... we were cleared as requested to join the DME arc and enter the TAYLA hold at 5000'.  That went without a hitch and we requested the approach.  They cleared us to descend to 3000' and to commence the approach for runway 18L.  We flew down to 'minimum descent altitude' (MDA) and tracked to the 'missed approach point' (MAP)... As I had no visual reference to the runway at this point (due to the simulated conditions wearing the foggles), I declared a missed approach, powered up and executed the missed approach procedure.

We received our onwards clearance and headed (for the unknown) towards Tauranga.  I started to feel a little nervous, having never done this before... but I just followed the procedures, and we arrived at Tauranga without a problem.  The first attempt at the NDB hold, which would have been almost perfect, was scuppered by the arrival of an Air New Zealand flight... which was given priority by ATC.  This meant that just as I was about to begin the inbound portion of the hold, they started radar vectoring me away from the aerodrome to create a safety zone for the other aircraft.  Unfortunately, I had to demonstrate a complete hold for the purposes of the test, so I had to do another entry and lap of the hold, from a more difficult position... not a huge issue, but it wasn't as tidy as the first attempt...

We then commenced the approach, I got a little high... this was due to my inexperience with the Tauranga approach and failure to recognise that I would require a slightly higher than normal descent rate to maintain the proper approach profile.  Still, I recognised the issue in time, verbalised my intentions and managed to regain the proper profile through some slightly aggressive descent manoeuvring ... not the best way to make an approach, but acceptable.

Again, we reached MDA and the MAP and again I was not "visual" so we executed the missed approach.  This time however, the examiner simulated an engine failure.  So while trying to fly the missed approach procedure and maintain the required rate of climb, I had to deal with an aircraft trying it's best to fly sideways on only one engine!!?!

I ran through the initial actions

• Control Yaw with Rudder, Maintain Airspeed at "Blue Line" speed
• Rich, Pitch Power! - Mixtures Rich, Prop Pitch full fine, Throttles full
• Identify, Verify, Feather - Identify the "dead" engine by identifying my "dead" leg... When an engine fails on a twin, you end up with asymmetric thrust.  The result being that you need to put in a whole lot of rudder on one side to keep the aircraft flying straight.  So one leg is doing a whole lot of work.  The leg that isn't doing anything (ie. "dead") is the one on the side that has the failed engine.  We then verify that we have identified the "dead" engine correctly by closing the throttle on what we suspect the failed engine is... if it is indeed the failed engine, nothing should change, if we've chosen incorrectly, the aircraft will yaw wildly due to the rudder input no longer having to overcome any asymmetric thrust.  We then decide whether or not we're Terrain Critical (ie. Are we in danger of hitting something solid in the very near future?)  If we are, we just feather the failed engine to reduce drag and increase performance flying on one engine while we figure out what we're going to do to not die :-P.  If we aren't (ie. at a reasonable altitude) we can take our time, run some more thorough trouble checks and see if we can get the engine restarted.

At this point, the examiner asked "If this was real, and you were in IMC, what would you do right now?"  Noting that we were unable to maintain a climb rate necessary to ensure terrain clearance by following the missed approach procedure, I told him I'd turn back towards the navaid beacon at the aerodrome, and climb in the hold to the minimum safe altitude, advise ATC and then make an approach to land.

Happy with this plan, he gave me both engines back and we departed Tauranga for Ardmore.  Then something weird happened... I was tracking what I thought was pretty well, the ADF indicating that I was on the 278 course from Tauranga... the examiner says "check your tracking on the GPS"... turns out we were significantly left of track!!?!  Then ATC advised "MTW, confirm ops normal, you appear to be approximately 2 miles south of track".  I pointed out to the examiner that according to the ADF we were tracking correctly... he agreed, and we adjusted course to intercept the GPS track and the ADF still showed we were tracking correctly!!  ADF's are notoriously unreliable... so the examiner seemed willing to accept that I hadn't done anything wrong.

We continued towards Ardmore and, once again, we needed to request a lower than planned cruising level to prevent icing.  We were then cleared to track via the WAIKA and ORERE waypoints to make the RNAV (GPS) approach for Runway 21 at Ardmore.  They were actually using Runway 03, but that was OK, as it gave us an excuse to do the circling approach, where you fly the approach to one runway, achieve visual reference and then circle around to land on another runway.

Up to now, everything had more or less gone OK (aside from the ADF issue), I hadn't been advised that I had failed (which the examiners are required to do so you can cut the flight short to prevent wasting money flying approaches that are unnecessary) and I had always found the GPS approaches to be relatively easy.

So, naturally, I did my best to screw everything up on the GPS approach. :-/

It went wrong near the end of the holding procedure... for some reason, and I'm still not sure why (possibly just fatigue towards the end of a stressful 3 hour flight??) I got a bad case of "fiddle with the GPS"-itis... I naturally, pushed the wrong button, and ended up making a messy approach back to the ORERE waypoint to commence the final approach.

The whole way down the final approach I was cursing my stupidity under my breath, thinking that I had just blown the whole test.  On the final approach, I got another simulated engine failure, which helped me forget about the mistake and focus on flying... I then flew the circling approach and made a full stop landing on only the one engine.  Ironically enough... one of my better landings! :-P

We taxied back to the club, shutdown and as I started to note down flight times for the aircraft flight logs, the examiner said "I'll see you in the briefing room", he collected his stuff and headed into the clubrooms.  My instructor and a couple of others came to help secure the aircraft and refuel asking the usual "How did it go?" type questions... fearing the worst I replied dejectedly "I think I just blew it on the GPS approach".

I headed into the briefing room to receive the "bad news"... I could hear the examiner and my instructor talking outside, and then the examiner went to make a quick phone call to advise his next test candidate that he was running late.  My instructor came in and said "don't panic, I think you're OK"...

The examiner came in and asked me to debrief the flight to my instructor... basically walk him through the flight, saying what went well, what didn't etc...

I was, in my opinion, brutally honest... I started by saying it was far from the perfect flight.  The initial departure was good, the VOR/DME at Hamilton was OK, the initial NDB tracking and hold at Tauranga was OK, I got high on the approach, but recovered OK, tracking out of Tauranga we had the issue with the ADF tracking, the initial GPS tracking and hold entry were OK, then I got trigger happy and screwed up the end of the hold, the final approach was OK, the circling approach and a fairly decent asymmetric landing.  I commented that some of my height holding was a little poor... and while the conditions were fair from perfect (a bit lumpy and bumpy in the clouds), it was not completely to blame.

At this point, (and to my HUGE relief) the examiner commented "Well, it's a pass, a little marginal, but a pass... based on your self-assessment, you obviously have high standards, don't lose them... I'm giving you a licence to learn, so don't rush off and fly to MDA in hard IMC your first time out OK?" and gave me the customary handshake.

3.1 hours... a long flight test

We finished up the paperwork, I thanked him profusely and he headed off to torture his next victim[2] his next flight test appointment.  I think it only really sank in about 5 or 6 hours later, after the obligatory bar shout, that I had actually passed...

Not all 4 letter words are bad!

I'd like to thank my instrument instructors, Phil Welcome and John Ashman for helping me achieve this rating... MTW for being a sweet little aircraft that flies right and (mostly) works OK... various pilot/instructor friends for various tips and tricks with regards to instrument flying...

and last, but by no means least, my awesome GF... for putting up with a very busy (and stressed!) BF and providing lots of support and being very understanding these last few weeks (and months) as I tried to get this damned rating finished!!  Thanks babe... ;-)


[1] No... I don't know why they use the acronym for the cockpit instrument as opposed to the navigational aid??!?
[2] I think it only fair to point out that the examiner was actually very nice and made the whole thing a lot less stressful than I had anticipated ;)

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)

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)

One step closer...

and another sticker in the log book.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How can you confirm that?" asked Rob.

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

"Excellent" said Rob, "Spot on!"

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

An expensive week...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

All quiet on the western front?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something to think about anyway...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


• Then I stitched them back together using photoshop...


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


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


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


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


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

Quite simple[4] really! :/

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

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

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

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



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

[2] Always a dangerous thing

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

[4] See... told you!

Long (wet) weekend indoors

Over Labour Weekend, Trevor was doing some more IFR work down in Hamilton in preparation for his Instrument Rating Flight Test, so I decided to tag along to learn as much as I can while I'm not paying for it ;)

On the Saturday, as you can see from the outdoor pics below, the weather was a bit crap (30knot winds, embedded CB's etc.) so we ended up in the sim instead of flying.

While waiting for Trevor to take care of the paper work and rebooking his flights, I decided I may as well give jade's camera a bit of a work out. I think my photography skills are really coming along :P

Waikato Aero Club Alpha 160's and WAM (C-172)

Sunair Aztec (PA-23 250) ERM looking lonely

A very tidy (inside and out) Cessna 170, OCC

What we were supposed to fly... Piper Archer II (PA-28 181), FWS

What we ended up flying... AT-21 Simulator pretending to be FWS

As is usually the case, I tried to keep up with what was going on and paid attention when John was explaining concepts on the whiteboard. I think I now have just enough IFR knowledge to be dangerous ;) Seriously though, watching the sim sessions has been a bit of an eye opener. IFR flying = Busy and stressful. I'm sure the 30knot winds don't help...

Looks cosy...

All the knobs, switches and levers you would ever want

The sim is able to be configured to simulate a wide range of light aircraft and you can actually unscrew the throttle quadrant and replace it with one that has condition levers to give a bit more realism when simulating turbo props.

It's not FSX, but it does the job

The graphics aren't flash... but considering you spend most of your time flying around in cloud they don't need to be :) The sim even has a builtin intercom system, so if you wanted to be ultra-geeky, you can hook up your headset and talk to the "controllers" (ie. the person sitting at the instructors console) over the radio.

More of the same (weather and sim) on the Sunday, followed by an attempted flight in FWS on Monday as the rain and CB's had moved away. The weather looked nice enough, I flew us down to NZHN in LMA, but unfortunately by the time we got airbourne in FWS, the 30-40 knot high-level winds from the South-West had re-appeared, and they set up lots of mountain wave. Here you can see the effects as we were departing Hamilton below. There were about 6 of these little 'cap' cloud formations in a nice line.


And some real monsters around Tauranga... about the only people enjoying it were the Gliders who were all up around 12,000'!!!


The sink and lift was so outrageous that at one point we had full power and the aircraft at 10 degrees nose-up and we were still sinking at 200' per minute! Christchurch control ended up giving us a 'block' altitude (from 5000' to 6000') as it was impossible to hold a nice steady level. After one attempt at the hold Trevor and John called it quits and headed for Rotorua, hoping it would be a bit nicer there. It was not as bad, although that is kind of like saying that being shot by a 9mm pistol is not as bad as being shot by a .45 pistol!

Then back home to Hamilton and a nice VOR/DME Arc approach and 20 knot cross-wind landing.

So much 'fun' to look forward too! *gulp*

The crosswind was still up around 20knots when we departed back to Ardmore in LMA, so the tower gaves us the crosswind Grass 25R for departure... a nice headwind = a take-off roll of about 300 metres! ;)


This flight: 1.6 PinC
Total Hours: 156.0 (78.9/57.8 Day, 8.6/10.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Money conversion

Given the title and the current state of the global economy, you might be forgiven for thinking that I am trying to take advantage of the good NZ-AU exchange at the moment... But I actually mean the conversion of money into noise + fun :)

4 Hours in total this weekend... beginning with some simulated IFR practice on Saturday afternoon. The last lot I did was back in January leading up to my PPL Flight Test, so I figured a quick refresher was in order.

It was a relatively breezy day (15-20kts), and it took me about 15 to 20 minutes after putting the hood on to get back into the groove and about another 10 until I was no longer 'chasing' the aircraft and had some decent heading and height holding. Nick was acting as 'safety pilot', and managed to play nasty tricks involving up and down drafts that you get in and around the various islands in the Hauraki Gulf when the wind is blowing... it certainly makes you think when you're holding 5 to 10 degrees of down pitch, and the aircraft is climbing at 500' per minute!

Sunday, I had been planning on flying down to Hamilton to play in the sim with Trevor. Unfortunately, he was unwell and decided to postpone. In the end it was rather moot, as all the club aircraft were booked, so we would not have been able to fly anyway :(

Instead, I opted for some more IFR... Only for extra added challenge, I "decided" (read as: only aircraft available) to take DJU, the 172. I had not flown a 172 since May, and had never flown this aircraft... fun times!

Trevor decided he was well enough to come along as Safety Pilot, so I went and did my 3 take-off/landings to get current and then we blasted off for an hour or so. He put me through my paces, after about 10 minutes of 'normal' IFR, he decided Partial Panel was the way to go, so I spent the next 45 minutes flying around without the use of the Artificial Horizon or the Direction Indicator. I have to say, I was feeling a lot better about my IFR on this flight, having had some practice the day before, but I got the 'Leans' really badly and was having to really concentrate on keeping straight and level.

Then, just to keep things interesting, Trevor tried a little aircraft handling exercise. "I want you to descend at 150'/minute, how are you going to do that?"... I was thinking that was easy, just nudge the nose down and trim it out for the required descent rate... "Ok," he says "Now I want 150'/minute at 90 knots"... As we were doing around 115kts that one required a bit more thought... drop RPM a little bit, raise the nose a little bit... fine tune until we get the required speed and descent rate... "Ok, now I want 350'/minute at 90 knots"... arrrggghhhh!!!

I can see the point of the exercise. It makes you really think about and apply the 'Pitch controls Airspeed, Throttle controls Altitude' mantra and, hopefully, my general aircraft handling skills will benefit as well.

And just to make sure I was a completely burned out, he had me fly an overhead join, a circuit and the approach to land with the foggles on... It is quite nerve-racking watching the altimeter counting down and not being able to see the runway!

Then to cap off a great weekend, Nick and I decided we would 'solo' down to Hamilton in a 152 for some Night Circuits/Cross country time. Was a gorgeous night with a full moon and some really high, thin cloud cover... Crash/Fire had the lights on for us when we arrived and after Nick finished his circuits we taxied to the apron, swapped over and I did a couple of circuits before we vacated back to Ardmore.

All in all, a highly successful weekend of money conversion ;)


This flight: 1.3 PinC (1.1 IFR) + 0.5 PinC + 1.1 PinC (0.9 IFR) + 1.1 PinC Night
Total Hours: 144.5 (78.9/50.5 Day, 6.0/9.1 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Nothing to see here, please move along...

*sigh*... I hate winter... Actually that is untrue, I hate bad weather :(

3 weeks and I am starting to get itchy... Have spent the last couple of weekends in Hamilton with Trevor. First one was in the Sim, I am actually picking up a bit of the instrument flying stuff and can follow along quite well.


This weekend just gone, we actually got airbourne in FWS. Massive frontal system was moving in from the North-East, so the planned trip to Tauranga and Rotorua was out, so he decided to just bash the Hamilton approaches. This was the view climbing out from Runway 36.





For someone who, as an instructor, does not actually do a lot of hands-on flying, I thought he did great. Notice the perfect (climbing) Rate-1 turn! Very smooth... I actually thought the auto-pilot was flying... but turns out he did not even use it!




Top Down view of NZHN... looks quite small really, but they put 737's in here. At least, they did, before Air New Zealand shut down Freedom Air. Believe it or not, but the small area on the right is the commercial terminal building. All of the stuff on the left is the Aeroclub, CTC, maintenance hangers etc.





Glad someone can "see"... This, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason people get instrument ratings! Unfortunately, Instrument Meteorological Conditions are not very conducive to photography... and neither is the Blackberry Curve 8310! ;)



I also got a chance to compare my in-ear homemade headset to my normal headset and deduced that it it indeed quieter... not a staggering amount, but once you factor in the comfort value of not having your head in a giant vice and getting hot, sweaty ears, I can definitely see the value in it! :) Now I just need to decide if I want to drop some $$$ on an ANR headset.

Given that I have not been flying for 3 weeks, I can probably afford it now! :P

A fun filled weekend

No (hands-on) flying this weekend... instead I went down to Hamilton on the Saturday to watch Trevor do some IFR practice in the Sim. WOW! Talk about being busier than a one armed paper hanger!! I have decided I will just stay a VFR pilot and fly on nice sunny days ;) Seriously tho, I realised just how much more I have to learn... a very interesting experience. I also met a guy who is building a 3/4-scale Mustang, I hope to become very good friends with him ;)

Then on Sunday, I went to the Open Day at the Ohakea Airforce Base.

Flew down on the warbirds DC-3... what a way to travel! An absolutely gorgeous aircraft, smooth as silk (and plenty of legroom!)

After a highspeed pass ('saluting the base commander') we landed and taxied to the apron, before they figured out where the DC-3 was supposed to be parked!

I then spent the day wandering around looking at static displays of aircraft... they had wheeled out an old A4 Skyhawk, a Strikemaster and one of the Aermacchi's)... a Singapore Airforce Hercules... An RAAF F-111... and a few others (Thunder Mustang, Corsair, Kittyhawk's etc.)

They also had some of the airforce trades on display... my favourite (and possibly the highlight of the day, aside from the F-111 aerial display) was the Avionics section. I'm a bit of a geek, and the avionics guys had some really cool stuff, like the flight sim rig using 5x 22" Widescreen Touchscreen display panels! and the night vision demo. However, I happened to be wearing my NZFF T-shirt and this guy says "Flightsimming eh?, have you had a go on the Iroquois simulator?"... "ummmm no"... "would you like to?"... "Hell yeah!"...

So we waited for 5 minutes or so, for an escort to the 'secure' area and had a play on the $750,000 (thats 2nd hand ex-Singapore, they're $1.5million new!!!!) Iroquois simulator! woohoo... nice to get something for my tax dollars! Despite the graphics being a bit crap, the actual hardware is pretty impressive... (there are some pics of it if you follow the 4th link of pics below)

Following that we were treated to an impressive display from the F-111 to finish the day... apparently burning a tonne of fuel (700 litres) per minute when doing the "dump and burn"...

And then a delightful flight home in the DC-3 with a glass of bubbles or two ;)...

You can see lots of pictures from the day (I'm the good looking one flying the helicopter sim in the last lot of pics) here, here, here and here. WARNING: Lots of photo's, so if you're not on broadband it could take a while!

The perfect start...

Happy New Year!

I had a great break... went over to Whiritoa on the eastern side of the Coromandel Peninsula... and spent New Years at a friends beach house... lovely spot... lovely weather...

All capped off with a great weekends flying...

I went out on sunday morning not really expecting much, as the cloud base looked a little low, but the wind was fairly light. I went up in JFY with Trevor to go over some of my weaker points and rack up some more Simulated IFR time to get up to the minimum 5 hours.

Luckily the cloudbase played ball and we managed to find a nice ring of clear air to do some stalling practice... again, JFY refused to drop a wing, but Trevor commented he was happy with that..javascript:void(0)
Publish Post. He thought I was crazy when I told him I was a little disappointed ;)

I totally screwed up my precautionary landing... Instead of getting the plane configured properly (low flying config - 70kts & 20degress flap) first and then following the procedure, I tried to do both... it didnt work :( But I did learn a valuable lesson!

Some more IFR on the way back and then a picture perfect shortfield approach and landing!

While Trevor went up with another student, I got my KDR's (Knowledge Deficiency Reports) signed off by Chief Flight Instructor Rob... these are basically the bits I got wrong on my theory exams... and he just wanted to make sure I now understood and knew the things I had got wrong.

He then suggested we go back up and finish off the IFR so Trevor could sign off the exercises in my log book and then I would be ready for a mock flight test with Rob next week!

So after Trevor got back and debriefed his student, we went up for another flight... by this time the wind had picked up and was blowing pretty much straight across the runway... so I got to demonstrate proper crosswind take-off technique...

Once airborne (and bouncing around) we did some more IFR work... this time concentrating on Partial Panel and Unusual Attitude Recovery... good fun! and I actually found partial panel work easier than full panel, despite the turbulence... I think I was feeling a little tired and so only having 4 gauges to look at instead of 6 made for less work?!???

I also nailed the precautionary landing... this time I took the time to get the aircraft configured properly before attempting the procedure and it was so much easier than the previous one... like I said... a lesson learned! Also, the really strong wind assisted by making for low groundspeeds on the upwind legs...

Back to NZAR and by there was the nice 10 to 12 knot crosswind to contend with, so I was able to demonstrate proper crosswind landing technique... did quite well considering we have not had much in the way of decent crosswinds to practice with... at least I put the into-wind wheel down first this time!

A great way to start 2008... and if everything goes well I will have my flight test before the end of January!

Now I can start on the paper work... grrrr you have to fill out a 'Fit and Proper Person' questionnaire, send off for criminal and traffic offence history and get a referee to vouch for you... lots of hoops just to be able to hold an aviation license!

This flight: 1.1 Dual (0.5 IFR) + 1.2 Dual (0.6 IFR)
Total Hours: 80.9 (62.4 Dual, 18.5 Solo, 5.1 IFR)

Nothing but gray...

So it was a lovely blue sky day yesterday... maybe a little on the breezy side at 19 knots... but a really nice summer day...

and I got to spend my flight staring at a piece of gray plastic...

Almost an hours worth of simulated IFR... almost at the minimum required 5 hours worth of IFR... it was good fun, but a little bumpy which made holding headings and altitudes a bit of a mission...

He was nice and gave me a quick 10 second peek at the scenery about half way through... an absolutely glorious day out over the water about halfway to the coromandel peninsula... blue skies, blue water... lovely... then back to the gray plastic :(

It didnt help that he keep remarking every 10 minutes or so about how awesome the view was... bastard! ;)

The best part of the flight was when Trevor said "Ok, take off the hood" and I was at about 400' on final approach. "Ok, now fly the approach" he says :) I had managed to join and fly the circuit without being able to see anything!

Good fun, and hopefully, now that I have a couple of days of leave, I might even get some flying in over the Xmas break...

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year!

This flight: 1.0 Dual (0.8 IFR)
Total Hours: 77.3 (60.1 Dual, 17.2 Solo, 4.0 IFR)

Too close + Too High

Forced Landing practise... and lots of. And, I think I have finally figured out my problem...

I have been picking reference points (1500' AGL area and 1000' point) that are quite close to the landing zone. This is not necessarily a 'Bad Thing'(tm), but what is bad, is that I have then been flying overhead these points, rather than maintaining correct spacing. This results in me being too close and therefore too high...

But my last one (of 4 today) was really good, and I feel that I will just learn to pick points further out and watch the spacing.

On a side note, a Spitfire was doing some test flying today... simply awesome... and without doubt the most beautiful looking (and sounding) aircraft every...

Also on show was a P-51 Mustang, not the Kiwi Thunder scale replica, but the real mccoy...

This flight: 1.3 Dual (0.2 IFR)
Total Hours: 65.1 (53.8 Dual, 11.3 Solo, 3.2 IFR)

Take a hint...

Sometimes the world gives you subtle hints... sometimes its about as subtle as a brick wall across a motorway...

First up, a slight issue with one of the tyres looking like it had a flat spot... bit of canvas starting to show through, but getting the ok... as long as we go easy on the landing/brakes... we were planning on using the grass anyway... so not a big deal...

However, I really should have twigged when after taxiing down to the holding point for 03 and finding an AFS plane parked slap bang in the middle of it, that it was going to be an 'interesting' day...

So I just slotted in ahead, ran through my run-up and pre-takeoff checks and then looked around to discover that there were now six.. thats right SIX aircraft parked behind me and another taxiing out of AFS!

So after waiting for around 10-15 minutes for everyone to clear out in between the aircraft already in the circuit and others that were landing we finally got underway...

Lining up, no problems... full power... aircraft coughs a little (another subtle hint that I missed) and starts rumbling along and we climb into the blue... not that I could tell as Trevor handed me the 'Foggles' and said put these on...

And then I got another wicked case of the leans... man I swear that I was leaning left, but we were banking right... it really is the most surreal feeling...

Coupled with the turbulence running off the hills and relatively low cloudbase and I was working overtime...

We finally made it out to the TA, and found ourselves some clear air and attempted a FLWOP... spotted a nice ag-field strip, aligned into the wind and had myself setup nicely... although a touch close again... something I really need to watch...

Anyway, going for the engine warm, just to make sure this exercise stays as an exercise and not the real thing... engine starts coughing, shaking, vibrating.... Trevor and I are looking at each other and come to the same conclusion, we'll go around at 500' just to give ourselves some breathing room...

Last engine warm passing through the 1000' mark and then engine is really protesting... I decided to pull the pin as I'm just not confident the plane is going to play ball... so we head back home and decide a nice overhead join and shortfield grass is the ticket so we can at least get something out of the day...

Hah!

Come cruising into the field, call overhead and being descent to circuit altitude... another aircraft joining from the opposite end of the field calls "joining overhead, traffic (ie. me) in sight"... dont know why he bothered, as he then preceded to turn straight into me... clown... Trevor just said, climb and orbit... hahahahah! I just laughed as I pushed the throttle in and JBL started coughing like an 80 year old, pack a day smoker and I got a climb rate of around 100' minute...

Still, I put in an orbit, wishing I had machine guns or air to air missiles or something... counted to 10 and let it go...

Slotted into the circuit traffic and pulled off a really great shortfield landing.

Lessons learned? Shit Happens, remain calm, don't panic and deal with it...

This flight: 0.9 Dual
Total Hours: 63.3 (52.5 Dual, 10.8 Solo, 3.0 IFR)

Fine weather, Fine flying

Nice and sunny, if somewhat cloudy, which unfortunately meant that we were a little limited in what we could do today.

So we went for a flight out to the training area, not that I got to see any of it as I was using foggles (yay! much nicer than a hood) for a lot of it! :)

Standard simulated IFR, climb to X, Turn right to X, Hold your heading and altitude, turn left to X, turn right to X etc. I have to say that the instrument flying has finally 'clicked', and I am able to ignore my body and trust the instruments and complete the scan. Instead of being the brain burning concentration exercise that it started out as, I find that I am actually enjoying the challenge.

Then some compass turn practice, and I think I am fairly proficient at those... I have the Over North, Under South thing memorised, and can work the required corrections fairly quickly now.

Finally back to the field for a couple of quick circuits, with some real greaser landings, and then shutdown.

This flight: 0.9 Hours Dual, 0.3 IFR
Total Hours: 61.3 (51.6 Dual, 9.7 Solo, 2.8 IFR)

The scenic route...

Managed to squeeze in a flight today... and was quite enjoyable. Especially after I woke up around 1000 with a weather front racing across the sky, the wind howling, the rain pouring and the missus gloating that my 'arse was hers for the day', complete with evil cackle (see scares me sometimes)...

Thankfully, by 1130, the sun was shining and the wind had dropped, so I jumped in the car and cruised out to NZAR to see what was happening.

I figured it could not be too bad as there was a constant stream of aircraft departing as I drove towards the airfield.

Dan had been up with another student and said it was not too bad. So I pre-flighted JFY and we taxied out towards runway 21. So we headed out with the intention that if I could demonstrate a good knowledge of the training area, and how to get back to the airfield, Dan would sign me off for solo work in the TA.

A half-circuit and departure via the waterworks later, and Dan was handing me the Hood. So we started with some simulated IFR and the usual (boring) hold this heading, climb to 3000 feet, turn right to 150 etc. Then I 'suffered a vacuum system failure' as Dan covered up the AI and DI and put me through some Partial Panel work and Compass Turns. Then, because he is such a nice guy, he decided it would be a good time to learn "Unusual Attitude Recovery."

Basically, you look at the floor and close your eyes. Then your instructors starts throwing the plane all over the sky, which totally disorientates you, and then leaves the plane in some weird attitude (usually spiral dive or climbing turn) and you have to recover based on what the instruments are showing. All while wearing the hood and in simulated IFR conditions.

It is a really good example of the tricks the inner ear plays on you and you really have no idea which way is up, down, left or right. And is not helped when your instructor says recover and you look at the instruments and all your senses are screaming different things and you're thinking "we must be upside down after the way he was throwing it round", but the instruments are indicating straight and level flight. It's REALLY bizarre.

After that little roller coaster ride, I removed the hood and Dan says, right take us home. It took me about 4 or 5 seconds to actually figure out where I was and what options we had. As I had been up the Hunua Valley so many times, I decided to take a 'Tiki Tour' up the coast and enjoy the scenery. Its the long way home, but I had never done it before and the view out across the water to the Coromandel peninsula was good. It was a little bumpy with fairly strong crosswind and the turbulence coming off the ranges but was still enjoyable.

Luckily we managed to slot right between 2 rain showers coming across Kawakawa Bay before flying up the valley back to NZAR, while getting UNICOM a little anxious by being at 1800' with a helicopter at 800' ;) before an overhead join and a crosswind landing (gusting to 18knots, with the windsock swinging 90 degress as I came over the fence!)

Dan was happy with my performance and said he would be willing to sign me out for solo for the training area. Woohoo!

Time to sit down and sort out exactly what I need to do from here to get to sit my PPL Flight Test.

This flight: 1.1 Hours Dual (0.6 IFR)
Total Hours: 55.0 (49.1 Dual, 5.9 Solo, 2.5 IFR)

As good as it gets...

It's flights like the one today that just keep you coming back for more... much like that elusive 'perfect' shot during a round of golf (which eventually ends up at 38 over par), today's flight had me grinning like an idiot for hours...

After weeks of ratty, grey, wet weather, I woke up to perfect blue skies and no wind. Rolled out to NZAR and pre-flight JFY and then headed up for some simulated IFR and compass turn and short field (aka. Grass) landing practice.

After such a long period without flying and my last couple of IFR lessons had been a bit wobbly, I had thought my flying today would be a bit average. But I actually did really well. I think I have finally figured out how to ignore my senses and believe the instruments. Also, I think I am starting to get 'The Feel'(tm) for the instrument scan, so I can keep an eye on everything and keep the plane under control.

I was actually starting to enjoy it, when Dan decided to throw me a curveball and simulate a vacuum system failure. This basically involves covering up the Attitude Indicator (Artifical Horizon) and the Direction Indicator. This is definitely a lot harder... especially when you then have to pull off compass turns at the same time!

I surprised myself and managed to fly relatively well... got the compass turns almost perfectly and managed to hold headings and altitude well.

So he decided I could take the hood off and we would head over to the grass strip at Mercer to practice some short field landings. Unfortunately, upon switching to the Mercer frequency, we got a radio call from a guy meat-bombing (dropping parachuters), so landing there was out of the question. So we headed back to NZAR, put in an overhead join and then a fullstop landing onto the grass.

This flight: 1.1 Hours Dual (0.6 IFR)
Total Hours: 52.1 (46.2 Dual, 5.9 Solo, 1.9 IFR)

Magnets and Circles...

more commonly known as Compass Turns...

So I was sitting in the pre-flight briefing (after having promised myself that I would read up on compass turns during the week... and not) doing the "Nod and Smile"(tm) routine as my new instructor[1], Dan, went through the basics of Compass Turns...

I didnt quite grasp some of the reasonings[2] for why the compass does wierd stuff when you're turning, but was given the old "it'll become clear when we are actually doing it" line... [cue Tui ad]...

BUT, sure enough, once airbourne (and with some more simulated IFR under my belt) and Dan demostrated the various effects of flight on the compass. It is quite interesting how the Direction Indicator (DI) turns at a completely different speed to the compass and hence why you need to make allowances for the compass error... and also how the compass turns differently depending on the aircrafts alignment to the Earth's north/south magnetic fields...

Still good fun, and some more valuable lessons learned... Unfortunately, Dan is away next sunday[3], so I am planning on using the time to brush up on some groundwork like P-Charts, weight and balance and maybe some nav and weather if I can find another instructor at the club on saturday who is bored :)

This flight: 0.9 Hours Dual (0.4 IFR)
Total Hours: 48.9 (45.1 Dual, 3.8 Solo, 1.3 IFR)

[1] Trevor has gone to the Sudan for a couple of months to get some Twin Turboprop time... good on him, i just hope he comes back... and not in a box!
[2] Another reason for reading things BEFORE i get to the airfield!
[3] kind of works out for me coz i'll probably be up late watching the FA Cup Final on saturday night anyway ;)