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)

The (not so) Far North

Riddle me this batman... How does one get from Auckland to Kaitaia and back again (with side trips to Kerikeri and Kaikohe) in 4.0 hours?

Answer: in a Cessna 152 of course!

Could not believe my luck yesterday when, after getting up anticipating a full day of mall crawling with her, jade says to me around 1100 "It is such a nice day, you should go flying this afternoon".

Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, we grabbed some lunch and after dropping jade off at home, I headed out to Ardmore.

I found Nick waiting for me, but having spent the morning dealing with a 'difficult' group getting wedding photos taken with his helicopter he decided that he wouldn't come flying but would play the part of 'annoying' C-Cat instructor and made me plan and pre-flight for a cross-country to Kerikeri, Kaitaia and Kaikohe.

Under CPL cross-country rules, you are supposed to be able to do this in one hour. Due to being a little unprepared for this adventure, I didn't quite make it in the one hour, but was not too far off. I am going to take Nick's suggestion and make up some 'cheat sheets' so I am not running about photocopying flightplan sheets and P-charts and having to hunt throught aircraft flight manuals looking for weight and balance data.

Having finally got everything organised and my flightplan filed, I taxied out in JBL.

A nice long cruise up to Kerikeri, where I had to hold for a few minutes due to parachute activity, a quick touch and go there and then off to Kaitaia. I have to say that some of the scenery up that way is just breathtaking, lots of unspoilt wilderness.

After having a stretch and topping the tanks up at Kaitaia, following a pretty ordinary crosswind landing :(, I had a quick hop to Kaikohe and got out to have a quick look around and drop some money in the honesty box for landing fees.

It was such a picturesque place I thought I'd snap a couple of shots just to test out jades new camera (Canon 450D)

The Hokianga Harbour


Most random shot of the day


A Fletcher looking a little unused... I believe this is ZK-DEQ


Then off for home. I was getting a little anxious climbing out of Kaikohe as my SARTIME was fast approaching and I could not contact Christchurch Info to amend it. Thankfully, once I got some altitude and cleared the surrounding hills I managed to raise them on the radio about 5minutes before my SARTIME expired :)

Heading home I managed to get some nice smooth air, so I decided to try some 'random' photography. This basically consisted of flying with one hand, while holding the camera in the other, pointing it in the general direction of something 'interesting' and pushing the shutter button :)

The results were mixed (lots of blurry shots of nothing etc.) but some of the shots of the Kaipara Harbour and the Auckland CBD came out OK.

Sunset on the Kaipara Harbour



Auckland CBD by Twilight



4.0 hours of flying later I made it back, cutting it a little close to the ECT curfew :)

Conclusion: Flying solo, into airfields you've never been to before is an interesting mix of fear and excitement! Fear that you might not find it ;)


This flight: 4.0 PinC
Total Hours: 151.8 (78.9/56.2 Day, 6.0/10.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)