$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" ;)

View from the Right Hand Seat...

So I tagged along today with one of our CPL students who was doing some "Pilot in Command" hour building...

The plan was Ardmore - Hamilton (some circuits) - Raglan - Ardmore... The weather at Ardmore was blue skies and sunshine and we were both hoping for some fish 'n chips at Raglan ;)

Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to interfere... Upon arriving in the Hamilton CTR, things got very grey and very wet... and the PinC decided a full stop landing would be a good idea after the 2nd circuit.

So we taxied over to the Waikato Aero Club... checked the weather, let "mother" know what we were up too and waited for the band of showers to pass...

20mins later and we were back into it, going round in circles dodging CTC Twinstar's doing asymmetric circuits and airline traffic, before being cleared to the west at 2500' or below...

So, off to Raglan we headed... the PinC taking the opportunity to get some Simulated IF time while I played "Safety Pilot"... weeeeeeee!

Unfortunately, we (and by we, I mean me, as PinC was busy flying ;) noticed on the first circuit at Raglan that the fish 'n chip shop near the camp ground appeared to be closed, so we decided to cut our losses and head back to Ardmore... :(

Still... a fun day with low stress for me... I just got to sit there and work radio's and organise charts and aerodrome plates and let the PinC deal with all the really fun stuff like dodging clouds, other aircraft, dealing with controllers etc :P

Upstairs, Downstairs

The atmosphere is truly a strange and bizarre place...

Take today for instance, downstairs on the ground it was light and variable winds, while upstairs at 2000' it was 30+ knots!!

I was somewhat apprehensive, given some of the forecasts were for 45 to 50knots, and some of the terrain on my planned route was "less than flat" ;) But given that the skies were clear and this is CPL level you cannot let a little bit of wind stop you!

I had flight planned for Ardmore (NZAR) - Tauranga (NZTG) - Taumarunui (NZTM) - Raglan (NZRA) - Ardmore (NZAR), a nice little 265 nautical mile route that was a bit of a mix of new and old.

The flight out to Tauranga was fairly uneventful and relatively smooth until crossing the Coromandel Ranges where, as expected, the southerly winds were generating some turbulence. I met a student from CTC, also on a solo cross country, at the fuel pumps and we traded some small talk about the cold weather and how annoying leaky cabin air vents are when you're trying to keep warm at 3500'! ;)

Clear and smooth
I tanked up just in case there was no fuel at Taumarunui and made ready for departure. Despite there being a quite a few arrivals and departures, everything was flowing pretty well so I didn't have much of a wait and was cleared ontrack to Taumarunui (yay, no complicated departure procedure).

The leg to Taumarunui was a little more interesting than the first one to Tauranga. At one point I swear JFY was moving left, up, right and down all at the same time! The lenticular cloud forming over the central mountains was a fairly good indication that the forecast winds had indeed arrived... as was the concrete mixer like flying conditions! :-/

The terrain was also more 'interesting'... a series of deep gullies with very steep sides and large sections of almost perfectly flat land between. As opposed to the normal 'rough' terrain that appears to be sharp ridges rising up, this looked like large areas of earth had been scooped out.

A great shot, ruined by turbulence dropping a wing
NZ's answer to the Grand Canyon?
After topping off the tanks again, I finally had a chance to pickup a tail wind as I set course for Raglan. While it made the groundspeed faster, it didn't help all that much with the turbulence ;) Still, the views were kinda cool...

There was a small airforce at Raglan... several Cessna 185 tail draggers, a Cherokee 140, a Fletcher, a Cessna 206 Stationair and a Hughes Helicopter. An RV 'homebuilt' and another Cherokee arrived shortly after I landed. I just hoping everyone wandered over to the camp ground office and paid their $5 landing fee like I did!

Busy busy at Raglan
And then back home... in somewhat record time. I had flightplanned 21 minutes flying at something like 135 knots groundspeed. I had landed, taxiied back to the Airline Flying Club apron and shutdown in 20!!! :-o

In other news, I have reached (exactly) 200 hours total time! :D

CPL here I come...


This Flight: 3.8 Dual (265 nm)
Total Hours: 200.0 (87.2/88.5 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.2 IFR)

On the clock...

I've taken the plunge and commenced my CPL Cross Country training... I have 12 months to finish it off. Tick Tock... Tick Tock.

Rather than wait for the good weather and a weekend to arrive at the same time, I caught myself a bad case of 'Midweek Altitude Sickness'... Twice! ;) 9 hours over 2 days...

Wednesday and Thursday were ideal VFR flying conditions. A big fat high sitting over the country (Pressure was 1033 over the entire country on Wed!), with clear blue skies and temperatures in single digits.

I went flying with CFI Rob on Wednesday, with the route Ardmore (NZAR) - New Plymouth (NZNP) - Taumarunui (NZTM) - Ardmore (NZAR). I was told to expect a diversion in there somewhere. This turned out to be between New Plymouth and Taumarunui... where I was instructed to fly to Ohakune. It is shown on the charts, but not in the AIP. Turns out it is a private strip, owned by CFI Rob's 2nd Cousin, who owns one of the Ski shops in Ohakune.

A very interesting little one-way strip with a curved approach, sitting at 2000' AMSL. Good fun!

I was concentrating on height and heading holding, and over all I think I did a good job. During the debrief Rob said flying-wise there was not too much to be concerned about, but I needed to improve the efficiency of my ground work, as you only get 1 hour once given the route to flight plan and pre-flight. I took about probably about 1hour 10mins... No real drama's, just a little out of practise.

During the flight itself, Rob emphasised the things they were looking for in 'professional' pilots... constantly assessing the situation and always planning ahead. The necessity for this became apparent during the diversion when we flew over some real 'tiger' country. Very rugged with large expanses of forest that would just swallow a light aircraft. Being constantly on the lookout for likely landing spots should an emergency arise, while accurately flying, map-reading, being aware of controlled airspace etc... makes for a very busy pilot ;)

Quite a long day at 4.6 hours of flight time, over 300+nm's distance and a shade over 6 hours of 'real' time (7 if you include the groundwork).

During the debrief, he asked when I would be interested in doing a solo flight. I told him I already had the aircraft booked for the following day!

So on Thursday, I got up and did it all over again... only on my own and without the diversion. I decided on another 300+nm flight, as it is a requirement for a C-Cat, so will help out later on. Rob (and Trevor) suggested Gisborne, and while it sounded like fun, I didn't fancy spending 2+ hrs flying back on a westerly heading directly into the sun. So, I flight planned for Ardmore (NZAR) - Whakatane (NZWK) - Opotiki (NZOP) - Taupo (NZAP) - Raglan (NZRA) - Ardmore (NZAR), which is just over 320nms. I checked the weather, and it looked like I was going to fly a large circle around a huge patch of fog covering most of the Waikato and north of the Central Plateau. Which, as you can see from the pics below, I did!

I ended up delayed a little, due to the severe ice buildup on the aircraft overnight and a minor "technical difficulty" (read as: Engineers taking aircraft for a compass swing), but other than that it was a great day.

Please excuse the photo-quality, I was sure I'd be too busy flying the aircraft to be fluffing about taking photos, so I didn't bother taking a camera. However, the views were just too good not too, so they're off my cellphone. They really don't do do justice to the stunning sights to be had around our country!

Overhead the southern end of the Hunua Valley, looking south towards Lake Waikare and Huntly.

Tauranga and the Mount... looking pleasant as always

Whakatane was it's usual deserted self... and despite the "Variable 5knots" winds, it still managed a nice crosswind :). I soon, after about 5 minutes of looking, discovered that they've moved the landing fee honesty box. It's now tucked away in the airside entrance to the terminal building.

Opotiki was much nicer than my previous visit. And my approach and landing was about a million times better!

The 'Cloud Factories' north of Taupo

Taupo was busy with helicopters in the circuit, about 3 different sky-diving operations running and various transient aircraft. I thought about stopping here for lunch, but parking space was at a bit of a premium, so I decided to head off after a quick snack (mmmm One Square Meal).

Not going anywhere in a hurry

Notice the fog to the left, clear to the right

Picture Postcard Perfect

Raglan was quiet. REALLY quiet. But the locals are very friendly and after paying my landing fee at the camp office, I asked if there was anywhere close by that I could get a bite to eat and a drink as I needed a break after being couped up in a 152 for 4 hours. The office lady suggested the camp store. So I called the National Briefing Office and added an hour to my SARTIME and went for a look.

Pro-tip of the Day: The camp store at Raglan makes great fish and chips ;)

It was perfect afternoon... blue sky, sunshine, great food and a cold drink...

I thanked the ladies at the store and headed back to the airfield before departing for home, once the people walking their dog across the airstrip were safely out of the way! :-/

Glad I decided against that return trip directly into the sun...

All up, 4.4 Hours flight time and 320+nm's... Much better than sitting at my desk :P Must remember to thank my (very understanding) boss!


Flights: 4.6 Dual (334 nm) + 4.4 PinC Night (326 nm)
Total Hours: 192.5 (83.5/84.7 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

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)

Flying High

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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