6 months later...

It has been a long time between posts, but I have a REALLY good excuse... 2 weeks before my CPL flight test re-sit was scheduled, the Tuesday before Valentines Day to be precise, my wife came home from work and delivered some rather life changing news...

To cut a long story short, I'm now "flying solo"... so after selling the house, finding a place to live, dividing up assests and re-arranging my personal life, all while trying to pass a CPL, I figured I was due up for some time off.

I managed a sneaky club trip down to Nelson (was supposed to be Queenstown, but was the weekend back at the beginning of May when Queenstown was underwater) in the 182... We visited Nelson Lakes Station & Omaka (and had an unscheduled pitstop in Motueka due to some rather high engine temps) and generally had an awesome time. ps. Controlled VFR at 10,500' is the way to fly! ;)

I also figured it was a good time to go cross some things of my "Bucket List", see some friends overseas and see some more of our fair Earth... So after 3 weeks in the US/Canada followed by 3 Weeks in UK/Europe through May/June and 3 Weeks in China for a friend's wedding Aug/Sep, I can safely say that I've seen a fair bit, met some awesome people, made some new friends, had bucketloads of fun and have generally been enjoying life. :)

Of course, eventually, "Real Life"™ will catch up with you, and in my case, that is the need to get a Multi-Engine Instrument Rating, to which end I have been perusing the IR study guides and booking exams while this last load of crappy weather was ravaging the country (even went and did a 1hour famil in the Redbird FMX 1000 full motion sim ;)...

To celebrate the arrival of some decent weather and reward myself for such commitment to study (I mean, I have even been getting out of bed before lunchtime!)... and to really get back in the swing of things after doing some "currency circuits" on the weekend, I decided to go for an impromptu cross-country today...

So I pre-flighted DJU, checked weather all over the North Island looking for some interesting places to go, decided on Rotorua and White Island, put in a flightplan, chucked in a couple of pax I found hanging out at the Flying Club (1 CPL Student and 1 shiny new C-Cat), double checked we had life-jackets onboard, plugged in the SpiderTracks (oooo new toys for the club!) and headed off for Rotorua...

Was a pretty decent day, relatively smooth. Some cloud over the Kaimai's meant a slight detour through the Tauranga Control Zone, but no real drama's...

Stopped in Rotorua to refuel ourselves and the aircraft, got "Ramp Checked" by AvSec (I knew I carried my licence with me when flying for reason!) before heading off to White Island.

Neither of my pax had ever been out there, so they got a bit of a treat as we circled the volcano and then headed back west... We skipped up the east coast of the peninsula at 3000', checking out all the airfields along the Coromandal before heading back to Ardmore.

SpiderTracks - Big Brother is watching you!


Another 3.5 hours in the book... Was a great day to be flying and was nice to have some company along :)

Hopefully, posts should become a bit more regular again (assuming the weather co-operates) as I embark on my MEIR journey... should be fun ;)

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)

3rd time's a charm...

Finally made it to Taupo... and my "World Tour" of NZ finally got underway on the 3rd attempt.

Woke up yesterday morning, to some severe blue skies and a nice crunchy frost. Headed out to the field just before 0800 to pre-flight JFY and flight plan for Ardmore - Taupo - Rotorua - Tauranga - Ardmore (AR-AP-RO-TG-AR).



After taking care of the paperwork and filing a VFR flight plan, Nick and I strapped in and I ran through my checks. Despite not moving for almost 2 months, good old JFY started up first time and showed no real issues during run-ups etc.

However, things changed after take-off and heading out into the clear blue skies... I had called up Christchurch Control to get clearance into controlled airspace up to 6500', so I could just cruise along at high level and avoid the bumpy conditions down low.

Unfortunately, the transponder decided to play silly buggers... "JFY, can you please confirm your transponder code is 0334"... "Affirm, JFY"... "JFY, ok, can you squawk ident"... "Squawking Ident, JFY"... "Ok, I have you squawking 7344"... "Standby, JFY"... much fiddling with transponder dials later... "Now, I have you squawking 4342, try one of my sector codes 4000"... some more twiddling... "Ok, now I have you showing 7010"... more dial fiddling... "Ok, I now have you idented with 4000, cleared to climb to 4500', VFR direct to Taupo, expect further instructions"... "Climb 4500', direct to Taupo, JFY".

We eventually got cleared up to 6500' and flew over Hamilton and headed down towards Taupo without further incident. The view was pretty spectacular, pretty much no cloud and soon the mountains were clearly visible and looking postcard perfect all covered in snow.

We parked up at Taupo, gassed the tanks, paid the horrendous landing fee ($4.50 ;) at the honesty box and went to get some lunch at the cafe. Watched the parachuting (including one guy who I think was about to go up for a jump... he looked as white as a sheet and was doing some deep breathing and meditating! hahahah), the crazy jump plane pilots descending from 11000' in about 3 1/2 minutes (do the math!) and getting on the ground almost before the parachutists and a couple of AirNZ Link Beech 1900D's arrive and depart.

We had been considering a bit of a tiki tour down to the mountains for some photos, but the weather looked like it was starting to arrive from the south, and with the fairly solid 20-25kt wind, we figured it would be a fairly unpleasant experience, so decided to just continue on our way and head for Rotovegas.

Nick commented that the easy part was behind us... and boy was he right! Taupo to Rotorua is only about 15 minutes... and Rotorua to Tauranga is not much more... you get very busy, very quickly!

While we were on the ground, I had checked with the National Briefing Office (NBO), to see if the controller had updated our flight plan with the 4000 transponder code she had given us, as we were a little loathe to play with the transponder anymore. Unfortunately, they had not, so we changed back to 0334... or so we thought.

Heading in to Rotorua, we were informed by the tower, that we were actually squawking 4334. But she had us idented, so was happy for us to continue. We were cleared into the zone at 3500' or below and to report again at the green lakes. I had initially asked for a Touch and Go and then onward to Tauranga, but given the continuing issues with the transponder, we thought it wise to just head straight back to Ardmore, so I informed the tower that I was going to amend my flight plan. At which point she informed us that we were now showing the correct code of 0334!! Nick and I looked at each other and asked "did you touch it???"

Seeing as how it appeared to be working, I decided to go ahead and continue on to Tauranga. Which proved to be an interesting decision, as the controller there was juggling about 7 aircraft all arriving from different directions... and 2 gliders!

Luckily though, Tauranga has published VFR arrival and departure procedures... which makes radio calls nice and simple... "JFY, cleared for a Papamoa One Arrival", "Cleared Papamoa One Arrival, JFY"... "JFY, cleared Matakana One Departure, Right Turn approved", "Cleared Matakana One Departure, JFY". It also makes it easy to plan and brief your arrival beforehand, which helps lighten the load a little.

So, despite there being a ton of traffic, things flowed pretty well. Nick was getting a little anxious (and constantly reminding me) that we were short final without clearance, but having 'grown up' flying at a controlled aerodrome (Palmerston North, NZPM), you get used to the controllers doing things last minute... I once got cleared to land when I was only about 3ft off the ground!

So we were in and out of Tauranga pretty quickly (next time I think I'll execute a missed approach to avoid the $24.50 landing charge!!!!) and tracking along the coast towards Waihi. Then it was through the Waihi Gap, across the plains and Firth of Thames and back to Ardmore without further incident.

The first thing I did after landing was terminate my flight plan and the first thing I did after shutting down the aircraft was to write up the transponder issue in the Defect Log.

Here you can see the planned route (in red) vs. the actual route (in blue):

Nick took some photos along the way, so if any of them come out looking halfway decent, I'll post them up.

All in all, a great days flying... which was a huge relief after only getting 3 flights in June and only 2 flights in July due to all the crappy weather!


This flight: 3.6 PinC
Total Hours: 133.5 (78.9/43.3 Day, 4.9/6.4 Night, 5.1 IFR)