Things that DO suck

1. Sadistic Flight Instructors


2. Flat batteries in your Camera

Trevor managed to get yesterday off work, and the fine weather was still hanging in there, so we decided to finish the dual flight that we had aborted on Sunday due to the vacuum pump failure.

AR-(AP)-(MA)-TG, Divert (TH)-AR
The "plan" was to fly Ardmore (NZAR) - Taupo (NZAP) - Matamata (NZMA) - Tauranga (NZTG) - Ardmore (NZAR). But as I have discovered with dual CPL cross countries, what you plan and what you fly are two very different things :P

The trip to Taupo was pretty good. The winds were 'lightish' so the flying conditions were relatively smooth and the visibility was excellent. We could actually see Mt. Ruapehu while overhead Drury, which is a distance of about 250km!!!

I was really looking forward to getting some good photos of the mountains and Lake Taupo, until I handed my camera to Trevor and asked him to take some photos and he discovered that the batteries in the camera, which had been working perfectly in the morning, were now completely flat :( As I was too busy flying the aircraft and trying to do ground speed checks, plan my top of decent, look out for other aircraft and make radio calls, I couldn't be bothered trying to dig my cellphone out of my flight bag to try to get some pics on that...

I think I know what I want for my BDay/Christmas now... a nice little 'point and shoot' digital camera with a battery life longer than about 3 minutes :P

Anyway, we stopped in Taupo, gassed up, I had a bite to eat and visited the little boys room while Trevor checked out a car he is thinking of buying. Then we headed off into the clear blue skies and bade farewell to the snowy capped mountains and silky smooth lake and headed for Matamata.

After deciding I was a little bit off course, Trevor decided I should do a "1 in 60" to get to Matamata. Effectively you work out "Distance Off course divided by Distance Flown" and "Distance Off Course divided by Distance to Go". The first gives you the track error so far (usually a result of the wind not being what was forecast), and if you correct by that much you will end up paralleling your original track, but you will still be off course. In my case 2 nm miles off course after 25 miles flying or ~4 degrees. The 2nd calculation gives you the closing angle to arrive at your intended destination, so I needed to correct 2nm over the remaing 37 miles to Matamata (~3 degrees), resulting in a total correction of 4+3 or 7 degrees.

Now if it all sounds a bit like hard work trying to divide all sorts of random numbers in your head... you are right! That's why we use an "E-6B Flight Computer"... basically a fancy circular slide rule that makes a lot of aviation related calculations really easy ;)

The E-6B "Whizzwheel"
The "1 in 60" worked out pretty good, and I ended up pretty close (less than 1 mile) from Matamata. We dodged our way around the gliders, tanked up with gas and made ready to depart. At which point I learned that a 152, with 2 people on board and full tanks doesn't really depart that well from a runway consisting of relatively long grass! Even with shortfield technique we burned an awful lot of runway, but made it into the air eventually and with plenty of room to spare.

I was just commenting to Trevor that it was an awfully long take-off roll when he pulled the throttle 1/2 closed and called simulating. Lower the nose, Carb Heat On, Throttle Closed, Pick a paddock, Fuel/Mixture/Ignition Off. I hadn't seen the Engine Failure after take-off coming!!

He was satisified with my choice of paddock and we would have made it quite comfortably, so he called go-around and we climbed away on track to Tauranga. I had just got up to 2500' feet and managed to get Christchurch Info on the radio and pushed my SARTIME out when Trevor looked at me with a big grin and "Did I say Tauranga?? Oh, I meant Thames... oh and look at all that crappy weather (Clear Blue skies, visibility of around 60km :-/), ceiling is now 1500'"... So I started my diversion to Thames.

Due to the "crappy weather", I ended up with a ceiling of 800', so I was low (and slow) flying at 700' at 70knots. I called up CH Info and amended my flight plan and started heading for Thames. Eventually, "the weather" cleared and I was allowed to climb back up to 2500'. Just as I got there, and had everything sorted out and was planning my approach into Thames, Trevor pulled the throttle and said simulating.... AARRGGGHHH!!!

I was a bit rusty on the procedure for the forced landing, but I picked my paddock, planned an approach and would have put it in without too much trouble.

The nice long runway (14/32) at Thames is currently closed for maintenance, so I had the really short 500m runway (05/23) with a lovely approach for runway 23 that takes you quite close to some seriously high ground. I flew a really nice shortfield approach, touching down right on the threshold at minimal speed and blasted off again with plenty of room to spare. :D

I set heading for Ardmore and as usually seems to be the case, ended up arriving at the same time as everyone else :( I was just coming up to Hunua at 2000' and was about to report my position and intentions, when no less than 3 other aircraft all reported claiming to be exactly where I was! :-O I could only see one other aircraft and he was about 5 miles away!!!

I decided to stay out of the mix and gave everyone plenty of room and I slotted myself into a gap in the circuit traffic and landed without too much bother.

I was quite happy to be back on the ground after such an 'eventful' flight... and I definitely need to go and do some forced landing procedure revision before my cross-country flight test!


This Flight: 3.7 Dual (242 nm)
Total Hours: 209.0 (91.9/92.8 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.2 IFR)

Diversions and a different perspective

Woke up this morning and figured that flying today could be a bit problematic weather-wise, given that I could barely see my back fence through the fog!

Was hoping that it would burn off while I pre-flighted, had breakfast, did the flight planning etc. It was starting to burn off quite nicely around Ardmore by the time Nick and I had had breakfast at the aeroclub cafe, so the plan was to fly to Taupo (NZAP), Rotorua (NZRO), Thames (NZTH) and back to Ardmore.

I gathered all the weather and did the flight planning. The forecasts at the various locations were all for early morning fog that was due to have disappeared by around 11am.

So we gassed up JBL and headed out. On take-off we discovered the cloud base was only around 1500' through the Hunua Valley but it appeared to clear over the training area. Unfortunately, this only lasted until just north of Hamilton. When the tower asked if we wanted 'Special VFR' when we requested a clearance to transit their zone, we knew it was pretty much over :(

We decided to divert towards Tauranga, as it looked relatively clear over towards Matamata. As we flew up the valley it appeared that the cloudbase was down towards 800'... so we headed back up past Lake Waikare and out into the Firth of Thames. Here the cloudbase was well up over 1000' and we could see all the way across to Thames and the Coromandel. So I called Christchurch Information, amended my flight plan to Thames and then onwards to Ardmore and extended my SARTIME out by a half hour.

I flew over to Thames, made a missed approach and then a Touch and Go and then headed back to Ardmore.

1.7 hours of PinC, a new airfield and some valuable lessons learned... like call the airfields where you are planning on going and get some 'on the spot' weather rather than relying on forecasts.

After debriefing with Trevor and discussing decisions made etc. CFI Rob called wanting to know if I would like to get some paid for flying tomorrow. All I had to do was fly a guy around over by Glenbrook and Waiuku following a steam train so he could video it. I was happy to go, but Rob then realised that I would need to do it from the right hand seat as they wanted video of the left hand side of the train. Flying from the right hand seat is a bit different and Rob was not sure whether or not it would be a good idea. I said that I was more than happy to go and do some flying with Trevor then to prove competency. Rob agreed but noted that I would need to pay for that which I was happy to.

All I can say is that it is a very different experience flying from the right hand seat! Left hand on throttle, right hand on the control yoke is very interesting, as my brain has become used to the opposite... so on a couple of occasions I found that when I was needing to push the throttle in, my right hand was still reacting and pushing the control yoke in!

Also, the parallax error on the instruments like the AH and Turn Co-ordinator have to be taken into account... on the positive side, I was always at the targeted RPM, as that Tacho is right in front of you on that side!

The end result being that, weather permitting, I am going train spotting tomorrow :)


This flight: 1.7 PinC + 0.8 Dual
Total Hours: 126.0 (78.9/36.5 Day, 4.9/5.7 Night, 5.1 IFR)