Leaving the nest...

The weather finally co-operated for me on Saturday and I got to do my first solo cross country :)

It was the same flight as the Dual (NZAR - NZHN - NZTG - NZWV - NZAR)... but without the safety net of the instructor. Aside from my PPL flight test, it was possibly the only time I have actually felt nervous walking out to the aircraft... It really showed when Trevor strolled up after I had strapped myself in and was starting to go over my checks.

"Ready to go?", he asked. "errr Yep" I replied. "Ok then, I'll take the chock off the nose wheel then shall I?"... DOH!!

I taxied out thinking that it is attention to detail (or lack thereof) that always catches you out... and I was determined not to make any more mistakes. Unfortunately, as Mr. Murphy is alive and well in Aviation, it was by no means a stroll in the park...

To begin with, they were operating both frequencies at Hamilton, not something I was familiar with, but not a huge deal, you just change freq's when they tell you... Unfortunately, one of the controllers was a little hard to understand due to his accent but I got on the ground safely and taxied to the pumps at the aeroclub to top off the tanks, so I would not need to fill up anywhere else.

They have also changed the layout of HN a little due to work being carried out on the runways... so being told to 'taxi to the engine runup area' was a little confusing.

Heading to Tauranga, I was getting a bit concerned that the terrain was around 2000' and the cloudbase was around 2500'... thankfully there was a nice clear patch that I could scoot through. I was a little concerned that I would face the same problems coming the other way, but the weather did look like it was improving and I did have the option of the Waihi Gap on the way home.

I tuned up the ATIS and was a little alarmed to hear "Controller Training in progress"... oh oh... talk about the blind leading the blind! hahaha

So I requested clearance into the zone for a touch and go onwards to Waihi Beach and was given a racecourse 1 arrival... basically fly in by the racecourse at 1500' and report when holding at the hospital... so i did...

Initially, I did not get any response, so I just did an orbit an reported again... I was finally given a straight in approach for 07 grass... sweet!

So while setting up for the grass, I was then cleared for the Touch and Go... and cleared onwards to Waihi Beach with a Matakana Departure... and cleared left turn after take-off...

Trying to listen, remember and readback all that while trying to execute a precision approach was probably the busiest I have ever been in the cockpit... but I dropped JFY right where I wanted at 55kts... back to 10 degrees of flap, and climbed back out, turned left and tracked up the coast to Waihi...

Where I encountered the lovely seabreeze crosswind and curved 31 approach again... but this time I nailed it first time :) I considered stopping for a few minutes, and after getting back to AR I wish I had as my back was really stiff, but the weather was looking good and I did not want to risk it closing in... so I just backtracked, lined up and did a shortfield take-off. I had planned on using the Waihi Gap, due to the earlier weather, but climbing out of Waihi I got up to 3000' and was nowhere near the clouds, so I just cruised back at 3000' all the way to AR.

2.9 hours of flying and I had covered over 160nm's (just over 300km's) and I had successfully flown myself in and out of a couple of controlled aerodromes without the dreaded 'Please call the tower' :)

Now I need some nice clear days so I can get the high level cross countries done to remove the restriction on my license!

This flight: 2.9 Solo
Total Hours: 103.0 (73.4 Dual Day, 0.9 Dual Night, 28.7 PinC, 5.1 IFR)

Making hay while the sun shines

So I am wandering around shopping malls looking at handbags and shoes (curse you Easter Saturday!) wishing Trevor had not gone to Rock2Wellington so we could have gone flying, when I get a phone call from the CFI wanting to know if I wanted to do a cross country flight as they had spare aircraft, a spare instructor and B.E.A. ootiful weather...

I thought about it for a 0.0000000002 seconds and said yes ;)

I headed out to NZAR after arranging some lunch for jade so she would not die of hunger and met the new C-Cat instructor Matt. We went over the flight planning, weather, NOTAMs and covered what to expect in terms of radio calls and approach/departure procedures. I was a little surprised as instead of the standard Ardmore (NZAR)-Hamilton (NZHN)-Tauranga (NZTG)-Thames (NZTH)-Ardmore route, Rob suggested we go to Waihi Beach (NZWV) instead of Thames. I have heard 'interesting' things about Waihi Beach, mostly about the crosswinds and the curved approach... but figured it would be a good challenged. So, we filed a VFR flightplan, strapped on JFY and headed out.

The approach into NZHN was interesting as the tower was on reduced capacity (whats with people wanting holidays on easter?!?!?) so the controller was busier than a one-armed paper hanger... we finally got our clearance and landed on runway 18 and taxied over to the aeroclub to fill up on gas.

Then off to NZTG where we encountered a 'newish' controller who was a bit difficult to understand and a little stressed with several aircraft arriving at once. After some to-ing and fro-ing we finally got cleared for a touch and go on runway 25 and cleared onto NZWV.

It turns out that NZWV IS a very interesting approach. I opted for 31, as while it has the tricky curved approach due to terrain and it was mostly a crosswind at the time, there was some headwind component and I wanted all the help I could get as 31 is only 500metres due to the displaced threshold.

I totally messed up the first approach, and learned a valuable lesson about overhead joins at small strips in the process... basically, give yourself plenty of room rather than trying to fly across the thresholds like you do at larger fields like NZAR. But I had recognised the problem early and just executed a go-around and setup for another approach, giving myself a bit more room and slowing up a little earlier than the first attempt. And I totally nailed it... Matt said he was impressed that I made the (correct) go-around decision early rather than trying to fight the aircraft down onto the strip.

We stopped for a bit of fresh air and a stretch and then headed back to NZAR. The shortfield take-off out of NZWV was not too bad and we cleared the fence quite comfortably. Then climbed up to 3500' for the trip across the Coromandel Ranges and back to NZAR.

It was certainly a learning experience, having to talk to controllers, follow arrival and departure procedures, talking to Christchurch Information to amend my SARTIME (Search and Rescue Time), all while trying to keep ahead of the aircraft while flying into unfamiliar territory!


This flight: 2.7 Dual
Total Hours: 98.0 (73.4 Dual, 24.6 PinC, 5.1 IFR)