One Hundred...

July 2011: 100.1 hours :D

Despite the best efforts of the english summer, I've managed to accumulate 100 hours in one calendar month...

Although, the weather has had the last laugh, as while today is blue skies and sunshine, there is just too much haze :(

On the plus side, it means I get a nice sunny Sunday to head out and enjoy the countryside... as opposed to the usual "off day" being couped up indoors all day due to bad weather :)

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)

A "Free" prize

I had received a call from Edna at the Waikato Aero Club to tell me that I had won a spot prize after filling in an entry form at the Open Day a few weeks ago.

So I decided that I would claim my "free" prize by flying down and picking it up (and spending about $300 in the process :P)

Weather was looking good, although the forecast was for a front to move up from the south later in the day bringing some rather crappy weather. As it turns out, this front was moving a little faster than forecast! It probably didn't help that we were steaming into a 20 to 25knot headwind all the way to Hamilton.

We ran into a wall of grey just as we were entering the control zone at Hamilton. The rain was quite heavy and the vis dropped pretty rapidly, but I could still see the airport and behind me was clear blue sky, so I was happy to continue with the approach.

Following some interesting vectoring from ATC and a real greaser of a landing (20 knots on the nose always helps ;), I commenced the long taxi to the aeroclub. This was due to the fact that the airport company has decided to dig up the grass 18/36 runway... and pave it! creating what will be NZ's only parallel paved runways (Technically, NZAA has parallel runways, but they're using one as a taxiway)...

I secured the aircraft, ran inside and claimed my prize. Due to the weather I thought it prudent to depart immediately, so I headed back out into the rain.

By this time we were operating Special VFR, as we were at minimums. Nothing too bad, just poor vis. But it was still clear to the north and we had the luxury of radar and ATC, so away we went. By the time we got to Te Rapa, the rain had eased, we easily had 10k vis and By the time we were over Ngaruwahia, we were back in brilliant sunshine with clear blue skies!

The 20 knot tailwind made for a quick trip home, and we were back on the ground at Ardmore in no time.

Trevor commented that it was good experience, flying in marginal weather, and that he was impressed with my decision making and that I had at all times been keeping an eye on my 'escape route'.

The only downer on the whole experience was that the prize, a really nice jacket, didn't bloody fit!!! So jade now has a nice new, warm, waterproof, fleece-lined jacket :P


This Flight: 1.9 PinC
Total Hours: 181.6 (78.9/79.3 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Wet and/or windy...

So after finishing all my CPL exams, I have been busting to get stuck into the CPL flying... a large component of which is the CPL Cross Country Syllabus.

Unfortunately, the weather gods are once again tormenting me by hurling large amounts of wind and rain at me on weekends... and making Mondays and Tuesdays lovely and sunny :(

And of course, the day after my mate's "Stag Day" (when I was no where near passing the "I'M SAFE" check) it was blue sky and sunshine... *sigh*

However, as my wife will no doubt attest, I am very very VERY stubborn... so I shall continue to defy the weather gods and continue booking aircraft on weekends until I get these flights done... or it becomes summer again ;)

I am once again thinking that, as this winter is looking a bit nasty, I might push the IR up the schedule... that way I will get to spend the crappy days in the simulator... rather than sitting on the couch at the aeroclub drinking tea and talking bollocks...

In the meantime, I will continue to read the Instrument Rating study guides and prepare for the exams, do the odd flight when I can (I have done a couple of scenic flights and some night flying) to help keep my hand in...

And keep prepping for my cross-country flights ;)


Flights: 0.8 PinC + 0.8 PinC Night
Total Hours: 180.6 (78.9/77.4 Day, 8.6/15.7 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Optimism pays dividends...

It was looking like another crappy weekend... with a big storm rolling on through. However, it looked like it was going to arrive a little earlier and move fairly quickly, so I had been hoping that Sunday would in fact be a 'Sun Day'...

and it was!

I had been planning on going and doing some flying with Nick in the afternoon, but decided not to waste the conditions, so I I headed out to Ardmore fairly early to get the aircraft pre-flighted and fueled. This turned out to be a great idea, as there were a number of visiting aircraft in town for the Pilot Expo which was putting a strain on the refueling guys. One of the club members had been waiting for an hour for fuel when I got there! So when the tanker finally arrived, I got the guy to fill up my aircraft as well.

I had been keeping an eye on the weather and it was steadily improving so I figured it would be all go for the afternoon. As I was really early, I decided to take ETZ for a few quick circuits to get it warmed up, so when Nick arrived we could get airborne relatively quickly.

I totally messed up the first landing... the conditions in the circuit were a little bumpy due to some blustery winds and mechanical turbulence coming off the terrain to the northwest. My approach was a bit messey, so I ended up high and consequently I was descending quite rapidly and I flared a little late... and a little too much... and proceeded to balloon and then hit a little hard.

The 2nd circuit I opted for a flapless... extended my downwind, and flew by the numbers... everything came together beautifully and I greased it onto the runway.

The 3rd and final I tried for a short-field approach. I flew the final leg at 60kts all the way down (theoretically the approach speed should be 54, but I was carrying extra speed due to the gusty conditions). I managed to be 50ft over the threshold and still get it down and stopped (without excessive braking) by taxiway Bravo. A landing roll of maybe 150 to 200metres, so I was pretty happy, especially given the wind conditions.

I taxied back and waited for Nick to arrive... only to get a text message saying he had been called into work and wouldn't be coming. So I decided to solo. Grabbed the weather for the far north which looked decent. Put in a flight plan to overhead Dargaville then on to Kerikeri, Whangarei and back to Ardmore. Double-checked the fuel onboard and then grabbed my gear and headed off.

Flying across the harbour to Rangitoto and the VFR transit lane by Whenuapai I was dodging aircraft left right and centre... seems everyone was doing city scenic flights! After that I saw a grand total of about 4 aircraft the rest of the flight, until I got back into the circuit at Ardmore.

Once I reached the far edge of the Whenuapai Control Zone I set course for Dargaville and climbed up to 2500' for the cruise north. It was a little bumpy so I tried 3000' and it was a lot smoother.

I also got a chance to test out the GPS on my phone after having spent ages getting the aeronautical charts loaded. It seemed to work really well. My reckoned position on my paper chart matched up pretty well with the GPS, and the actual location. The only issues I had were that it was giving bearings in degrees True. Which is problematic when you're navigating using a magnetic compass and a DI aligned to the magnetic compass ;) Not a huge problem... just have to allow the -20 or so degrees for magnetic variation. The other issue was that the phone battery died after around 3 hours... into a 3.5 hour flight! Might have to see if the cigarette lighter is compatible with the cigarette lighter charger I have... or go on shorter flights :P

Overheading Dargaville, I set course for Kerikeri and flew over some real tiger country. Some 2500' ranges and dense forests. A little unnerving and somewhat bumpy in spots. I found Kerikeri pretty easily and landed without incident and taxied to the pumps to fill up.

Heading back south at Whangarei, I thought I was going to run into some issues with myself, a parachute jump plane and one of the EagleAir Beech 1900's all arriving at the same time, but thankfully being in the little slow 152 meant I was able to sequence in behind everyone else pretty nicely without any hassles. The weather off to the east of Whangarei looked pretty bad... some massive cloud development and lots of rain. However it stayed where it was and I was able to touch and go and set heading for Ardmore without getting anywhere near it.

I made it back without further incident and managed to slot into the traffic pattern without too much hassle. Just a 172 from AFS that was overheading at the same time I was joining non-traffic side. Again, as I knew he would be faster than me, I just slowed up a little to get the spacing right and it all worked out pretty well.

If you look closely, you can see where the GPS died

A nice little afternoon jaunt, another 3.4 hours of cross-country time and another little personal milestone...

I now have more PinC time (89.7) than Dual time (87.5) ;)


This flight: 0.4 + 3.4 PinC
Total Hours: 177.2 (78.9/76.6 Day, 8.6/13.1 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Where's my snorkel?

Unfortunately, Yellow does not equal sunshine
AUCKLAND (NZAA):

METAR NZAA 191900Z 02015KT 9999 SHRA FEW006 BKN010 BKN013 21/20 Q1009
TEMPO 4000 RA BKN008 =

SPAR NZAA 191658Z
360/20KT X/W MEAN15KT 15KM RED 4000M SHRA FEW006 BKN010 BKN015=

TAF NZAA 191701Z 1918/2018
02018G30KT 9999 -SHRA FEW012 BKN035
TEMPO 1918/2001 4000 RA BKN008
BECMG 2001/2003 32015G25KT
TEMPO 2001/2006 3500 TSRA BKN012 FEW020CB
TEMPO 2006/2012 6000 SHRA BKN012
BECMG 2012/2014 26008KT
2000FT WIND 02025KT
BECMG 1918/1920 35035KT
BECMG 2005/2007 31015KT =


New Zealand is hiding in there somewhere!


Anyone got a bucket?

Meteors, Parties and Fires

After a day of shopping malls, seafood risotto and gnocchi and a 6km walk, I figured I had done enough for a mallowpuff and was thinking about some night flying. Jade asked why? Because I can... duh!

Anyway, as I was staring at the twilight sky debating whether or not the weather was going to be suitable, Trevor sent me a text message asking if I was keen for some night cross country action...

We headed out to the club, pre-flighted JBL and gassed her up and then Trevor did 3 circuits for his night currency (before curfew kicked in) and then I jumped in. He told me the weather looked a bit suspect for a cross-country. After we got airbourne, I could see that the cloud build-up looked pretty bad in pretty much every direction except out over the Tasman Sea. While I am sure I would have enjoyed a 15 hour flight across the Tasman, the lack of long range tanks on the 152 and the fact we had no life-jackets on board made the idea a bit of a non-starter ;)

We decided for a quick jolly over the city instead and our assumption about the weather seemed to have been confirmed when the clouds to the south were light up by what we thought was lightening... I heard on the radio this morning that it was actually part of a meteor shower! Either way, it was an impressive, and somewhat un-nerving sight.

We headed out towards the city, and overflew the domain and saw the remnants of the 'Christmas in the Park' show... Heading over towards Ponsonby we saw some flashing lights and long queues of traffic at what we initially thought was a police breathtesting checkpoint. Turned out to be a huge fire in a laundry. A little disconcerting as we smelled the smoke from 1500' and Trevor said "I hope that is not us!"

We hooked around the SkyTower looking very 'Christmassy' in its green and red lights and then we decided to call it a night and headed back to Ardmore.


This flight: 0.6 PinC Night
Total Hours: 167.4 (78.9/67.5 Day, 8.6/12.4 Night, 7.0 IFR)

Pilotics...

So I got up early on Saturday to go down to the polling booth and vote for Bill and Ben[1] and then headed off for some brunch with jade followed by the mandatory flying/brownie point earning shopping expedition to one of the local shopping malls. I just happened to txt Nick to see if he was still keen for flying on Sunday, and he replied saying he was out at the club and planning on flying that afternoon!

Luckily jade was not really in "shopping-mode" so I was able to get out to the club and tag along as 'Safety Pilot' for Nick while he did some instrument flying. He had commented that he had not done it for a while, nor had he done any practiced forced landings... so halfway through I told him to take a break and take the hood off for a bit of a breather. As he pulled the hood off and had a quick look around, I pulled the throttle closed and called 'simulating'... muahahahaha!

For someone who had not done any FLWOP practice for a while, he did a very good job. He reckons the checks were a little rusty, but I reckon he would have got the OK from a 'real' instructor.

Afterwards I had dinner with the in-laws, as it was MiL's 60th B'day... a nice dinner followed by a great dessert (read as: watching Winston Peters disappear from the NZ Political Landscape!).

Sunday, I got up early to watch Liverpool demolish West Brom (3-nil! Woohoo!) and checked the weather... looked pretty benign, with winds of 5 to 8 knots forecast all over the North Island. I was thinking a run down to Taupo then over to New Plymouth and back up the west coast via Raglan.

Unfortunately, by the time I got out to the Flying Club around 10am... the winds were up around 20-25 knots!! It was Nick's turn to fly, so we decided we would head for Whakatane (via Waihi Gap and Tauranga) and then cut back inland to Matamata before heading home. What we ended up with was a little different:



Paeroa - World Famous in NZ


Catalina coming the other way through the Waihi Gap


Despite the winds, the flight through the Waihi Gap out to the Bay of Plenty was remarkable smooth... a couple of bumps crossing the ranges, but nothing really unpleasant. Once on the windward side of the ranges the air was silky smooth and the cloud noticeably absent. We cruised through the Tauranga Control Zone and along the coast towards Whakatane without too much trouble.

Cruising along the coast towards Tauranga


Joining Non-traffic side at Whakatane


The wind at Whakatane was interesting... a nice 10-15 knot crosswind that was blowing at a right angle to the runway! It certainly kept Nick on this toes. As for the Airport itselft, the place was like a ghost town! I did not see anyone else, even when I wandered into the Terminal Building to use the bathroom... kinda spooky really.

The rather 'unique' Terminal building at Whakatane



We gassed up JFY (after we finally found the Shell AvGas pump ;) and decided that instead of bounce ourselves around flying back across the Kaimai's to Matamata, we would fly back up the eastern coast of the Coromandel and have a look at the various airfields (Whitianga, Pauanui, Matarangi etc.)

Whiritoa - No airfield unfortunately, as a friend has a beach house here!
Slipper Island - nice looking private island resort with its own strip

Pauanui - must stop for a coffee one of these days


Unfortunately, it started to get a little choppy[2] from this point so taking photos was pretty much an impossible task :(

You can see the rest of the days photos in the photobucket gallery.

We cut back though the Colville Gap at the Northern end of the Coromandel and back across to Ardmore. The arrival back at Ardmore was fun, getting overtaken by a Delfin L-29 jet overheading the Clevedon Rivermouth and then having the 4 aircraft Harvard formation take off and turn crosswind underneath us, and then spiral around over us as we did an overhead join... Always fun and games at Ardmore! ;)


[1] Only joking
[2] Only hit my head on the roof once! :-/

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)

Land of the long white cloud...

So I wake up and find that indeed the weather forecasters had got it right and all the crappy weather had blown through... and we would get to go flying. I had been planning a flight for a couple of weeks, with some NZFF associates to Tauranga to go and meet some of the guys from the Bay of Plenty area and visit the Classic Flyers Museum etc...

But Mother Nature was to have the last say. This pic shows the very nice conditions at Ardmore on departure at 1030 after all the fog had burnt off:



This pic shows the conditions around Paeroa and Te Aroha as we approached the Coromandel/Kaimai's:



:(

One big U-Turn and a city scenic later (Pics available here and here), and we landed back at Ardmore around 1230 a bit bummed that we had not made it to Tauranga.

One of the pax was kind enough to video the landing... thankfully he warned me he was recording, so I made sure it was a good one... note the stall warning light that flashes right on touchdown ;)



And then, to rub salt into the wound, around 1600 while I was hanging around at the clubrooms, I saw a Bayflight 152 (KID) do a Touch and Go at Ardmore... so the cloud had obviously cleared...

Still, not a total loss, I got to go flying (which is always a good thing!), and the guys seemed to have a good time. We, the Auckland based crew, have decided that next time we have a meet, it will either be in summer, or in Auckland!


This flight: 2.0 PinC
Total Hours: 129.9 (78.9/39.7 Day, 4.9/6.4 Night, 5.1 IFR)

What do you call...

a day of clear blue skies after 2 days of rain/hail/snow?

MONDAY! Ok, so it was actually 3 days of brutal weather... and it is actually Tuesday, but you get the point!

Despite the abysmal weather, I did get to go flying over the weekend... I just happened to be in Seat 3C, as opposed to 0A ;)

On the saturday we flew from NZAA to NZPM and as you can see from the pics, the weather down below would have been 'interesting'... we had a couple of bumps on the climb out, but nothing too serious once we were up above the weather...


On the way back, we were a little lucky to make the flight... arrived 10 minutes before departure, yay for online check-in and pre-printing boarding passes... to discover the inbound flight had not even arrived... yay for regional air travel :) So thankfully had plenty of time to queue up and pay the $5 departure tax... sorry, "Development Levy"... boo for Palmerston North International Airport :(



I was hoping to get some lovely pics of the central plateau that was all covered in snow... well that is what I heard... what I think I saw was Mt Ngauruhoe poking out from amongst the clouds... the photos are a bit crap, but oh well.




In typical fashion, it cleared up from the Hamilton, but it was still interesting flying along and spotting all the familiar landmarks like Hamilton, Huntly, Lake Waikare, Pukehoke etc..

Oh and if you were wondering, there is more room in a Cessna 152 than row 3 on an Air New Zealand Link ATR72-500 :P

Hopefully this weather will stick around so I can fly over to Tauranga on Sunday... hoping for a scenic flight out to White Island! *crosses fingers*

Nothing to see here, please move along...

*sigh*... I hate winter... Actually that is untrue, I hate bad weather :(

3 weeks and I am starting to get itchy... Have spent the last couple of weekends in Hamilton with Trevor. First one was in the Sim, I am actually picking up a bit of the instrument flying stuff and can follow along quite well.


This weekend just gone, we actually got airbourne in FWS. Massive frontal system was moving in from the North-East, so the planned trip to Tauranga and Rotorua was out, so he decided to just bash the Hamilton approaches. This was the view climbing out from Runway 36.





For someone who, as an instructor, does not actually do a lot of hands-on flying, I thought he did great. Notice the perfect (climbing) Rate-1 turn! Very smooth... I actually thought the auto-pilot was flying... but turns out he did not even use it!




Top Down view of NZHN... looks quite small really, but they put 737's in here. At least, they did, before Air New Zealand shut down Freedom Air. Believe it or not, but the small area on the right is the commercial terminal building. All of the stuff on the left is the Aeroclub, CTC, maintenance hangers etc.





Glad someone can "see"... This, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason people get instrument ratings! Unfortunately, Instrument Meteorological Conditions are not very conducive to photography... and neither is the Blackberry Curve 8310! ;)



I also got a chance to compare my in-ear homemade headset to my normal headset and deduced that it it indeed quieter... not a staggering amount, but once you factor in the comfort value of not having your head in a giant vice and getting hot, sweaty ears, I can definitely see the value in it! :) Now I just need to decide if I want to drop some $$$ on an ANR headset.

Given that I have not been flying for 3 weeks, I can probably afford it now! :P

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)

Animated Sandbag

Got the chance to go along for a ride with Nick (the guy in the picture) while he was doing the first of his solo CPL cross countries. Yes, you can fly 'solo' with passengers :) I though it would be a useful opportunity to get a preview of what a CPL cross country entails while inflight (timing, ground speed checks, ETA's etc.) And I think Nick was happy to have some company... even if I was just an 'Animated Sandbag' as he put it. Rob the CFI was clear that I was not to aid Nick in any way.

As the weather people had been wrong about the weather, the weekend was actually not too bad, so I headed out to Ardmore and got my crap sorted while Nick was working on the flight planning. The plan was to head up to Keri Keri, Kaitaia and Kaikohe. As an exercise you get 1 hour to complete it all, which is not too difficult as long as you follow the 'more speed, less haste' philosophy.


Planning complete and Flight Plan filed, we strapped into JBL and headed out. The engine is still being run in at high power settings, so Nick had planned for slightly faster speeds. It was nice to just observe see how other people do things, but I soon discovered it is a little uncomfortable trying to remain free of the controls in a 152 when you're 6'3" :)


Nick had done most of his planning to/from Musik Point, so after climbing out of Ardmore we headed towards the city getting ready for Nick to start his timings and navigation etc. Nick decided to keep a nice low 1000' and use the Transit lane to get past the Whenuapai Airspace and then climb up to cruising altitude. It was at this point that we could all the weather towards the north, and to be honest it did not look very nice.

As you can see in this pic approaching the Whangaparoa Peninsula, some of the areas up north looked a bit grey. We continued on and I clowned around with my phone (A Blackberry Curve 8310), trying out the GPS on it and taking crappy pictures like the 2nd one above, showing the effects of 'strobing' where the shutter speed of the camera and the prop RPM aren't in sync :)


I also snapped this great pic of yours truly, trying out my homemade, lightweight headset that I built from an old headset and a coat hanger (seriously!) I really love this headset, as it means I can wear sunglasses easily and I don't get a hot sweaty head from the big ear cups and headband of a conventional headset.


Unfortunately, the weather really started to close in as we started to approach Whangarei... the cloudbase was down to around 1700 or 1800' and the MSA for the area was around 2600'!! The rain was starting and the visibility was getting a bit crap. The view to the north was just a big dark gray wall. Nick asked me what I thought and remembering Rob's words, I replied "I'm just sitting here, you're PinC"... To his credit (and my relief) he decided that it was time to turn back.


So we headed back to AR and discovered the airfield had become very very busy. The most annoying thing was, that as we were heading south, we could see how good the weather that way was :( Oh well, as Nick said, it is all PinC time and useful experience. I am hoping to get started on my CPL cross countries at some point, but am still busy studying for the exams... so far I have read the Human Factors book and the first couple of chapters of Air Law. I am getting to know the CAR's, AIPs and AC's pretty well...

The longest day...

Waiting... waiting... waiting...

8 years, 5 months, 24 days to be precise. That was the time from my first logged flight (August 11th 1999) to my PPL flight test (3rd February 2008) and in that time I racked up:

• 90 flights...


• in 15 different aircraft...


• totalling 88.8 hours...


• and 284 landings[1]

and what do I have to show for it? A handshake and a 'Congratulations' from the flight examiner :)

Yesterday was quite possibly one of the longest days of my life. After spending most of saturday evening doing my last minute prep and making sure I had all my documents in order, I found I was so excited I could barely sleep. In fact, I did not dose off until after midnight and I awoke around 6:30am.

After tossing and turning for an hour or so, I finally gave up and had a shower, triple-checked that I had everything and then headed out to the airfield.

Of course, no other idiot was stupid enough to be at the flying club at 9am, so it was all locked up. I just sat at one of the outdoor tables watching the early morning circuit bashers and doing some last minute study of the flight manual.

A couple of other people showed up, so I started ringing people to find someone with a key. A keyholder finally arrived around 10am, which meant I got to sit inside and be anxious instead of sitting outside and being anxious ;)

The flight examiner, John, arrived soon after, but had a lot of paperwork and some other business to attend to first. So I waited.

Around 11:15, I commenced the ground work portion (doing flight plan, weight & balance etc.) and thanks to a practice run on Saturday and my paper work prep the night before I had finished in about 25-30 minutes... you get 1 hour. I went to tell John, but he was busy doing an Instructor Renewal so he told me to go and get a coffee. So I waited.

During this time, the cloud turned nasty, it rained... it started to fine up... it started to shower again... you know, typical Auckland "4 seasons in one day" weather.

A couple of flights came back saying "cloud base and weather down to minimums"... so I thought it was over, but John said "we'll wait and see". So I waited.

He went and did the instructor renewal flight and came back and said the weather was not too bad so if we leave it a little bit and work through the paperwork it should be good to go. So I waited.

It rained.

So John decides he'll head back into town to go pick up his father and come back and drop him off at the Warbirds association for a beer... he'll be back in 30 minutes. So I waited.

He arrived back and said "Ready to go?" so I preflighted the aircraft (I had already done this earlier, but he wanted to watch how I did it) and we strapped ourselves and went. I made sure I verbalised everything that I was doing and worked through my checks thoroughly.

We taxied out at 5:30pm... and I was still feeling excited, nervous and amped despite being up for nearly 12 hours.

The next 1.1 hours were a bit of a blur... climb out, head down towards the training area via Drury, steep turn left, steep turn right, basic stall, fully developed stall, power-on stall, compass turns, forced landing, EFATO, bad weather/low flying, medium turn left, medium turn right, steep turn left, steep turn right, head back to the field for some circuits.

Rain showers sweeping across the field made it interesting, as did the light twin behind me doing asymmetric circuits, but it's his responsibility to get his spacing right so I was not too concerned with what he was doing.

So we did a normal circuit (I did a go-around because I was high and not happy with the approach), a flapless (demonstrating crosswind technique for John, not easy when the wind is calm!), another normal (with a go-around at about 10 feet!) and then a shortfield approach to finish (55kts all the way down final and totally nailed it!)

Taxied back to the club, parked up and ran through the shutdown checks at which point John smiled at me, then offered his hand and said 'Congratulations'. I thanked him and we chatted for a minute about a couple of things (my first go-around and my apparent reluctance to use full flaps) and then he asked if I minded securing the aircraft on my own. It was still raining and he obviously didn't want to get soaking wet, but I could have cared less...

Being the "professional" pilot that I am, I waited until he had climbed out and disappeared back into the clubhouse before celebrating my success... but I'm sure everyone inside heard me ;)

So I worked through the paperwork, then got out and secured the aircraft (the rain was actually quite refreshing) and headed inside to a dead quiet clubhouse before everyone burst in applause and congratulations.

My wallet ended up a little lighter after the bar shout and a nice cold Monteiths Summer Ale (in honour of the lovely summery weather), but the nothing could get the stupid grin off my face... It's still there today and probably will be for the next week or three :)

Then I had dinner with the in-laws (which became an impromptu celebratory dinner) and headed home. I had been planning on cracking open a bottle of Wild Turkey that a friend gave me for xmas, but by 10:30pm, I had been up for around 16 hours with about 4 hours of sleep before that... so as you can imagine I crashed pretty hard! ;)

And then irony of irony's... today is beautiful blue skies and bright sunshine... much like the 3 weeks of perfect weather before my flight test... Typical!

Anyway, I still have some paperwork to tidy up (Fit and Proper Person) before CAA will issue my license... and I cannot exercise my PPL privileges before I am in possession of the plastic license, but for all intents and purposes, I am a qualified Private Pilot (Aeroplane).

Now I just need to do my cross countries to lift the restriction... and get a 172 rating... and get a cherokee rating... and get a night rating... and get an aerobatics rating... and get a taildragger rating... and......... ;)


This flight: 1.1 PinC (Pilot in Command)
Total Hours: 88.8 (68.0 Dual, 20.8 PinC, 5.1 IFR)

[1] in case you're wondering how 90 flights ended in 284 landings, when you're doing circuits you do several landings per flight ;)

Rock and roll

"Ardmore Unicom is on watch, Runway Zero Three, Caution Crosswind Two Seven Knots at Times, Caution Windshear reported on final, Automated weather information issued at Two One Two Zero UTC, Surface wind zero eight zero, one niner knots gusting two seven knots, Temperature Two One, Dewpoint one two, QNH one zero one seven, Auckland reported two thousand foot wind one zero zero, three five knots..."

A 27kt crosswind you say? with windshear on final? And a 35 knot wind blowing at 2000'? Sounds like a perfect day for flying! ;)

So I went up for some FLWOP revision with Trevor... the high winds made for a bumpy ride, but up above 2000' it settled down a little as you got away from the mechanical turbulence blowing over the ranges...

The winds also presented some unique challenges for setting up and executing a forced landing, but overall I think it was a useful flight... I still need to work on ensuring that i do not get too close to the field... and I think the secret lies in picking my 1000' reference point better... and double checking my spacing on the downwind leg...

The approach and landing at the end of the lesson was... errrr... interesting... I had the power completely at idle and the tacho was still showing 1500RPM... it usually idles around 600 to 700! but there was so much wind blowing through the prop that it just would not slow down!

Consequently, the approach was rather fast as the only way to get the plane to come down was to point the nose down which meant increasing airspeed... we hit about 100 knots at one point! Which is close to around 190Km/h... we're usually doing around 65 to 70 knots (around 120-130Km/h)....

And the 25knot crosswind and windshear made for an interesting final 50 feet... with the plane wanting to dance all over the place, but a relatively solid crosswind technique meant I got the "in to wind" wheel down first and safely back on terra firma...

Was going to try again on Sunday for some solo practice... but the weather was more of the same... so I decided it was not going to be productive. I did get the offer to go as backseat passenger while one of the other pilots did some circuits to get current in a 172 and I though it would be a great time to to re-test my homemade headset as I had had to rewire the microphone due to issues with the plugs and connectors, but unfortunately the radio/intercom system was not working properly and we had to abort the flight before we had reached the main taxiway... bummer!

This flight: 1.5 Dual
Total Hours: 84.4 (65.9 Dual, 18.5 Solo, 5.1 IFR)

Spring Weather...

Mother Nature, like all women... is a very fickle creature :)

The weather today was marginal, certainly no good for the TA, but some solo circuit work looked possible...

So i jumped in JFY and headed up... wind was up a little 15, gusting 20knots... but only about 20 degrees off the runway, so the crosswind component was nothing too scary...

until it became 25knots, gusting 30 and veering all over the place...

I prudently decided to fullstop after 4 circuits (which only took 0.5hours due to the phenomenal tail wind on the downwind legs ;) as JFY was bouncing all over the place and the weather was starting to look nasty...

As I was tying the aircraft down, it started to shower and the wind really picked up... Heading in the clubrooms and one of the instructors informed me there was a 17hectopascal pressure gradient between Christchurch and Auckland... its usually probably closer to around 3 or 4! The bigger the pressure gradient, the higher the winds... not a day for light planes to be in the air!

Lessons learned? Be prepared to change your plans!

This flight: 0.5 Solo
Total Hours: 63.8 (52.5 Dual, 11.3 Solo, 3.0 IFR)

Book worm...

so no luck on the flying front today... but I still had an enjoyable BDay... the AB's kicked arse... I got to sleep in until 1pm... and I still went out to the flying club to do some groundwork...

covered the flight manual and the various info in it with regards to weight and balance, P-Charts, NOTAM's and Weather Briefings...

learnt some interesting bits of info and where they are contained in the AIP's...

then did some practice weight/balance and P-chart scenarios for the C-152... and discovered that they do not have a very useful load!

Also went over NOTAM's and weather briefing info..

Then I got to go for a yummy steak dinner (although I ate a bit much)

All in all, a great day...

No flying luke..

'nuff said...

Why is it...

that the weather people only seem to get it right when they say its going rain?


I am sure the satellite imagery from the weekend would have looked something like this...




because when I woke up on saturday (and sunday for that matter) it looked like this...






By saturday night, it looked like this:

And my ADSL router died...







And, as I mentioned before, sunday morning was a lot like this...