500

So in the 6 weeks that I've been enjoying what "Mother England" has to offer... I've been North-ish, South, East and West... I've seen Fenlands, Moors and what the English call "hills"... I've had CAVOK, haze, Fog and barely VFR minimums... I've had sunshine, rain and 20kt crosswinds!... I've had "Basic" service, no service and penetrated a MATZ (Military Aerodrome Traffic Zone)... I've dodged gliders, motor-gliders & micro-lights... I've seen some interesting crop circles, a giant chalk horse, more windfarms than you can shake a stick at, "secret" military installations and a massive fire (see below)... I've even been asked by a prison (via the local airfield info service, kinda like UNICOM at Ardmore) to "move along" :-/

But most of all, I've racked up 102.3 hours... which by reckoning puts me at a shade over 500 hours Total Time! :)

It's kinda scary to think that in just 6 weeks, I have managed to accumulate 1/4 of the amount that had previously taken me 4 or 5 YEARS to get!

In Short... I've had a bucket load of fun so far... Touch wood, it'll stay that way :)

3-bladed, Jet-A1 powered Cessna 172


An interesting mix of old and new


Odds of flying this morning? about 0%


CAVOK :)



Kyoto Protocol... we've heard of it


What Carbon Footprint?


There IS a windfarm there somewhere... Honest!


Secret Squirrels... Shhhh!


Giddy up!


Aliens or bored teenagers?


or Alien teenagers?!?!!

The other side...

of the world that is... :)

So, I'm currently enjoying the english countryside... which I've discovered can be an interesting place to navigate around.

Largely because the area I'm in (East Midlands) is about as flat as a billiard table! Which can make it a little disorientating, as you can't just be "Oh, there is the ABC ranges over there" or "Look, Mt XYZ is over there"... Plus all the villages/towns look the same and they're fairly close to one another, so it can be difficult to work out which one you're actually overhead!

I think the biggest problem I've had so far, has just been the position of the sun... As opposed to New Zealand, where the sun tends to occupy the northern part of the sky, here in *cough*"sunny"*cough* England, it likes to live in the southern skies... which has been messing with my head a little bit and throwing my natural sense of direction out... as I keep looking at the sun and going, north is that way! Only to have the compass disagree when I use it to confirm :P

There are a few bonuses tho... like the fact that the place is so flat means that there isn't much to hit, so most of the minimum safe altitudes listed on the charts are under 1000' :P It also means you're spoilt for choice when it comes to options for forced landings! And because there are so many suitable places to put an airfield, the english went ahead and put them in! I actually think it's a throwback to World War II, with many of the airfields being ex-airforce... in any case, it's quite difficult to not be near an airfield, which means there are plenty of places to visit, so hopefully I'll see a few during my travels over the next few months :)

Success, Postponement & Commercial Reality

So I successfully completed my Multi-Rating... spending a small fortune along the way, desperately trying to maintain control of a twin with the benefit of only one engine in all sorts of situations (during take-off roll, after take-off, in the cruise, in the circuit, on approach, on short final below DA (Decision Altitude) but having some of the most fun I've ever had whilst flying!

The emergency gear extension was interesting... opening a little hatch in the floor and using a little metal bar to turn a small value that just drops the gear down using gravity. Was somewhat re-assuring to know that in the event of the electric hydraulic pump failing, it might still be possible to get the wheels down...

An engine shutdown... and a (thankfully successful) mid-air restart... I have to say, despite the smile on my face (see below), flying around with the prop completely stopped was a little unnerving... especially after having spent 300+ hours in single engine aircraft where a stopped prop = BAD! :P

Look Ma, No Engine!


Then came the realisation that I was not going to be able to continue with my Instrument Rating... I had hoped to do it in the Duchess, but unfortunately, several critical pieces of avionics decided to release "The Magic Smoke™" rendering it unuseable for IFR flight :(

So I decided that I could just switch to the Partenavia P68 and do my Multi Instrument rating in that... but was unable to secure a test date at a suitable time that would leave me enough time to train, complete the test and make it to the UK in a timely manner (more on this later)...

So the decision was made, very reluctantly, to shelve the Instrument Rating until I return from my Northern Hemisphere adventure... As it turns out, due to several other factors, such as the Christchurch Earthquake and navigation equipment maintenance, there is pretty much no instrument training occurring at present so the decision was most definitely the right one.

So I was wondering what I was going to do to keep busy... at which point I was then asked to go and do some more aerial photography, only this time, away from "Home"... So I packed some clothes in a bag, put some spare oil in the back of DJU, made sure I had the fuel cards onboard and headed south.

"Jules" looking awesome in front of Mt Egmont (NZSD)


12 days & 41.3 hours "down country" later... I've seen a fair bit of the Taranaki & Manawatu... Managed to operate in and around the airforce base at Ohakea without annoying anyone, chatted with Police and Airforce crew at Foxpine (NZFP) who were out "doing some gardening" in an Airforce Iroquois helicopter ;), met some real characters like John the Pom, all the while "enjoying" some of the realities of commercial flying, and having a total blast...

"Jules" tucked up ready for bed at Foxpine (NZFP)


Now I mentioned the UK earlier... well this is one of the reasons I'm delaying the Instrument Flying... I've been offered the opportunity to head to the UK to do some flying up there for 6 months over the northern summer (yay! 4 summers in a row!!) So, as soon as I get back from the current round of flying about the countryside (currently in a Motel room in Masterton!?!?) I'll be packing up my life and heading to Ol' Blighty...

Fun times...

2 types of workout

One mental... the other quite physical!

So I got up at O'dark thirty this morning to ensure I was out at Ardmore before 8am ready for my 2nd flight in the twin...

The sky was full of blue and a giant ball of yellow, a very very nice morning for flying.

After pre-flighting and a briefing on the considerations for flying a twin in the circuit, we taxied out... did out run-ups and took-off, at which point the instructors door came ajar! Leading to a very noisy circuit and full stop landing so we could get it shut.

Take 2 was much better, and we spent the next hour going round and round in circles...

The first couple were a bit hectic, I was struggling a little, and the speed both in climb and across the ground really did catch me out! For instance, on the first circuit, by the time I'd got the aircraft sorted after take-off and conducted my after take-off checks, I was almost at circuit altitude and I hadn't even turned off the extended centreline! By the time I was sorted in the downwind with the power set and got the gear down to help keep the aircraft under 120kts and then completed my downwind checks, I was late downwind! In a 152, I can have that pretty much done by halfway downwind :-/

But, practice makes perfect, and towards the end, I was getting into a rhythm... keeping ahead of the aircraft and making some decent approaches and landings.

And because I'm a sucker for punishment, I decided that I would go ahead with the afternoon's flight... Intro to Asymmetric flight. This occurs when one of the engines in a twin-engine aircraft fails. In a single-engine, if your engine dies, you're going down, hence why we practice forced landings without power. In a twin, if you lose an engine, it a lot of instances, you are still able to fly "quite" happily on one engine... it's not quite as simple in reality, as I found as this afternoon, but you can do it.

The problem with flying a twin on one engine, is that the engines are usually mounted one on each wing, so if one dies, the thrust from the one good engine is pulling that side of the aircraft along faster than the side with the dead engine, and hence the aircraft wants to constantly swing around... aka "yaw"... Us pilot's generally like to fly in straight lines, so this tendency for the aircraft to want to yaw is a bit of a problem...

Thankfully, we can just straighten the aircraft out with rudder... or so you'd think... it requires MASSIVE amounts of rudder to hold a light twin straight with only one engine working... on the plus side, I can skip the leg press exercises at the gym this week! :P

But again, those cunning pilot's of yesteryear have devised a procedure for dealing with these engine failures, where you keep the aircraft under control by using rudder and full power on the live engine, then set about the task of positively identifying the failed engine, verifying it is failed, and then setting up the engine to produce the minimum amount of drag... and so we worked our way through the various scenario's... engine failure in the cruise, engine failure in the climb, engine failure in the descent...

We followed that up with a "Vmca" (Minimum Control Speed) demonstration, to prove that if you fly too slow on one engine, there is a point where you have full rudder in to counter the yaw, but the aircraft just keeps going and continues to yaw and roll due to the reduced effectiveness of the rudder at such a low airspeed and eventually the aircraft will enter a spiral dive (which leads to other bad things like crashing and dieing!)... Thankfully, we conducted this demonstration at 3500' ;)

Then it was time to head back to Ardmore... on the way Jason popped in a sneaky "surprise" engine failure (all the others he had announced) just to see what I'd do... I handled it OK, but a bit on the slow side remembering the steps in the procedure... I only have 3 hours in the Duchess... and about 1 handling engine failures, so I'm sure it will come with time and practice :)


These Flights: 1.1 + 1.4 Dual Multi
Total Hours: 320.3 (150.4/140.3 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 3.6 Multi, 18.6 IFR)

I'm in love!

WOW... what can I say? 2 engines good, 1 engine bad :P

So I've had my first flight at the controls of a light twin, a Beechcraft BE-76 Duchess (ZK-SMI)... and it was awesome!

Firstly tho, a little bit of a back story...

Unfortunately, the club where I do the majority of my flying, Airline Flying Club, do not have any twin's on the flightline, which is a bit problematic when one is wanting to do a multi-engine instrument rating... :(

Fortunately, our club president has a few contacts about the place and has managed to swing a deal with the club next door, Auckland Aero Club, whereby those of us at AFC who are wanting to get multi ratings, are able to do so at AAC using their aircraft and instructors... :)

So I've enlisted the services of an AAC B-Cat instructor, Jason, and their Duchess... ZK-SMI.

It was just an initial intro to type flight, that covered the basics of the aircraft, how to pre-flight, taxiing, take-off, basic maneuvers like medium turns, steep turns, stalls, emergency (ie. manual) gear extension etc... then a circuit and full stop landing... but thus far, one of the best 1.1 hours of my flying so far.

The machine just has so much get up and go... it easily climbs at over 1000' a minute (we were getting around 1300 or 1400'/minute) at the "standard" climb power setting of 25" Manifold Pressure and 2500 RPM, which isn't full power... compared with say a 152 that might do 600' in an updraft or thermal at full power :P

And it hums along quite nicely at 140kts in the cruise... compare with a 152 that might do 100 with a tailwind ;)

And here-in lies the problem with these aircraft... they're fast and powerful, and it's very easy to get a long way behind the aircraft as it travels so far in such a short space of time you have to plan a long way ahead. I think the next week or so are going to be very interesting and hopefully bucketloads of fun... I've got 2 flights booked for tomorrow ;)


This Flight: 1.1 Dual Multi
Total Hours: 317.8 (150.4/140.3 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 1.1 Multi, 18.6 IFR)

New Year, New Aircraft

Ok... so I kinda got caught up in the hustle and bustle of Christmas (read as: more partying and alcohol than my aviation doctor needs to know about! ;) and didn't fly for the rest of December :(

But I made up for it by taking my Sister, her husband and 2 of their friends from Ireland who are semi-backpacking around the world for some scenic flights around Auckland in LMA on January 2nd...

The weather was awesome and the it was a great way to start the New Year ;)

Following that I skipped over to Australia to catch up with my Neice and Nephews in Melbourne as my Brother and Sister-in-Law had been unable to make it over to for Christmas with the rest of the family :(

I then foolishly made the mistake of flying up to Brisbane to catch up with an old friend... during the worst flooding since 1974!! Thankfully the airport was still open the day I left, despite the buses and eventually the trains being shutdown!

Once back, I decided it was time to finally get back into the flying stuff, the primary focus being getting my Multi-Engine Instrument rating.

However, the club recently negotiated the use of a Piper PA-38 Tomahawk, ZK-EVL. So I figured I'd add another type rating to my growing list ;)

Now the Tomahawk has a reputation in the aviation community and some would have you believe the "Trauma-hawk" is a death machine, but having never flown one I was trying to keep an open mind.

My type rating was duly completed, included watching it "waggle it's tail" during stalling, but to be honest, it was fairly benign... sure it drops a wing pretty much every time you stall it, but that isn't particularly difficult to deal with, and I actually found it to be a very nice little aircraft, and EVL is a really tidy specimen. The cabin is nice and roomy, a lot bigger than a 152. It has awesome visibility and, was generally, just a real pleasure to fly.

Next up... the multi-engine rating... my first lesson is booked for Thursday! :)


These Flights: 2.3 PinC + 1.4 Dual
Total Hours: 316.7 (150.4/140.3 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 18.6 IFR)

Cloud punching

Instrument Time - Actual: 1.5

Hah! take that clouds... I laugh at your inability to stop me flying where I want :p

My first IFR cross-country... What a ride... AR-HN-AA-AR or Ardmore to Hamilton via the Waiuku NDB, a couple of approaches and holds at Hamilton, then back to Auckland International to make an ILS approach via the Surrey NDB, then home to Ardmore...

Well, that was "The Plan"™... only those tricky controllers are far to wise to make things that easy!

Somewhere between flight planning and getting overhead the Waiuku beacon, the wind at Hamilton changed, so my plan for a "VOR/DME RWY 18L" approach quickly turned into a "VOR/DME RWY 36R" approach...

Not a big deal... join the arc, make the approach, missed approach into the hold... transition to the NDB hold, make the NDB approach, missed approach and onwards to Auckland (via Surrey)...

"Delta Juliet November, be advised, a 15 minute hold for the ILS"... yeah no worries, it's only money :P

At which point Auckland Control had a minor comms failure... eventually they sorted themselves out, turned me back towards the hold at Miranda... I Split the ADF needles on the entry to the hold... (yeah baby!) and was looking at making a perfect parallel entry "Delta Juliet November, Cancel Hold turn left, heading 280" grrrr...

Then vectored into the hold at EMRAG... "Delta Juliet November is entering the hold at EMRAG", "Roger, cancel hold turn right heading 210"... GAAAH!!!!!

Intercepted the ILS for the approach into Auckland International with World+Dog (3 aircraft in front, 2 behind)... was eventually told to slow from 140kts to 120 as we were catching the jet in front :P

Made possibly the worst ILS approach in history (despite Instructor Phil saying that wasn't too bad)... damn that needle is sensitive! and then executed the missed approach, heading back to Ardmore under Visual Flight Rules...

Time for a cup of tea... and just to make my day even better, the nice Cookie Time Girl arrived with my bucket of Christmas Cookies... OM NOM NOM!


This Flight: 3.0 Dual (1.5 Actual IFR, 1.0 Sim IFR)
Total Hours: 313.0 (149.0/138.0 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 18.6 IFR)