How Time Flies By...

I have made a fair bit of progress since my last update. I am now more than half way through my flying stage of the course and I only have 6 more flights until my first competency test. The competency test will see off my foundation visual flying stage and mark the start of my instrument flying where I will be flying under a hood/in cloud relying just on instruments to navigate.

The past 2 weeks have been a mixture of solo and dual navigation flights to various locations around the North Island. I was lucky enough to fly North to Waiheke island and then through the controlled airspace past the famous Skytower in Auckland. The pictures from the journey there do not do it enough justice! Flying at 1,500ft above the city and then over Auckland International airport was just amazing. These flights are basically refining our visual navigation skills with arrival and departure of controlled aerodrome procedures which at times can get tricky. I am definitely more confident making radio calls now and there are no aerodromes that I get nervous of joining now.

Yesterdays flight was a good flight. I did a route which took me to Tauranga, Whakatane, Rotorua and back to Hamilton. I did touch and go's (touch the wheels on the runway and then take off again) at Tauranga and Rotorua. Tauranga is a pretty tricky aerodrome to get to because it is controlled and you have specified procedures for arrival and again for departure. The trick to a good arrival and departure is to make sure you brief yourself and fully understand what you are about to do. The extra challenge was that the wind was gusting 30Kts which it quite a lot in a small plane. The landing was perfect and I departed as planned. I then flew overhead Whakatane to intercept my next track to Rotorua. Rotorua is a big challenge too. The aerodrome is surrounded by mountains which adds the turbulent aspect. It is also a controlled aerodrome but does not have a specified arrival and departure procedure so they can ask you to arrive at different visual reporting points...some of which are hard to pronounce, I'm sure they have a laugh at us trying to pronounce some of the names. The trick to Rotorua is to be familiar with the surrounding visual reference points before you get there. The landing at Rotorua was going to be a challenge as when I was on the final approach the wind was directly across the runway at 20kts which is very high in a light aircraft. I have always loved the challenge of a crosswind landing and it went perfectly. I landed without flaps to make it easier as with flaps down, it makes it easier for the wind to push you off the centreline. Then it was back to Hamilton to finish with another crosswind landing which was well executed again. Lets hope I keep landing like that for my tests!

Travelling wise, I have only done 2 trips and that was climbing a mountain called Maungatautari. There is a track that goes from the North nature reserve to the South nature reserve but with 2 summits. It takes 5hours to go the whole length so we only did the a peak each time. On the first walk 3 of us went up the North side to be disappointed with the view at the summit. It was covered with trees! So I decided that I'd climb the summit tower and get a view from the top which was a bit better. The South track which was another challenging walk but it was rewarding with great views from the top.

Time here is going too fast, my departure date is zooming upon us and I wish I could stay here longer! It's definitely a place I will be visiting on a regular basis as I have barely seen any of the best bits and doubt I will get to see the best bits on this visit.

Until next time, you know the drill.......

From the top of the summit tower.

Pan of the views from the N summit Maungatautari (979m)

The night sky is quite spectacular, after playing with camera settings I have finally managed to picture it.

Waiheke, probably one of the most beautiful places to fly over in NZ

Waiheke again.

Harbour bridge

Almost level with the Skytower

Mt Eden crater

One Tree Hill

Flying over the international terminal

Rotorua

Pan of from the Peak on the S track at Maungatautari

Mokau on the way back from New Plymouth

A lake next to Rotorua.

Loosing track of time!

A lot has happened since my last post. I didn't realise I had left it so long for an update....whoops!

Anyway, I since my last update I have actually flown a real CTC plane 4/5 times. I'll give a brief summary of each lesson as to talk about everything would take forever to write!

The first lesson we went towards Matamata while checking that I can flight straight and level and a few other basic manoeuvres. When we arrived at Matamata I did my first landing on grass and it went better than my first landing on tarmac! So smooth that a sleeping passenger wouldn't of even stirred. We remained in the racetrack circuit pattern around the airfield practising the landings with different approaches before heading back to Hamilton. 

2nd lesson was more of the same but at Rotorua initially but everyone decided they wanted to play in the circuit at the same time as me making my circuits larger and larger. So we decided to head back to Matamata where it was a bit quieter but I was landing next to gliders being winched up into the air. Quite a different experience to what I am used to. 

The next lesson we practised stalling which is basically making the plane go into situations where it is producing no lift and falling through the air until you recover. The first one we did, the plane was unbalanced as I had two large passengers sitting on the right side of the aircraft and the right fuel tank had more fuel, this caused the left wing to drop which was quite exciting. 

We then moved onto 2 lessons of practising racetrack circuits around Hamilton airport which is a busy national airport that Air New Zealand use a fair bit. The radio calls at Hamilton are quite tricky as you are given different instructions and you have to repeat most of what they tell you to make sure you have the correct instructions. You have to do this while trying to keep the plane flying at the correct heading and height and look out for traffic. This was very difficult in the first lesson but by the second lesson I was getting more comfortable with the radio calls.

I haven't done an awful lot of travelling since the last update. I went to Auckland for my birthday weekend and stayed with one of my oldest karting friends who bought me loads of presents and gave me a lovely bed to stay in. We spend the whole weekend catching up, exploring Auckland and going out to watch the All Blacks V Australia. I had a great time in Auckland and there is still plenty for me to see there.

The only other trip I have been on was today where we went on a gorge walk which also went through some old gold mines. Luckily I took a torch and we navigated the pitch black tunnels. We also seen some glow worms up close which was really cool.

I'll now let more of my pictures do the talking. Enjoy!

View of the Sky tower from Mt Eden

Mt Eden Crater

Mt Eden Sunset

32Kt Headwind

Practising Steep turns

Quite a bit of a cross wind

Clearways from 700ft

Lovely frosty morning.

Nipple Mountain

Karagahake Gorge walk with the old gold mines

The only light we had was from my head torch in the mines.

A Glow worm which was cool

The gorge

Me and Alex exploring the water bypass tunnel

A tight tunnel along the gorge walk

An old 1.5Km rail tunnel which we thought wouldn't take long took ages even though we we running!

Almost flying!

There hasn't been an awful lot happening in terms of flying since coming to NZ.

Last week we had a few mass briefings which were to teach us the differences of flying in NZ compared to UK and also the NZ PPL Airlaw. Theses exams had to be passed by 70% or more before we can be let loose solo in the sky. 

The differences exam was an internal CTC exam which we sat during the first week. The Airlaw exam was done through an examining body called ASL. This exam was held in a local shopping centre. It was a bit strange walking through a shopping centre dressed in uniform. 

Most of the class passed first time (thankfully so did I), for those who didn't they will have to resit before going solo.

For the two days following the exam, we had a few more briefings to sit through before anyone would be booked to start flying.

I have now completed 2 of my 4 simulator sessions which I have to complete before getting to fly the C172S for real. These simulator sessions are teaching us the basic general handling and also to teach us how to use the Garmin glass cockpits which we will be using. As I already have some flying experience, I completed the lesson objectives quite early in the lesson which then allowed us to have some fun trying different scenarios. The glass cockpit computers are so advanced it is just mind blowing what they can do.

During our days off, a few of us have been making the most of exploring. The first place we explored was Waitomo caves to see the glow worms on the ceiling of the caves. This experience was really good, I just wish it had lasted a bit longer. After the caves we had a walk up a a viewing point at the top of the hill next to the caves. The scenery was breathe taking. There is a picture included below. Other activities included visiting Bridal Falls which is a big waterfall. We then went to Raglan which is a bay known for surfing and fish and chips on the Wharf. The fish and chips were amazing, definitely one to go back to and it was a huge portion! We have also been tramping (kiwi talk for hill walking) which was a good trial of fitness but we all made it to the top in one piece. On the last trip we went on, we went to Ocean beach in Kawhia where you dig a hole just before low tide and if you're lucky, you get hot water heated by the volcano below. We managed to find it and it was so hot! It is a surreal feeling running down and laying on the beach in your swimming trunks in the middle of winter. We lasted about an hour and a half in the pool we dug before the tide came in and put an end to our hot pool. The sea was FREEZING! We ran in there to wash off, lets just say I ran out quicker than I went in! 

That's about all up to date. I have 2 more sim sessions then I will be let loose in the real plane next week weather permitting.

Qatar Airways boys

Garmin G1000 Glass cockpit displays

C172S which I will be flying. Picture taken on a beautiful sunny day.

Twin star which I sadly don't get to fly

A view from my room

Local river next to my accommodation.

The resident wild cat Bobby likes to go in everyone's room

Enroute to Ocean beach

Before Glow worms cave

Glow worm cave exit

Viewing point after the caves

The Team pan from the viewing point

The view at the summit of our 2 hour tramping trip 

The tramping team

standing on an old dam

Having fun with the camera while watching shooting stars

top of Bridal falls

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Bridal Falls

Raglan bay while eating fish and chips

Watching a plane land and take off at night.

Ocean beach hot water