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.

The Navs Begin

It's been fairly slow since my last post. My total real flight count this month is 3 flights. I went almost 2 weeks without flying because my instructor went on holiday and they didn't want me to have a different instructor at this early stage. The weather wasn't great during these 2 weeks but it didn't really matter as I wasn't going to fly. I still maintain my zero cancellations due to weather whereas my course mates are on about 15 cancellations due to weather.

Following the circuit flights I moved on to navigation flights. The navigation flights can take about 2 hours to plan before you fly. A brief outline of what this entails:
-Draw route on map
-Mark on the flight log all of the track directions and distances
-Get the weather information(wind velocity, direction and cloud base) which will allow you to calculate the heading you need to fly in order to fly your desired track and it tells you what weather to expect later that day.
-Check the notes to all airmen (NOTAM) for any airspace restrictions in the areas you want to operate in.
-Preflight the aircraft to make sure the person before didn't do any damage when they landed and all fuel/oil levels.
-Preflight brief with instructor to discuss if you can go and what are you going to do along the route in terms of radio calls and airspace you will enter etc

After the briefing with your instructor, you are good to fly. I have now completed 3 nav flights which additional lessons attached to each flight. The first flight included steep turns, the second was practised forced landings in a field (simulated engine failures) and then diversions in the 3rd nav which means you are on track to your original destination and you come across a problem. This problem means you cannot continue to your original destination because of weather or rough running engine which are just 2 examples of why you would divert. So you now have to draw a line on your map to a place you want to go and figure out a new heading and times you will reach there. You have to do this while controlling the aircraft and looking out for other aircraft too. It is a very demanding couple of minutes to plan your diversion and initiate it. I have shown a couple of my tracks on a map below from our gps locator on board our aircraft in the pictures below. The views you see on these flights are amazing, the pictures don't do it enough justice. 

The other flights we did after the navigation flying were in the simulator flying purely on instruments. We use instrument flying so when the weather closes in and you go into cloud. When we are flying the big jets next year (crazy to think we are so close to flying a jet when we are currently flying bug smashers now). I've had 3 flights flying on instruments and my next flight will be more navigation flying with my instructor before doing the navigation flying by myself.

It's crazy to think I am now over half way through my time in NZ, time is going way too fast! I've had my first early start, waking up at 0445 should not be allowed! We had a mass briefing starting at 6am which I could barely stop yawning in. It is suppose to prepare us for the airline....but we wont be getting up at stupid o'clock to sit in front of a presentation for a few hours so I'm failing to see the logic at the moment. Had I been getting up at time for a flight, it would have been a different story!

I haven't done that much travelling recently as it is difficult to get people off at the same time as you and it is more fun when you have company to go travelling. I did a few hikes, one was probably the hardest one I have done to date. It was a mountain over by Raglan bay called Karioi and it was 756m high. The trek took about 3 hours up and just under 2 to come back down. My legs didn't belong to me after it but the views from the summit are worth it and it also beats staring at the same wall in a gym! We also did a night trek to see some glow worms near some caves which was really cool. We also went into some of the caves to see the river running through it. I also went back to Taupo for another visit and also seen a DC3 plane which has been converted into a Mc D's diner. The last trip I went on was to Tauranga which is a cool place about an hour and a half from my accommodation. There is a little hill there where you can look over the town and the cool beaches. 

Here are some more pictures:-

My 1st navigation flight

My 2nd  Navigation flight

Only part the way up to the summit

Use of chain climbing was essential 

Almost at the top of Karioi

A View from the top of Karioi

From the summit of Karioi

DC3 Mc D's

Inside the DC3 Diner

Get a hole in one and you get $10k

Raglan bay

The Karioi mountain from a different angle while flying @500ft

Raglan

A visual reference point for us while flying called Temple View

Looking out the window at Temple View from the visitor centre

Midnight cave adventure

Kinloch on Lake Taupo

Hobbiton 

More Hobbiton

a peak on the way up Pirongia over looking Raglan

Tauranga beach

Tauranga from the top of the hill.

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!