Happy 2012

Happy 2012 everyone, I want to wish you all the best for the new year.

As per usual, lets look back at 2011:

I said way back last January:

1) Aerobatic flight

2) Get approval to land at Waiheke Island. I think I have enough hours now to handle this challenge.

3) Fly somewhere different (like Whangarei or Gisbourne)

4) Taildragger flight

5) Go for a ride in something cool

 

1) Well I tried but fate was against me - maybe this year.
2)  Done!
3)  No.
4)  No.
5)  Is a Tecnam P2008 cool?

I just want to point out that winning the Clubs Senior Champion award was a highlight of my 2011 flying for me, and as such deserves a special mention in the summary.

Total hours for the year was 16, 32 flights (club and regional competitions helped a lot in this), 3 and a bit hours up on 2010.

OK for 2012:

1)  Aerobatic Flight
2)  Go on a long Cross Country somewhere different
3)  Flight in a twin
4)  Flight in a tail dragger
5)  Go for a ride in something cool

An early Xmas present

I had popped out to the Aero Club to get some Arrow time in, and after a rather uneventful flight I had safely hangared DQV and was in the bar with a cold ginger beer when a Tecnam P2008 LSA ZK-JAX rolled up outside the club rooms.  Out hopped instructor Mark and called out to me asking if I wanted to go up for a couple of circuits with chief instructor Roger?  Not needing a second thought, I reached for my headset and headed out to the plane.  Roger gave me a quick tour, pointing out the all flying tail, the free castoring nose gear and the fact that unlike the 172 in which I have 100+ hours in, it flies with a stick rather than a control column of which I am used to.

Roger invited me to jump into the left seat, and we hit the first hurdle.  The doors are placed in front of the wing struts so the old Cessna method of approaching from the rear and climbing in was gone.  The doors do open quite wide, so you walk inwards along the leading edge of the wing into the space between the door and the wing strut.  Then the second hurdle was finding a way of squeezing my 120kg and 1.85m frame into the plane.  After some lateral thinking I figured out the best method and got in.  Like the Cessna 152, the seats are not very high above the floor of the cockpit, but the seat travels quite a way back, so far I could not reach the rudder pedals even with my legs fully extended.

Once in, the seating was quite comfortable (similar to the 172), and I had reasonable headroom above.  The only cramped feeling I had was once the pilots door was closed and latched, I had that funny uncomfortable feeling that something was positioned close to my head on the left side.  I also noted that I could not see clearly out along the wing without tilting my neck forwards and down, but as I found out later in the air, it was not a big problem.  The vision up, forward and ahead of the wings was far superior to the 172,  and I commented as much to Roger.

Roger talked about the avionics layout.  The main instrument panel is a large LCD display with a secondary unit on the right hand side.  There was a "steam driven" ASI front and centre right in my eye line.  If all else failed, I would be able to land it with a reasonable about of confidence.  I found the AH and engine gauges quite easy to read, but the altitude and airspeed tapes took a while of staring at them to make sense to me.  I liked the fact that the tank switch is mounted in a prominent position, but the switcher was quite fiddly to use and I could see bad things happening in an emergency unless they fix it.  For some reason, the flap switch is over on the right hand side of the cockpit, and yet the cabin air switch was close.  Someone needs to give some more thought to the layout because it was a real head scratcher as to why an important secondary flight control is operated so far away from the left seat.

Roger wizzed through the start up sequence, hit a couple of switches, check the position of the choke, turn the key and the Rotax 912ULS2 fired up straight away.  For someone used to the rumbling of a Lycoming at idle, the more car like whir of the Rotax took some getting used to.  Roger got me to apply some power and make my first cautious taxi out to holding point Hotel and runway 07R.  Being a free castoring nosewheel, the plane requires careful handling, and when combined with the light weight, a keen awareness of the wind strength and direction is mandatory.  Today with the wind at 060 at 4 knots wasn't going to be a problem.

Once we lined up on 07R, Roger had me ease JAX forward a little until we had the nosewheel straight before opening the taps.  We applied full throttle, and I applied full right rudder to counter torque and p factor.  Even then, JAX started to slowly swing left until we had enough airflow past the rudder to aerodynamically overpower the turning moment and bring the nose back onto centreline.  Roger said that normally you'd tap the right brake to keep it straight but it was an interesting experiment none the less.  As the airspeed passed 40 knots I started to ease the stick back and we were airborne at 45.  Holding the same nose attitude the speed built up and JAX lifted out of ground effect and up into the afternoon sky.

Take off performance was surprisingly good for such a low powered aircraft.  I would estimate we used barely 100m before we unstuck and maybe another 100m before we got out of ground effect.  We passed 200 AGL and Roger raised the flap and told me to find a cruise climb speed of 70 knots.  It was at this time I announced that this was the first time I had ever flown a stick controlled aircraft.  I have never flown the clubs Alpha's because I had no need.  Now we were into the business end of flying with a stick, I found to my delight that flying with a stick was not really all that different to a yoke, and by the end of the flight I was totally comfortable with it.  I tried a few cautious wiggles of the stick and found that the control forces were quite light and the aircraft at such a low speed was quite responsive.  Once we were straight and level downwind the airspeed climbed to settle at about 105kts indicated.  Not bad at all.  Roger went through the downwind checks, asked for and received a touch and go clearance and asked me to set 4100rpm and maintain our height with nose attitude.  The Vfe in this plane is 70 knots (note to Tecnam engineers, make this 80 knots and you won't have Cessna pilots blowing the flaps off your aircraft).  Roger talked me down around base onto final, saying airspeed is important because you cannot shed it as easily as in the 172. We had full flap out and I had 60 knots on the tape on final and down we came.  The first landing was a little hairy because I had just came from the Arrow and didn't flare enough.  I understand the Tecnam will happily fly at 45 knots, a speed that would have the Arrow in big trouble!

By the time we were on final on the second circuit (right hand this time) I landed it fine by myself with no input from Roger, in fact I greased it in nicely.  The final landing was almost as good.  I made a slight error in that I closed the throttle completely to land and to my shock the engine died as we rolled out.  A quick twist of the key fixed that, but Roger said to keep a little power on as we land.  Noted for future reference.

Well let me see what I think about this plane:

1)  It is easy to fly for a 172 pilot like me.  Being able to land it unaided on my second attempt proved that pretty well.
2)  It is roomy and comfortable enough for the day trips I do a lot.
3)  It costs a LOT less to fly per hour than my current rated GA aircraft.  This means stretching my flying dollar further and that can only be good news.  I can fly more often and keep those perishable skills current.  I wouldn't totally give up my GA ratings because I can take more than one passenger and luggage, something that would be impossible for me to do in the Tecnam (or any other LSA to be fair).

Things that could be better:

1)  Work on the control layout.  Putting the choke (well, any engine control for that matter) out of sight is a bad thing, and the flap switch needs to be closer to the pilots reach.
2)  The radio could be better.
3)  The castering nosewheel - this could be a blessing in disguise because I would be forced to pay more attention to taxiing.

I know I have had some discussions in the past with people telling me to fly Microlights to stretch my flying dollar further,  I think LSA might be the best compromise for someone of my mass and dimensions, at least in a limited fashion because a LSA cannot do everything a GA aircraft can that I might ask of it.  There is a lot more investigation to be done before any concrete decisions are made, but hopefully I have added some useful feedback to the mix that the powers that be might consider.

If the club was to get a LSA (Tecnam or something else), I would fly it, a lot.

Waiheke Island

Scratch one off my list for 2011.  CFI Roger, JGP and I headed up north after the morning fog lifted from Hamilton to have a look at Waiheke Island (NZKE).   Waiheke Island was everything I had said in my previous post and more.  Situated ontop of a north/south running ridge where the prevailing wind comes from the southwest, it is one of the trickiest places I have ever landed.  On the uneventful trip up we skirted the edge of the Firth of Thames, a beautiful part of the North Island.  I had my eyes peeled for other traffic but the only aircraft I saw airborne was a Boeing 777 turning finals for Auckland International overhead the Whitford NDB.

View Larger Map

I called up 10 miles out from the strip and closed in from the southeast, flying down the western edge of Ponui Island the crossing over to the middle of the island where the airstrip lies.

The above photo is taken on a rather high approach for runway 35.  After we joined overhead we chose 35 as the into wind runway (although it only had 1 functioning wind sock) and descended non traffic to join right hand downwind for 35.  The sight picture for all aspects of the circuit is all screwy because the runway is ontop a ridge.  You get the feeling you are much higher than you need to be but it is all an illusion, as the closer you get to the threshold the ground comes up steeply to meet you.  We came in quite low over the vinyard you see in the foreground, and Roger had me chop the throttle completely as we hit a patch of rising air that ballooned us over our touchdown spot.  I probably should have gone around because I didn't have my wits about me, but Roger let me continue with the landing.  We came in quite hot (it seems 65 knots is too fast for strip flying) and floated down the runway,  then we hit the upslope so I had to flare a lot more and we touched down about halfway up the strip and quickly rolled to a stop thanks to the quite marked upslope.

Here's a photo I took at the threshold of 35.  It shows the upslope better.

But even the photo doesn't quite do it justice.

We were blessed because the winds were quite fickle and light so we were able to operate from both ends of the strip.  We took off from 35 and had another go at the 35 approach.  Even in light air we were hitting bumps as the air currents flowing around the terrain interrupted air flow over the wings.  I was a little too heavy handed on the power again and we floated past our touchdown point.  Had we been at max weight it might have been touch and go to stop on the runway remaining even with the slope.  Stable approaches at a stable airspeed is vital and adding too much power equals more unwanted airspeed which you have to wash off later in ground effect.

Then we taxied to the top of the strip and swung around.  We spend a few seconds examining the wind sock.  It was showing a quartering tailwind of about 2-4 knots.  Looking down the slope, I ran through the max performance checklist in my head and selected my target points aloud.  I also said that if we rejected the takeoff and insufficient runway was remaining I would try to steer JGP down the taxiway which would give us another 150m to stop in.

So, feet on the brakes hard.  Throttle fully open.  Check static RPM, ensure max thrust is being produced before feet come off the brakes.  Eyes flick to first landmark, the shed to the left of the plane.  It comes up to the A pillar and disappears, eyes flick to the ASI, which is live.  Good we have leapt the first hurdle.  Back on the controls to take the weight off the nosewheel.  Eye's scan instruments quickly,  temps and pressures OK, eyes out to make sure we are tracking straight.  We are, so look for the next landmark, the car parked over the fence on the right.  It is coming up, so bring the controls back a touch and up comes the nosewheel followed by the main gear.  We are flying, and in a shorter distance than I had anticipated, so use the ground effect to build airspeed, and then bring the nose up slowly to climb attitude.  I would never have thought that slope could trump wind direction, but when the wind is below a certain strength, it does.  JGP climbs away and I start running through the upcoming angled approach for runway 17 in my mind.

Waiheke has a number of houses on the extended centreline of runway 17, so for noise abatement, a 45 degree angled base/final leg is flown followed by a very short final approach of about 150m or so.  What was great was there are a couple of landmarks you can line up and fly quite a good approach.  Again, Waiheke's uniqueness means you need to throw out the guidebook somewhat and fly an oblique downwind leg to get you set up right for the final approach.  If you are too close in you'll never get the plane sorted out in time to land safely.

I turn in and line up my two landmarks, and concentrate on flying a nice stable approach.  There are a few bumps around but I had worse last week so I ignore it and think about where I need to turn final.  The touch down spot is obscured by the sloping land and the trees to one side, but I keep a mental picture of where I need to be.  This time I judged the turn well and although we are a touch high I close the throttle and down we come.  We touch down slightly further down the runway that Roger would have liked, but it was OK because we had the mains down before the downslope.  I brake to a stop and we turn around to backtrack for another go.

Off we go, this time I swing even further out on downwind before starting my turn in.  This time things don't go to plan as well as they might have.  I had the approach speed nailed, the approach was generally stable but I fixated on what I thought was the threshold but in fact was a paddock to the west of the actual runway.  This meant I had to take corrective action to save the approach and we drift right of where we need to be.  In hindsight, and indeed at the time I did entertain going around but I chose to continue with the approach.  I recall the airspeed dropping below 50 knots which probably saved the day because we bounced, got airborne again, and we eventually settled and I brought JGP to a stand still with about 80m of runway left.  I distinctly remember thinking about going around and mentally flying the departure.  When Roger said I probably should have gone around I said I had thought about it at what was probably the most appropriate time to do so and had I been alone I would have abandoned the approach then and there.

When we swung around, Roger directed my attention to the windsock, which was now indicating about 4 knots directly down 35, so we taxied to the end, turned around and departed off 35 and headed back to Hamilton.

It was a great trip, I learned heaps about strip flying, reading conditions, and some of the things that can catch you out.  I still have so much to learn, and we both agreed that there shall be a wind limit of 10 knots over which I will not attempt a landing if I am PIC.  I can only guess at how vicious the winds would be at that strength.

So a great days flying, plenty of lessons learned and things to think about, and 2.0 in the logbook.  A good day all round.



The Regionals

The 2011 Central Area rally was held in Tokoroa this time around.  I was going to compete in the Wigram Cup Senior Landings and the GM Spence Senior Forced Landings.  I had not flown into Tokoroa since my PPL cross country way back in 2006.  As the club had graciously allowed us some low cost practise hours I took WAM down with an instructor to get the lay of the land a week prior.

Since then, the wind had swung 180 degrees and had intensified.  We were looking at a surface wind of approximately 220 degrees at 15 knots gusting to 20.  There was also a lot of mechanical turbulence from buildings and trees adjacent to the approach on Runway 31 (the runway in use) which made things lively in addition to the right hand circuit direction.

I had chosen to drive to Tokoroa although I had considered flying the Arrow down as it's only about 20 minutes flight time from Hamilton.  The trip by car would take around 1hr.  The main reason I had baulked at flying the Arrow was that a front was supposed to have blown through at the time I was going to be flying down.  On the day there was no sign of the front but as it was I only just made it with about 10 minutes to spare before the competitor briefing began at 0830.

My first flight wasn't scheduled until 0930 so I took the opportunity to watch the other competitors struggle to cope with the conditions.  Things didn't look too bad until short final when the fickle turbulent winds around the hills and trees wrecked havoc with peoples approaches.

I was rueing my decision not to fly the Arrow down when I saw the high winged Cessna 172's and 152 get blown around like kites whereas the Cherokee's and Alpha's looked much more stable on approach.  I am not sure the powers that be would have let me change planes anyway.  Up I went in JGP with air judge Sam, a nice bloke formerly from Christchurch up here doing commercial GA ops but helping out judging because they were short.  My first go I got a little high, well,  OK really high because I cut in on the base leg too much.  Having only an imperceptable headwind meant our ground speed on finals was a lot higher than most of us realized.  I had chosen 70 knots for finals with 2 stages of flap to maintain some semblance of controlability but found it really difficult to wash off that ground speed once we were over the fence.  Add to that the fact that I had flown the entire approach from the base turn on with a totally closed throttle.  Had I flown into a patch of rising air there would be very little I could do.  I was not totally comfortable with side slipping a 172 in turbulent air that close to the ground with 20 degrees of flap hanging out, and while S turns might have been a better idea, the crosswind would quickly blow you off centreline if you were not paying enough attention.  I chose to go around rather than push a bad approach.  My sole aim of the day was to walk away from the day without bending the plane, and it became quite apparent to me I lacked the skill level and currency to really try to do anything other than safely land the plane.

The second pass I felt was much better, they say a good landing starts from the downwind leg, and I just proved it to myself.  I hit all my turns and heights, and my airspeed was right where I wanted it.  Coming down finals I thought to myself I was comfortable enough to go for the grid when we hit a patch of sink, by the time I had enough power on to arrest the sink my airspeed was passing 80 knots and climbing, and I chose to forgo the grid for a safe touchdown.  Not a great start.

After lunch I was to go up again in JGP for the Senior Forced Landings.  This would reunite me with Wayne Harrison from New Plymouth, the examiner who had in his words, "only come along for the ride" during my PPL checkride in 2006.  The brief was to climb in the right hand circuit to 2500 AGL and then cut the power, and conduct a forced landing on Runway 31, followed by another climb this time to 2000 AGL and a second forced landing from a lower altitude.

The first attempt went like clockwork.  Speed was good for the most part, I got all my checks out, I hit my marks perfectly.  On final I was a little high but I was expecting a small patch of sink which when it happened I was waiting for it with my hand on the flap lever.  The only thing I did which I had not intended to do was lower full flap.  We dropped almost below the level of the fence but the flaps ballooned me over it easily.  If I had stuck with 20 degrees I thought we would have had a good chance of making the middle of the grid, but I didn't stop the flap switch in time and we got an extra 10 degrees of flap which meant we touched down at the end of the grid.  Oh well, that wasn't too bad, lets get back up in the air and try again.

By the time we got to altitude, squally showers were being blown over the runway, and in hindsight I should have been more aware of the small gusts that precede them in various directions.  I think it was about this time I was starting to overload myself because basically I made a complete hash of things.  The speed was all over the place, the checks were hesitant and I am sure I missed some, I didn't nail my heights properly and was high on almost every mark except the finals turn.  I did have the presence of mind to realize I was high and made a plan to widen the base leg slightly and turn finals early to make up for it.  I turned finals at 500 AGL and JGP just wouldn't come down.  We were higher than previously so were above the mechanical turbulence zone.  I lowered all my flap but probably 10-15 seconds too late to make any difference so I finally made a good decision and abandoned the approach and went around.  Competition over, but not out of the drama yet.

We flew a standard powered circuit this time and I was much better but the fickle gusts had one last surprise for us.  On finals I had 20 degrees of flap deployed and we were coming down at 70 knots to try to cut through the worst of the turbulence.  We crossed the fence and I was just about to cut the power when a gust picked up the left wing about 20 degrees (it felt like 30 but was most likely less),  when I was slow to respond Wayne grabbed the controls and in one swift jerk righted us.  I at least did the right thing in applying full power to arrest any resulting sink.  Wayne just as quickly gave me back the plane and we made a somewhat rough landing further down the runway.

Taxiing back I felt a mixture of relief that I had an experienced instructor next to me and a sense of disappointment in myself that I hadn't performed to a standard I would have expected.  I knew I had blown my chances and that of the Clubs Wigram Cup aspirations.  It was a pretty low place to be in.  But I was genuine when I shook Waynes hand and thanked him for the flight.  Had I been alone I am not sure what I would have done, most likely JGP would have powered out of it and I would have gone around for another attempt.  There are altenative scenarios but I don't really want to think about them.

Driving back to Hamilton later in the day, the days events repeatedly going through my head I realized that I had relearned a valuable lesson, fly the plane, and the lower the airspeed the more assertive you need to be on the controls because down low you don't have a lot of time between safety and disaster.  In a couple of weeks I will be going have a dual trip to the airstrip on Waiheke Island to get checked out so I can go in there alone.  I think what happened this weekend was a timely reminder because Waiheke has very similar properties to Tokoroa, only the runway is half as long, slopes significantly and is not sealed, giving me even less options.

More pics from Ardmore

I was clearing out the memory card on my camera and I found a pile of photo's I had promised back in July.  Whoops.  So without further ado, here we go.

A fellow Arrow getting gas (a turbo Arrow too!)



A Cessna 162 FlySkycatcher belonging to Auckland Aero Club.  The future of GA?

A couple of Airtourers and a Birddog.  The NZ Warbirds hangar on a nice weekend is always a good place to be.  

A Harvard faithfully waiting for the next flight of the day.  

The Beaver, sadly I didn't get to see this beauty flying on this occasion.

This one needs no introduction, but for the non propheads out there, it's the one and only P-51D Mustang.  Owner and pilot Graham Bethell was doing his preflight walkaround when we wandered past.

In the July post I mentioned the low cloud we flew over on the way to Ardmore,  well this was taken at around 4.30pm about 2 miles east of Huntly at 2000 feet.  The poor folk living under that cloud had fog ALL day.  The hill poking through the cloud in the middle of shot is Taupiri Mountain, a hill sacred to local Maori.

Well I did something right

The club dinner arrived, the night we would find out who won what and would move up to represent the Club at the Central Region.  After a nice meal and an interesting talk from our guest speaker (a former RAF Phantom and Tornado pilot), Club President Phil and Club Captain Michael arose and took the stand to read out the list of prize recipients.  The usual method is to call out the three individuals who placed in no particular order and then once they are presented to the audience they read out who placed where.

The first competition where I was called up was the Ray Cartmill Memorial Trophy for Liferaft Dropping.  I knew that I had not done as well as I might have, but was surprised when I (and my dispatcher Chris), won second place.

The next competition I found myself at the front was the Runnymede Challenge Cup for Senior Landings.  Imagine my astonishment when I was announced the winner!  I was up against some seasoned pilots who have a history of bringing home the trophies.  I was kind of numb with shock to be honest, but the night wasn't over there.  Barry (aka NZ Propellorhead), if you are reading this, you had your chance mate, looks like a nice cold Stella is coming my way.  You can get your revenge next year.

Next came the Pacific Aerospace Shield for Gentlemans Circuits, where I placed second.  After my performance I really didn't think I had a hope of placing, so a second place came as a big surprise.

I thought I'd had a decent haul, so imagine my surprise when I was called up once more as a finalist in the Alan Daysh Trophy for Senior Forced Landings Without Power.  When they announced me the winner it didn't quite register.

The two wins and two second placings qualified me for the J A Harper cup as Senior Champion. In some sort of daze I numbly went up and received the trophy and handshake. This really is a big deal. I look at the past winners who have their names engraved on the cup, and there are some big shoes to fill.

Here's a photo of my haul:

The broken propellor is quite rightly, the Alan Daysh Trophy for Forced Landings, the smaller trophy back left with the V Tailed Bonanza on top is the J A Harper trophy for Senior Champion, and the big silver cup is the  Runnymede Challenge Cup for Senior Landings.  The two certificates in front are for the second place finishes.

After that concluded, CFI Roger read out the names of our team to contest the Central Area Rally to be held in November.  I will be representing Waikato Aero Club in Forced Landings and Senior Landings.  The Senior Landings part is especially important because it is part of the hotly contested Wigram Cup (Senior Landings, Junior Landings, Non-instrument Circuits, Instrument Flying).  If Waikato Aero Club can win them we will represent the Central Area in the Nationals which will be held early next year.

Time for me to get out there and practice those landings!!

Club Competitions 2011

They couldn't have picked a better day for the 2011 Club Competitions (OK maybe a bit warmer), it was 0 degrees celsius, CAVOK, wind variable 3 knots. We set up our landing grind on 18R.

The cones you can see are pretty much the physical manifestation of the grid as per the rules:

The big arrow is the landing direction. The aim is to land in the zone marked with the 50 in bold. The competitions that use the grid are: Junior/Senior Landings, Junior/Senior/Ladies circuits and Junior/Senior Forced Landings. I would compete in the Senior categories of all 3. There are several other circuit competitions being run which would not use the grid but my job as ground judge would be to determine where aircraft landed and award points accordingly.

Of course, when I was flying other club members would mark my performance. This year was unlike others in recent times because we did not have a crosswind (or a tailwind for that matter!) to deal with. In fact, the lack of wind would cause me problems later, but I digress.

The first competition I competed in was Senior Landings, of which I was the second competitor. Here's a hint for young players, if you have the option, go as early in the day as possible if you are competing in Hamilton, the weather is best in the morning. My logbook says I have not flown a 172 since June, so I was a little rusty, but not too bad. I managed to mess up my base to finals turn (its funny what aspects of your flying atrophy when you don't fly a lot) but both approaches were reasonably stable on speed and on centerline and I think I put WAM down somewhere around the 50 mark.

I spent the rest of the morning at the grid judging other landings, and after a nice lunch I was up for the Forced Landing Competition. Most other competitors use the clubs Alphas but I prefer the 172 for its gliding characteristics. From 2500' AGL you have time to make yourself coffee and cake when compared with the Alpha's rather high best glide speed, so I intended to give myself time to size up the situation and not do what I did last year. The initial descent went OK, I managed to get the checks out after a fashion, I hit my 1500' area and turned downwind, arrived at the 1000' point more or less where I should be and started my turn towards my aim point. The new rules this year say you must be established on finals at no lower than 300' AGL or face instant disqualification. Unfortunately for me, I was far too close when I turned finals at 300 and at that moment we hit a patch of lift and WAM levelled off so I ended up floating through the grid. The second attempt I thought I had lost too much height to make it over the fence at the end of runway but I was wrong. Flaring a second too early I bled off too much speed and landed early. An improvement, but I could have done so much better.

After lunch I flew the circuits and I was not happy with my performance, I think the forced landings had hit my confidence. We packed in the grid around 5pm and retreated to the bar.

Sunday was to be the fun stuff, bombing and life raft dropping. We set the bombing target up on Grass 25, which was to fortuitous because the wind swung around later in the day to be blowing 250 degrees at 6 knots, right on the nose. As a result we had some excellent scores on the bombing. I think I got one within 30 meters of the target (a personal best).

As for the liferaft dropping, I got Chris to be my liferaft dropper this year. I love the liferaft dropping, you get to fly around the circuit low level in a 172M with the door off. My first drop I thought was more or less where it needed to be, but on the downwind leg I accidentally (I swear I don't remember doing it) hit the flap switch and lowered full flap. Lowering full flap at 100 knots is not a good idea if you are trying to hold 500' AGL which meant I lost a ton of points (damn it!).

After we dropped the second liferaft I joined left base for Runway 18R and performed my first crosswind landing for a while, which I was rather proud of. Chris took a movie on his iPhone as we came down finals. Turn the sound down because the wind noise is quite loud (not to mention it was freezing - thank goodness I had a warm jacket on).

It was so well run we were all packed up and in the clubrooms by 4.30pm, thats almost unheard of.

We shall see who won what next month at the club dinner.