Courtesy of Aaron Martin.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Taranaki cross country photos
Not sure what town this is but its a camp ground on the Taranaki coast
Motunui Synthetic Fuel plant just behind the wind with Mt Taranaki in the background
Waitara river mouth and Waitara township
A big queue for the fuel pump while we do our runups.A $500 Sandwich
Whats the first thing to do once you get a new type rating? Go flying of course! I want to get some decent stick time in order to consolidate things, so when Aaron sent me a text suggesting we go somewhere I jumped at the chance. He got DQV out of the hangar while I was driving out, to the airport and taxied around to the pumps while I looked at the weather picture and NOTAMs to see where we could go. Aaron mentioned he wanted to go somewhere which had food in easy reach, so that instantly ruled out a stack of places. Raglan was busy with the Black Sands fly in, Ardmore was not far enough away, Tauranga was too run of the mill (Aaron flys there often), we eventually decided on New Plymouth. Club CFI Roger who had popped in mentioned something about getting a muffin from Jim Hickey (a NZ TV weather presenter who it turns out owns the airport cafe) we kind of laughed it off. Little did we know that we'd actually be greeted by him in person an hour later!
The enroute weather didn't look too bad, wind 220 degrees @ 20 knots, broken CUSC (cumulus mixed with stratocumulus) 3000 tops 8000. I filed a VFR flight plan (haven't done that in ages so it was good to get back into that practice) as we would be travelling over some pretty remote and rugged country.
After an uneventful runup and takeoff, we departed via the Pirongia sector as cleared and set course for the first real way point (the first one was Pirongia township but didn't count), Taharoa (a remote mining operation on the west coast of NZ), after checking in with Chch Info (Christchurch Information), I struggled with getting the plane properly trimmed. We were experiencing mild to moderate turbulence but the properties of the Cherokee's slab wing did wonders damping it. We'd still get caught in a patch of lift and a couple of times I found we were in controlled airspace so I had to descend rapidly and then we'd hit a patch of sink and end up 500 feet below my planned cruising altitude of 2500. The weather looked worse than what we had experienced at Hamilton, with the haze giving way to overcast skies and misty drizzle patches here and there, but generally the visibility was adequate and well above legal minimums.
We arrived at Taharoa 1 minute later than planned and swung south, I reported in and gave our ETA for the next waypoint, Mokau township. I want to reiterate here that the folks at Chch Info are always a pleasure to talk to and its nice knowing they are keeping an eye on your progress. Once we got out off the coast the ride smoothed out considerably and I allowed myself to relax a little. Once we got past the 30 minute mark I did my in flight checks (suction, ammeter, DI, icing, engine) and switched tanks. I kept an eye on the weather ahead and the weather behind, as we were travelling into the weather I was mindful of aborting early before we could get enveloped but the wall of cloud that had hindered me making the same trip a few years ago although present was still thin enough to see through and under and we enjoyed at least 10km visibility for the entire journey.
We passed Awakino township and I saw Mokau in the distance and mentally began thinking about updating my ETA with Chch Info, then about 1 mile north Aaron spotted an aircraft at 10 o'clock. I picked it up visually and although he was some distance from us our courses were converging. He was roughly at our altitude so I started a descent to pick up speed and chose to pass to his right (as is the law for overtaking in the air). Switching to 119.1 which was the listening watch frequency for that region I said, "Mokau traffic, DQV has traffic at my 10 o'clock in sight." I never heard a reply. Our airspeed quivered up to just over 140 knots and we slowly went past him. I think he couldn't have been more than a few hundred meters away when we flew past his wings. Aaron who had taken on the responsibility of maintaining eyes on him while I flew said that he waggled his wings so I did the same and we continued on as he fell in behind us and out of sight.
The DME which Aaron had tuned into New Plymouth and had been fluctuating on and off since Taharoa suddenly gained a strong signal when we were about 18nm out. The control zone (New Plymouth is Class D airspace just like Hamilton is) starts at 10 miles so I had to think about getting in contact. Switching to their ATIS I got Aaron to fly while I jotted down the details. The weather had improved a great deal and we were now in bright sunshine with only a few clouds here and there. Switching to the tower frequency I called up.
"New Plymouth Tower, Delta Quebec Victor."
They reponded and I said in my best pilots voice, "Delta Quebec Victor is a Piper Arrow, 6nm north of Urenui (a town on the edge of the zone), squawking 0572, request entry into the zone for landing, 2 POB, India 1027"
We were given a progressive clearance to enter the zone 2500 or below and track to Motunui synthetic gas plant (pretty hard to miss) and report approaching. The reason for this was that there was a parachute drop in progress. What I didn't realise is how this would cause me to fixate and forget about the number 1 priority, fly the plane!
Once we arrived at Motunui we were cleared to the Waitara river and told to report there. What I didn't realise is that its a roughly 3-4 mile final from the river to the runway threshold, and when I realised this we were two things you shouldn't be on a straight in final approach, high and fast. To my credit when I realised this I acted instinctively, bringing the power back and slowly raising the nose to bleed airspeed. Once it got below the gear limiting speed I lowered the gear. That brought our speed back rapidly to 90 knots. Another thing I could count on was our reduced ground speed due to the 20 knot headwind blowing down the runway. With no power on we came down fairly quickly, and my landing spot was lined up perfectly. However I was not very keen on landing at 90 knots so I had to get some flap down. Once I did that I had to apply power because our sink rate was getting too high. I flew a fairly well stabilized approach, but the sloping runway played its evil trick on me and I rounded out too high. I looked out on a 45 degree angle to check my height, realised we were high and stopped raising the nose instantly. That probably saved us a rather hard arrival but none the less we certainly touched down with protest from the main gear oleos.
After taxiing off the runway we picked a parking spot next to the tower and shutdown. We wandered over to the airport cafe and who was there to welcome us in but Jim Hickey himself! Aaron who was by now quite ravenous ordered himself eggs benedict and an iced coffee while I chose to have some very nice club sandwiches and a V.
After a comfort stop and a wander around the memorabilia at the cafe we walked over to the New Plymouth Aero Club where they kindly let Aaron use a computer to get a weather update. Aaron flight planned a different return track to mine where he would head inland up the Awakino gorge and do a touch and go at Te Kuiti before heading back to Hamilton. He said he had to do 3 touch and goes to maintain currency in the Arrow (he was already current but wanted to reset the clock).
After amending the flight plan I had filed, he preflighted and as we were about to start up, we heard a whole lot of activity on the radio. About 7 aircraft were approaching the zone from the north so we saved our fuel by waiting until most of them had landed before receiving our clearance to taxi. When we lined up the tower cleared us to depart north seaward of the coast to avoid oncoming traffic. It was during this time I snapped a few photos because the ride was smooth. Our ground speed was quite staggering (on this leg we got as high as 158 knots). After turning inland, we were flying directly downwind, so our groundspeed (I got to hold Aarons GPS for the return flight so I was monitoring time and distance to run) got above 160knots. I looked at the ground below and it was zipping past rapidly.
We were approaching Te Kuiti from the south west, and even though I have flown from Te Kuiti before I struggled to spot the air strip until we were right on top of it. We did an overhead join and descended to join the circuit for runway 16, which gave Aaron about a 60 degree crosswind to contend with. He made a reasonable touch and go and soon we were airborne again. Te Kuiti is nestled in a valley so you really need to be ahead of the plane and thinking about the route you are going to fly to avoid terrain. Aaron climbed back to 2000 feet and set course for our final waypoint, Kihikihi.
Upon approaching Kihikihi he got the ATIS, called up to request entry and was given a south arrival. Briefing me to keep my chatter to a minimum, we entered the zone and I began an extra sharp lookout for any other aircraft operating in the swamp sector. As we approached Mystery Creek we were instructed to orbit right. I think we had barely turned more than 90 degrees before our clearance was amended to descend to join left base for Grass 25, number 3 behind UFS which was in the circuit. I saw UFS pass 500 feet below us as we started our descent and as we came out of our orbit it was on base. Aaron had to work pretty fast to reduce our closure rate but he's an old hand at flying the Arrow and before I knew it we had gone from 130 knots to 75. Even then, we were slowly gaining on UFS so Aaron had to bring the Arrow down behind the power curve (never a nice place to be) to reduce closure even further.
UFS was cleared for a touch and go and touched down just as we passed over the main road to the airport which at that point is just outside the boundary fence. We got our clearance to touch and go fairly late and Aaron did our touch and go and I was quite impressed at how fast we came up at UFS which I was keeping an eye on. The tower was on top of things and instructed UFS to make an early left turn, and for us to continue climbing straight until we reach circuit height. The second circuit was almost as problematic because UFS had been instructed to continue downwind till advised as there was other traffic in the 25 circuit as well.
By the time they were cleared to turn base we were already halfway downwind and we were cleared number 3 behind UFS. Aaron slowed us up once more and positioned us behind UFS. This time we were further behind so our closure rate did not matter as much, but we still gained quite a lot on the Archer.
We touched down and taxied back to the hangar. I was stunned to be informed that the hobbs read the same for the flight back as it had for the flight there! Amazing what superior ground speed does! Photos to come.
The enroute weather didn't look too bad, wind 220 degrees @ 20 knots, broken CUSC (cumulus mixed with stratocumulus) 3000 tops 8000. I filed a VFR flight plan (haven't done that in ages so it was good to get back into that practice) as we would be travelling over some pretty remote and rugged country.
After an uneventful runup and takeoff, we departed via the Pirongia sector as cleared and set course for the first real way point (the first one was Pirongia township but didn't count), Taharoa (a remote mining operation on the west coast of NZ), after checking in with Chch Info (Christchurch Information), I struggled with getting the plane properly trimmed. We were experiencing mild to moderate turbulence but the properties of the Cherokee's slab wing did wonders damping it. We'd still get caught in a patch of lift and a couple of times I found we were in controlled airspace so I had to descend rapidly and then we'd hit a patch of sink and end up 500 feet below my planned cruising altitude of 2500. The weather looked worse than what we had experienced at Hamilton, with the haze giving way to overcast skies and misty drizzle patches here and there, but generally the visibility was adequate and well above legal minimums.
We arrived at Taharoa 1 minute later than planned and swung south, I reported in and gave our ETA for the next waypoint, Mokau township. I want to reiterate here that the folks at Chch Info are always a pleasure to talk to and its nice knowing they are keeping an eye on your progress. Once we got out off the coast the ride smoothed out considerably and I allowed myself to relax a little. Once we got past the 30 minute mark I did my in flight checks (suction, ammeter, DI, icing, engine) and switched tanks. I kept an eye on the weather ahead and the weather behind, as we were travelling into the weather I was mindful of aborting early before we could get enveloped but the wall of cloud that had hindered me making the same trip a few years ago although present was still thin enough to see through and under and we enjoyed at least 10km visibility for the entire journey.
We passed Awakino township and I saw Mokau in the distance and mentally began thinking about updating my ETA with Chch Info, then about 1 mile north Aaron spotted an aircraft at 10 o'clock. I picked it up visually and although he was some distance from us our courses were converging. He was roughly at our altitude so I started a descent to pick up speed and chose to pass to his right (as is the law for overtaking in the air). Switching to 119.1 which was the listening watch frequency for that region I said, "Mokau traffic, DQV has traffic at my 10 o'clock in sight." I never heard a reply. Our airspeed quivered up to just over 140 knots and we slowly went past him. I think he couldn't have been more than a few hundred meters away when we flew past his wings. Aaron who had taken on the responsibility of maintaining eyes on him while I flew said that he waggled his wings so I did the same and we continued on as he fell in behind us and out of sight.
The DME which Aaron had tuned into New Plymouth and had been fluctuating on and off since Taharoa suddenly gained a strong signal when we were about 18nm out. The control zone (New Plymouth is Class D airspace just like Hamilton is) starts at 10 miles so I had to think about getting in contact. Switching to their ATIS I got Aaron to fly while I jotted down the details. The weather had improved a great deal and we were now in bright sunshine with only a few clouds here and there. Switching to the tower frequency I called up.
"New Plymouth Tower, Delta Quebec Victor."
They reponded and I said in my best pilots voice, "Delta Quebec Victor is a Piper Arrow, 6nm north of Urenui (a town on the edge of the zone), squawking 0572, request entry into the zone for landing, 2 POB, India 1027"
We were given a progressive clearance to enter the zone 2500 or below and track to Motunui synthetic gas plant (pretty hard to miss) and report approaching. The reason for this was that there was a parachute drop in progress. What I didn't realise is how this would cause me to fixate and forget about the number 1 priority, fly the plane!
Once we arrived at Motunui we were cleared to the Waitara river and told to report there. What I didn't realise is that its a roughly 3-4 mile final from the river to the runway threshold, and when I realised this we were two things you shouldn't be on a straight in final approach, high and fast. To my credit when I realised this I acted instinctively, bringing the power back and slowly raising the nose to bleed airspeed. Once it got below the gear limiting speed I lowered the gear. That brought our speed back rapidly to 90 knots. Another thing I could count on was our reduced ground speed due to the 20 knot headwind blowing down the runway. With no power on we came down fairly quickly, and my landing spot was lined up perfectly. However I was not very keen on landing at 90 knots so I had to get some flap down. Once I did that I had to apply power because our sink rate was getting too high. I flew a fairly well stabilized approach, but the sloping runway played its evil trick on me and I rounded out too high. I looked out on a 45 degree angle to check my height, realised we were high and stopped raising the nose instantly. That probably saved us a rather hard arrival but none the less we certainly touched down with protest from the main gear oleos.
After taxiing off the runway we picked a parking spot next to the tower and shutdown. We wandered over to the airport cafe and who was there to welcome us in but Jim Hickey himself! Aaron who was by now quite ravenous ordered himself eggs benedict and an iced coffee while I chose to have some very nice club sandwiches and a V.
After a comfort stop and a wander around the memorabilia at the cafe we walked over to the New Plymouth Aero Club where they kindly let Aaron use a computer to get a weather update. Aaron flight planned a different return track to mine where he would head inland up the Awakino gorge and do a touch and go at Te Kuiti before heading back to Hamilton. He said he had to do 3 touch and goes to maintain currency in the Arrow (he was already current but wanted to reset the clock).
After amending the flight plan I had filed, he preflighted and as we were about to start up, we heard a whole lot of activity on the radio. About 7 aircraft were approaching the zone from the north so we saved our fuel by waiting until most of them had landed before receiving our clearance to taxi. When we lined up the tower cleared us to depart north seaward of the coast to avoid oncoming traffic. It was during this time I snapped a few photos because the ride was smooth. Our ground speed was quite staggering (on this leg we got as high as 158 knots). After turning inland, we were flying directly downwind, so our groundspeed (I got to hold Aarons GPS for the return flight so I was monitoring time and distance to run) got above 160knots. I looked at the ground below and it was zipping past rapidly.
We were approaching Te Kuiti from the south west, and even though I have flown from Te Kuiti before I struggled to spot the air strip until we were right on top of it. We did an overhead join and descended to join the circuit for runway 16, which gave Aaron about a 60 degree crosswind to contend with. He made a reasonable touch and go and soon we were airborne again. Te Kuiti is nestled in a valley so you really need to be ahead of the plane and thinking about the route you are going to fly to avoid terrain. Aaron climbed back to 2000 feet and set course for our final waypoint, Kihikihi.
Upon approaching Kihikihi he got the ATIS, called up to request entry and was given a south arrival. Briefing me to keep my chatter to a minimum, we entered the zone and I began an extra sharp lookout for any other aircraft operating in the swamp sector. As we approached Mystery Creek we were instructed to orbit right. I think we had barely turned more than 90 degrees before our clearance was amended to descend to join left base for Grass 25, number 3 behind UFS which was in the circuit. I saw UFS pass 500 feet below us as we started our descent and as we came out of our orbit it was on base. Aaron had to work pretty fast to reduce our closure rate but he's an old hand at flying the Arrow and before I knew it we had gone from 130 knots to 75. Even then, we were slowly gaining on UFS so Aaron had to bring the Arrow down behind the power curve (never a nice place to be) to reduce closure even further.
UFS was cleared for a touch and go and touched down just as we passed over the main road to the airport which at that point is just outside the boundary fence. We got our clearance to touch and go fairly late and Aaron did our touch and go and I was quite impressed at how fast we came up at UFS which I was keeping an eye on. The tower was on top of things and instructed UFS to make an early left turn, and for us to continue climbing straight until we reach circuit height. The second circuit was almost as problematic because UFS had been instructed to continue downwind till advised as there was other traffic in the 25 circuit as well.
By the time they were cleared to turn base we were already halfway downwind and we were cleared number 3 behind UFS. Aaron slowed us up once more and positioned us behind UFS. This time we were further behind so our closure rate did not matter as much, but we still gained quite a lot on the Archer.
We touched down and taxied back to the hangar. I was stunned to be informed that the hobbs read the same for the flight back as it had for the flight there! Amazing what superior ground speed does! Photos to come.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Arrow type rating complete
Just had the paperwork completed for my Arrow Type Rating. Something that started in my New Years flying goals in 2008 can finally be checked off the list. I took DQV up for a quick pass over Hamilton to celebrate. I flew over my work, my mother in laws house and Chris's work. Chris was the only person who noticed me. Oh well, it was worth it. Actually getting the Arrow trimmed out in level flight is quite tricky because of the large speed range it enjoys. You think you have it trimmed for 120 knots and a few seconds later it is indicating 130 knots and you are 200 feet higher than you wanted to be. Its definitely not like flying an Archer, you need to be thinking ahead of the plane and definitely have a game plan for approaches because the workload can overwhelm you if you get it wrong. Having said that, I absolutely love flying this plane! Its smooth, fast, it looks cool, and you get treated differently by ATC because you are in a retractable so they know you are not a novice pilot (until they realise its me :-) ). And in other news, this week I ticked over 150 hours total time in my logbook. I am very close to my PIC time exceeding my Dual time, but I have a few hours to go.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Te Kowhai Airfield Pt 2
Ryan ST-3KR ZK-RYN
Technam P96 Golf ZK-EHG
Technam P2002 Sierra ZK-SGO
De Havilland DH52A Tiger Moth ZK-BFF
Te Kowhai Airfield Pt 1
Chris and I went out to see the festivities at Te Kowhai airfield. It was immaculately presented today and all sorts of interesting aircraft showed up, bringing equally as interesting people. Here's some of the photos I took, although Chris is sure to have much better ones once he gets his film processed and scanned.
C172S ZK-CWD
C172 ZK-PDD
DHC2 Beaver ZK-CKH dressed as NZ6001 of the Commonwealth Trans Antarctic Expedition - it was a real treat to see this flying.
Sweet! An Arrow! ZK-RTE
C172S ZK-CWD
C172 ZK-PDD
DHC2 Beaver ZK-CKH dressed as NZ6001 of the Commonwealth Trans Antarctic Expedition - it was a real treat to see this flying.
Sweet! An Arrow! ZK-RTE
Awesome weather = good flying weather
New Zealand is experiencing a fantastic Labour Weekend weather-wise. Here's Hamiltons current ATIS (now available over the web which is awesome!):
Since I had waltzed out to the Aero Club casually to see if a plane was available I couldn't do too much more than circuits. We nearly had the rare occasion that all 9 planes who live on our flightline out flying at the same time so I consider myself lucky I got JGP for an hour!
One of the good things about circuits (are there good things? :-) ) is that there are plenty of different things you can practice while you fly so this time I chose max performance takeoffs and precision approaches (can't call them landings because I was doing touch and goes). It had been a long time since I had done a precision approach but thankfully all of the checks (I did a quick look at my training manual afterwards to make sure) came back to me. Downwind - assess runway distance available, select landing spot, designate approach speed and decision height. I chose a 60 knot approach, I could probably have done a 55 knot approach as JGP was quite light but as I said its been a while and I didn't want to push it too hard.
I was operating in the Grass 25 circuit which those of you who fly at Hamilton or have bothered reading all my early posts about the circuit will know that 25 has a perculiar characteristic in westerly winds of giving you a ton of lift early in your final approach and once you pass the terminal building and are over open grass you fly into a large sink hole. I remember this terrifying me when I was pre solo but when you reintroduce yourself to it you adjust automatically so I didn't do too badly the first time round.
Once on the ground, JGP like all 172Ms accursed flap selector switch had me cursing and wishing for an extra hand. You must hold it in the up position or it won't raise the flaps and you wonder why you can't accelerate past 60 knots. I eventually figured out I could use my large hands to good effect and hold the throttle open with my thumb while I held the flap selector in the raise flaps position with my fingers. I still needed an extra set of eyes to glance at the flap position meter to determine when they were at 10 degrees, but to be honest, JGP was climbing so well I didn't really need to bother. One touch and go I got to 300 feet AGL before I crossed the boundary fence. She really IS the Millenium Falcon of our fleet!
I got a few more approaches in, with my last one being a 55 knot approach which went fine up until really short finals where it got a little loose but I held it together and we rolled to a stop before the first taxiway.
Today I am heading out to take some pics at Te Kowhai airfield, which is hosting a celebration of 50 years of operations. My heartiest congratulations to the operator and users of that fine airstrip (which includes me :-) ). Will post a report on that later.
HAMILTON (NZHN):I went flying yesterday in JGP and since then the wind has died from a steady 5 knots at 270 degrees magnetic to calm, the forecast 2000 foot wind has swung around 10 degrees and the pressure has dropped 1 hectopascal. We expecting the weather to turn bad but thankfully the last 3 days have been glorious.
ATIS NZHN D 1927
APCH: EXPECT VISUAL APPROACH
RWY: 18L
SFC COND: DRY
WIND: CALM
VIS: 40KM
CLD: SKC <--- aka CAVOK TEMPERATURE: 12 DEW POINT: 09 QNH: 1015 2000FT WIND: FORECAST 280/10=
Since I had waltzed out to the Aero Club casually to see if a plane was available I couldn't do too much more than circuits. We nearly had the rare occasion that all 9 planes who live on our flightline out flying at the same time so I consider myself lucky I got JGP for an hour!
One of the good things about circuits (are there good things? :-) ) is that there are plenty of different things you can practice while you fly so this time I chose max performance takeoffs and precision approaches (can't call them landings because I was doing touch and goes). It had been a long time since I had done a precision approach but thankfully all of the checks (I did a quick look at my training manual afterwards to make sure) came back to me. Downwind - assess runway distance available, select landing spot, designate approach speed and decision height. I chose a 60 knot approach, I could probably have done a 55 knot approach as JGP was quite light but as I said its been a while and I didn't want to push it too hard.
I was operating in the Grass 25 circuit which those of you who fly at Hamilton or have bothered reading all my early posts about the circuit will know that 25 has a perculiar characteristic in westerly winds of giving you a ton of lift early in your final approach and once you pass the terminal building and are over open grass you fly into a large sink hole. I remember this terrifying me when I was pre solo but when you reintroduce yourself to it you adjust automatically so I didn't do too badly the first time round.
Once on the ground, JGP like all 172Ms accursed flap selector switch had me cursing and wishing for an extra hand. You must hold it in the up position or it won't raise the flaps and you wonder why you can't accelerate past 60 knots. I eventually figured out I could use my large hands to good effect and hold the throttle open with my thumb while I held the flap selector in the raise flaps position with my fingers. I still needed an extra set of eyes to glance at the flap position meter to determine when they were at 10 degrees, but to be honest, JGP was climbing so well I didn't really need to bother. One touch and go I got to 300 feet AGL before I crossed the boundary fence. She really IS the Millenium Falcon of our fleet!
I got a few more approaches in, with my last one being a 55 knot approach which went fine up until really short finals where it got a little loose but I held it together and we rolled to a stop before the first taxiway.
Today I am heading out to take some pics at Te Kowhai airfield, which is hosting a celebration of 50 years of operations. My heartiest congratulations to the operator and users of that fine airstrip (which includes me :-) ). Will post a report on that later.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Club Competitions 2009 - Sunday
Today was the liferaft and bombing competitions, with other events like Aerobatics and Navigation taking place away from the airport so I don't have any photos. Although I flew briefly on Saturday (forced landings) I did not any snaps of my flying. As I required a backseater to assist me with the liferaft dropping on the Sunday, I have some aerial shots I can include as well as a movie of my landing. Without giving too much away, I can report that the best bomb of the day (definitely NOT mine) landed within 5 meters of the 2 square meter white PVC target you can see in the photo above. Not exactly military precision but not too bad for a bunch of amateurs.
Oh and just so you know, that same 2m square white target can be seen in the top photo taken downwind at 500' AGL. If you follow the perpendicular grass runway from east to west you'll find it just behind and to the right of the control tower. Note how you cannot make out any people standing around wearing high visibility vests, but I assure you that they are there!
Club Competitions 2009 - Saturday
I'll sum up briefly then I'll let my photos tell the rest of the story. Two absolutely glorious days spent with a bunch of like minded aviators getting sun and wind burnt standing in the middle of Hamilton airport while aircraft, liferafts and other missiles whizz past. It doesn't get much better than this. Saturday was the grid competition day, so there was a lot of spot landings happening. Unfortunately, the photos I took were actually of aircraft which were not being judged. Some of them did pretty good landings though, I bet the pilots wish they were being judged!
Monday, August 24, 2009
I am over the moon right now!
This post has nothing to do with flying, so feel free to stop reading here. I just wanted to tell everyone how excited I am.
I've just heard my favourite band in the entire universe is coming to New Zealand in December. I have been listening to these guys for 18 years and even flew to Australia last year to see them play. The fact that they have finally decided to treat us long suffering kiwi fans to a concert will be a special event indeed. I can't wait!
I've just heard my favourite band in the entire universe is coming to New Zealand in December. I have been listening to these guys for 18 years and even flew to Australia last year to see them play. The fact that they have finally decided to treat us long suffering kiwi fans to a concert will be a special event indeed. I can't wait!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Arrow 2, Hangar door 1, Euan 0
It was a day very much like my first Arrow lesson, a dull grey sky and a generous helping of showers blown through by a forecast 2000 wind of 40 knots. I got out to the Club rooms early to sort out a few things for the upcoming club comps when I recognized fellow blogger Jarred, who had popped down from Auckland accompanying his instructor who was getting instruction from the Waikato Aero Clubs IFR instructor. Nice to finally meet you Jarred!
When I had a good half hour before my flight I was handed the checkout sheet and keys to DQV and walked over to preflight.
The first thing I did was forget the combination to the gate. Then I was surprised when I opened the hangar where DQV is stored that the rather old and dilapidated but interesting Republic RC-3 that shares DQV's hangar was gone, replaced by a much newer but just as interesting AS350 helicopter. That posed the first problem, DQV was parked on an angle and it meant extra care when pushing it out after my preflight to make sure that you didn't hit the door on one side or the NZ$1 million dollar helic0pter on the other.
Once I had DQV outside, the second problem was the hangar doors. The wind on the ground according to ATIS was 030 degrees at 15 knots gusting 25. I had no end of difficulty closing the doors, and it was during one of these attempts the wind grabbed one part of the door and slammed it into my face. I was fortunate enough to only suffer a cut lip. After confering with my instructor we decided to close the doors (together) and would park DQV on the flightline until the wind died down.
After taxiing around and filling the fuel tanks we climbed aboard and taxied to the runup area. After all the fun and excitement of trying to remember all the run up and pre-takeoff checks which I actually did better than I thought I would have, we were lined up. The tower instructed me to line up on runway 36 but did not actually clear me for take off. When my instructor asked why I had not taken off I replied that the tower had only instructed us to line up and had not cleared us for take off. They were just about to key the mike and request take off when ATC suddenly apologised to me and cleared us.
I cautiously opened the throttle and away we went. We got hit by a wind gust after I had advanced the throttle about 30% of the way open and to my surprise the Arrow tried to weathercock away from the wind (when I reflect on this later I think I read some literature somewhere outlining that particular tendency of Cherokee's). I had to apply a lot more right rudder than I am used to just to stop DQV from veering left off the runway. Eventually she settled down as she accelerated and I eased her into the air at 65 knots.
Got the gear and flaps up, trimmed and climb power set, all more or less when they should be done, and set about flying the circuit. As you would expect on a fairly windy day, the ride was not the smoothest but it was no where near as bad as I had expected. I climbed to circuit height, turned downwind, went through my checks and was cleared for a low approach and overshoot over the new parallel tarmac runway very close to its official opening.
I was told that I would probably get the worst of the turbulence on the approach, and we sure did. I used the trick of holding more airspeed and not deploying full flap on finals to try and smooth things out. I got a good dose of sink and bumps at short finals which took a bit of man handling the aircraft to keep her steady on the approach, which was my objective of the flight. At 100 AGL we went around for the second circuit. To the chargrin of my instructor the promised crosswind was negligible and although I fished around a bit there was no drift and we eventually settled on the runway and I took off again.
From memory we did 4 circuits and my instructor asked me if I was happy to continue on my own. I had settled into flying DQV at this point and was fairly happy to do a couple more so we requested a landing with "student to continue solo".
I decided I wanted to try some glide approaches, but due to conflicting traffic I only got two attempts in. Both times I would have failed to make the field due to strong headwinds and the fact that with gear down the Arrow glides like an anchor. With the club comps coming up I won't be able to fly DQV again until next month, but I definitely will be practising those glide approaches when I do.
See you on the other side of the comps!
When I had a good half hour before my flight I was handed the checkout sheet and keys to DQV and walked over to preflight.
The first thing I did was forget the combination to the gate. Then I was surprised when I opened the hangar where DQV is stored that the rather old and dilapidated but interesting Republic RC-3 that shares DQV's hangar was gone, replaced by a much newer but just as interesting AS350 helicopter. That posed the first problem, DQV was parked on an angle and it meant extra care when pushing it out after my preflight to make sure that you didn't hit the door on one side or the NZ$1 million dollar helic0pter on the other.
Once I had DQV outside, the second problem was the hangar doors. The wind on the ground according to ATIS was 030 degrees at 15 knots gusting 25. I had no end of difficulty closing the doors, and it was during one of these attempts the wind grabbed one part of the door and slammed it into my face. I was fortunate enough to only suffer a cut lip. After confering with my instructor we decided to close the doors (together) and would park DQV on the flightline until the wind died down.
After taxiing around and filling the fuel tanks we climbed aboard and taxied to the runup area. After all the fun and excitement of trying to remember all the run up and pre-takeoff checks which I actually did better than I thought I would have, we were lined up. The tower instructed me to line up on runway 36 but did not actually clear me for take off. When my instructor asked why I had not taken off I replied that the tower had only instructed us to line up and had not cleared us for take off. They were just about to key the mike and request take off when ATC suddenly apologised to me and cleared us.
I cautiously opened the throttle and away we went. We got hit by a wind gust after I had advanced the throttle about 30% of the way open and to my surprise the Arrow tried to weathercock away from the wind (when I reflect on this later I think I read some literature somewhere outlining that particular tendency of Cherokee's). I had to apply a lot more right rudder than I am used to just to stop DQV from veering left off the runway. Eventually she settled down as she accelerated and I eased her into the air at 65 knots.
Got the gear and flaps up, trimmed and climb power set, all more or less when they should be done, and set about flying the circuit. As you would expect on a fairly windy day, the ride was not the smoothest but it was no where near as bad as I had expected. I climbed to circuit height, turned downwind, went through my checks and was cleared for a low approach and overshoot over the new parallel tarmac runway very close to its official opening.
I was told that I would probably get the worst of the turbulence on the approach, and we sure did. I used the trick of holding more airspeed and not deploying full flap on finals to try and smooth things out. I got a good dose of sink and bumps at short finals which took a bit of man handling the aircraft to keep her steady on the approach, which was my objective of the flight. At 100 AGL we went around for the second circuit. To the chargrin of my instructor the promised crosswind was negligible and although I fished around a bit there was no drift and we eventually settled on the runway and I took off again.
From memory we did 4 circuits and my instructor asked me if I was happy to continue on my own. I had settled into flying DQV at this point and was fairly happy to do a couple more so we requested a landing with "student to continue solo".
I decided I wanted to try some glide approaches, but due to conflicting traffic I only got two attempts in. Both times I would have failed to make the field due to strong headwinds and the fact that with gear down the Arrow glides like an anchor. With the club comps coming up I won't be able to fly DQV again until next month, but I definitely will be practising those glide approaches when I do.
See you on the other side of the comps!
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