I did an awesome flight with my sister and her partner Perraine. We went around Mt Pirongia to Kawhia and then turned north up the coast to Raglan. Perraine is an amateur cameraman of sorts and took plenty of amazing photographs which I'll post when I get the chance. He also took some video footage.
The flight went extremely well, my only slight apprehension was when we took off from Raglan, I had got to 200 AGL and had raised flaps and trimmed for an 80 knot nose attitude when I realised that we were not climbing very fast. I did a quick check of the engine T's & P's and they were all nominal except maybe the engine was slightly hotter but still within the green range. Since we were not losing height I didn't worry too much but continued to monitor the situation and eventually we settled into a 200 foot per minute climb, which was more than enough since we weren't going to require more than 2000 feet for terrain clearance and we were already over half way to that height.
Once we cleared the hills west of Hamilton I got the ATIS and clearance straight in for grass 07. The movie I've posted is my landing. Not a bad landing, but not as good as I am capable of. Firstly I didn't hold the nosewheel up for very long after the mains touched down and secondly we veered to the left after I applied slightly uneven braking. I corrected it and we straightened, but still, it was an unnecessary faux pax, sorry about that. I hope that you get some impression of how pretty NZ is from the video and pics, and although the weather was fantastic we get a lot of days like this at this time of year.
Enjoy.
The flight went extremely well, my only slight apprehension was when we took off from Raglan, I had got to 200 AGL and had raised flaps and trimmed for an 80 knot nose attitude when I realised that we were not climbing very fast. I did a quick check of the engine T's & P's and they were all nominal except maybe the engine was slightly hotter but still within the green range. Since we were not losing height I didn't worry too much but continued to monitor the situation and eventually we settled into a 200 foot per minute climb, which was more than enough since we weren't going to require more than 2000 feet for terrain clearance and we were already over half way to that height.
Once we cleared the hills west of Hamilton I got the ATIS and clearance straight in for grass 07. The movie I've posted is my landing. Not a bad landing, but not as good as I am capable of. Firstly I didn't hold the nosewheel up for very long after the mains touched down and secondly we veered to the left after I applied slightly uneven braking. I corrected it and we straightened, but still, it was an unnecessary faux pax, sorry about that. I hope that you get some impression of how pretty NZ is from the video and pics, and although the weather was fantastic we get a lot of days like this at this time of year.
Enjoy.
Comments
Nice video! By the looks of the panel you were in an 'R' model C172? I did my C172 type rating [many years ago] in the 'R' model :-)
I've been into Hamilton several times, but always landed on the opposing vector... It is a nice AD to visit!
Still prefer the PA28 series though :-)
Rodney: Its a rather uncommon occurrence to have an easterly blowing into Hamilton but on that day thats exactly what we had. Believe me when I say that landing on 07 is much easier than 25 because of the complete lack of turbulence on the approach.
Chris: My feelings about the Millennium Falcon are well documented.