Making a Kiwi Fly

Taranaki Trip GPS track

2009-11-10T15:24:00.003+13:00

Taranaki cross country photos

2009-11-08T11:34:00.005+13:00

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

2009-11-08T09:19:00.007+13:00

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.

Arrow type rating complete

2009-11-01T09:45:00.003+13:00

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.

Te Kowhai Airfield Pt 2

2009-10-26T23:21:00.003+13:00

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

2009-10-26T22:54:00.003+13:00

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

Awesome weather = good flying weather

2009-10-26T08:58:00.006+13:00

New Zealand is experiencing a fantastic Labour Weekend weather-wise. Here's Hamiltons current ATIS (now available over the web which is awesome!):

HAMILTON (NZHN):

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=

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.
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.

Club Competitions 2009 - Sunday

2009-09-07T22:11:00.009+12:00

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

2009-09-07T22:02:00.006+12:00

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!

I am over the moon right now!

2009-08-24T09:24:00.005+12:00

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!

Arrow 2, Hangar door 1, Euan 0

2009-08-15T23:14:00.004+12:00

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!

Staying current vs currency, the cash to lift conversion

2009-07-28T10:16:00.002+12:00

With the recent credit crunch and oil crisis combined, finding money to go flying has become a lot harder than before. I my case I think it reached a point where I had to sit down and think about whether or not I could continue to fly. Not in the legal sense of being current, but at a personal level of “am I safe?” Although the handling of a plane is like riding a bike, once learned you don’t quickly forget, the multitude of other tasks involved in safely flying an aircraft must be considered as well.

Under normal circumstances when you are getting at least an hour or two a month in the cockpit your self confidence rises and you can more easily devote more of your attention to the sundries and less to physically flying the plane. The crunch time occurs when something goes wrong, for example an engine failure. Instantly your attention must be divided between flying the aircraft safely, troubleshooting the problem and finding somewhere safe to land. If you haven’t flown in sometime you tend to be easily distracted by one of those tasks instead of managing all three.

I went up in the weekend to practice my forced landings with an instructor because I thought I needed: a) a safety pilot, b) I was no longer current in the 172 and this would help me regain that, and c) the last time I had been asked to perform a forced landing I was less than perfect with most aspects of the procedure so I wanted some revision and a fresh look at any issues I have.

I found that most of the problems I am having would iron themselves out with an hour or two of going out alone to practice. So it comes back to money (and suitable flying weather).
The Minister of Finance, the Lovely Susan has said there is money available in the war budget for flying, and I believe it is enough for me to maintain a level of competence than I am comfortable with, so watch this space because I’ll be in the air a lot more soon!

A bubble hanging from a disc

2009-05-25T16:09:00.008+12:00

For my birthday this year the lovely Susan decided to buy me a trial flight in a Helicopter. I selected Ardmore Helicopters as they looked like a nice outfit and I wanted to fly in a Schweizer 300 rather than a Robinson 22 because I think they look cooler.

We turned up at the office a lot earlier than planned because at the time there was a nasty southerly change coming through bringing rain and bad visibility with it which would make any flying rather difficult. The weather we were experiencing at the time was all but perfect for flying with a light breeze, sun with a few cumulus around and excellent visibility. My instructor was up flying with another student and the office was busy ringing around trying to inform people of the weather change and recommending their either head home asap or wait it out.

Eventually the unmistakable sound of a helicopter approaching filled the office and we saw ZK-HVO hover taxi in and set down on the apron. Out hopped a young looking instructor called Gary who eyed the weather up and said we should head off sooner rather than later if we were going to get back before the rain hit.

To this point no one in the office had asked me if I had any flying experience so I used my don't ask don't tell policy. It wasn't until Gary and I were walking out to the helicopter if he asked me somewhat casually if I had ever flown before. Upon me telling him I had a PPL(A) and about 130 hours he relaxed and with a wide grin said he'd try to convert me.

My first thought when I climbed in was how spacious the cabin was. There was plenty of head and leg room, and the perspex bubble gave you the feeling that you had all the space you could see to stretch out. Being tall I could see over the engine and enjoyed nearly 360 degrees of unobstructed view. I found the cyclic and pedals fit my 6'1 frame perfectly, but the collective (in a similar position to a handbrake in a car) was a tad cramped due to my long arms.

Gary helped me strap in and climbed in himself. The briefing was, well, brief. Fortunately as I qualify as an aviation nut I was well aware of everything Gary quickly touched on during his explanation of how things worked. After a quick once around the instrument panel (which looked mightly similar to what I am used to, the only difference being the main rotor rpm gauge which is split into several dials for main and tail rotor speeds) Gary started up the Lycoming HO-360-C1A, ran it up and engaged the main rotor. After a quick radio check with Ardmore UNICOM we lifted to the hover and he taxied us out to the taxiway so we could get a good look at the fixed wing traffic in the circuit.

After locating a lull in the circuit traffic he swung us into the wind, announced our imminent departure, raised the collective and up we went. We accelerated to 30 knots which I was told is the best climb angle. Looking at the ground slowly travelling beneath my feet I marvelled at how slow we were actually travelling. I certainly was not used to flying at 30 knots, let alone climbing at that speed. It felt kind of wrong. The other thing I noted was that the ride was just as smooth as in a fixed wing aircraft. Eventually after getting to our circuit height of 700 feet Gary handed control over to me and told me to hold her at 700 feet and look to maintain 70 knots. Helicopter level forward flight in many ways is very similar to fixed wing. To speed up you push forward on the cyclic, to slow down you pull back. Roll and yaw are done exactly the same, with the need to balance the turn with the torque pedals (I would get a dirty look if I called them rudder pedals). When flying visually as I was you align the "rotor shadow" or "disc" to a point above the horizon that gives you the speed that you want and hold it there. One thing I also noted was the sensitivity of the pedals is completely different to that in a plane. They do not gain or lose effectiveness relative to airspeed, indeed they were quite sensitive throughout the entire flight envelope that I experienced at the controls.

Gary pointed to a couple of bush covered hills to the north and asked me to fly us there at 70 knots. Once we got closer he asked me to slow us to 50 knots and upon reaching the hills he took control and we descended in low for some valley flying. The lack of speed, the excellent visibility and manouverability, essential ingredients in low level valley flying and the helicopter has all of that and more. We were at heights that I would never fly an aircraft at unless I was an ag pilot but the slow speeds meant that I didn't feel unsafe or nervous at all.

Some of the turns were simply amazing, pretty much impossible for most fixed wing aircraft to perform. Eventually he us out of the low level stuff, then Gary handed control back to me and we headed back to the airfield and the TLOF (Touchdown and Lift OFf area) at 800 feet and 70 knots. Once we were inside the airfield boundary Gary took control and demonstrated a 180 degree autorotation. We descended so fast my ears popped. I can see now why its said Helicopter Pilots don't screw up forced landings because they don't have time to.

About 10 feet above the ground Gary brought us into the hover and we hover taxied over to an area roughly 20m square with a big number 4 in the middle. It was time to see if I could hover.

Once we were inside he stabilized us in the middle of the square, handed back control and asked me to keep us inside the square at a constant height. Being dynamically unstable the helicopter literally has a mind of its own and careful hands (and feet) and good reflexes are required to keep the machine in one spot. When I tried I would always over correct then the helicopter would get into a massive oscillation that fed on my poorly coordinated inputs, eventually requiring Gary to take control to tame the monster. After failing dismally at using all three controls Gary took the collective and pedals and gave me the cyclic. I think I managed to maintain the hover for a good 3 seconds on one of my many attempts before we lurched off at some odd angle. Gary got me to shadow his movements on the controls as he held HVO in a stable hover, but his movements seemed totally imperceptible to me.

When our 0.5 was up he hover taxied us back to the apron outside the office, consoling me that it takes about 14 hours of dual to solo in a training helicopter. I reckon those small boxes in the TLOF must be a prison for the pre solo helicopter student just like the circuit is to us fixed wingers.

Over all the experience was a heck of a lot of fun. Do I want to go up again in a helicopter? YES! Would I consider getting a license in a helicopter? I would like to get myself to the solo stage just to prove to myself that I can fly one. However the hourly rate in a 300 is similar to a multi engined training aircraft. That is an awful lot of fixed wing flying I would miss out on.

The internal debate rages on...

Finals three greens

2009-04-25T20:47:00.004+12:00

I had all but given up on flying this morning. I got out of bed and looked out the window, and a murky dull grey sky greeted me. It was also quite windy which was fairly unusual for this time of year.

Resigning myself to the fact that my first lesson in the Piper Arrow would be a ground lesson, I sleepily plodded my way through several pieces of toast and after packing my flight bag together I jumped in the car and off I went. On the way to the airport the weather seemed to have the final say on the matter by shedding droplets on my windscreen.

Once I arrived at the Aero Club, I counted all the clubs planes sitting miserably on the flightline, with tie downs secured and covers on. I was wondering if this was one of those days which corresponded to that age old adage, “better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air rather than in the air wishing you were on the ground.”

After presenting myself to Wendy who was minding the office, the clubs 2IC B Cat Ash strode out of the inner sanctum of the club where instructors hide from voracious students and after wincing at the outside picture picked up the hand held radio and tuned into the ATIS.

“Hamilton information Delta, issued at 2123, expect VOR/DME approach, runway 36,”

Not exactly an auspicious start, but the thick layer of overcast hanging overhead would make a visual approach kind of difficult.

“Runway conditions, damp. Surface wind, 040 degrees, 12 knots. Visibility, 25km reducing to 1000m, showers in the vicinity.”

Oh great, even if we can take off, I have my first take off in an Arrow with a crosswind to contend with. I was already feeling better… not.

“Cloud, few 2200 feet, scattered 3400 feet, broken 4400 feet, temperature 18 dew point 15, QNH 1020. Forecast 2000 foot wind, 060 degrees, 35 knots. On first contact with Hamilton Tower or Christchurch control, notify in receipt of Delta.”

So the cloud wasn’t a problem, neither was the visibility (unless we hit a shower). The problem would be the 25 knot sheer zone that we could expect to hit on the climb out. Fun fun fun!

Ash sniffed, turned the radio off and said he was happy for us to go out. I resisted the urge to ask him if he had heard the same ATIS I had.

On the walk out to the hangar that houses DQV, which unlike most other aircraft in the club fleet is permanently hangared and is not owned by the club (the Twin Comanche the club uses is similarly owned and stored), Ash asked me about how many Archer hours I had. I said roughly 30 hours (check of my logbook says I have 26 hours total time in Archers, 20.1 as PIC).

I won’t bore you with the specifics of the preflight, but the additional necessity of crawling under each wing and under the nose to inspect the gear wells could become trying as you are guaranteed to get dirty doing it. Good thing I wore my jacket which I could remove prior to taking my seat.

The inside appears pretty much as a Piper Archer’s which I am used to, with the exception that as this aircraft is older (about 6-8 years older I think) that the clubs Archer 2’s, there are some notable differences. First is the lack of an avionics master switch, so each unit in the stack needs to be turned on individually. Potentially annoying, but for those of us whole like to act like astronauts and press lots of buttons and switches its pure nirvana.

Unlike our Archer fleet the Arrow is fuel injected, and just like fuel injected aircraft, this is both a blessing and a curse. No carb heat equates to one less lever to worry about when you are on short finals. But this particular model of Arrow is prone to flooding between hot starts. While this is not too much of issue, I can see the instructors pulling their hair out while watching some hapless student endlessly crank the starter over outside the clubrooms by the fuel pumps.

After we got DQV out and received our taxiing instructions, Ash kept referring to how nose heavy the Arrow is compared with an Archer. In the air that would be the main difference he told me.

During the runups I got to exercise the prop. Check prop pitch is full fine, then throttle up to 2000rpm. Ash had me put my left thumb under the prop lever then bring the lever back until I see the rpm drop 300rpm. Then keeping my thumb where it is, move the prop lever back up to full fine, then down to my thumb and back again. At the risk of being too technical, exercising the prop pumps warm oil into the linkages which control the rpm of the prop during flight. If a large temperature differential exists between the oil in the constant speed unit (CSU) and the engine sump you run the risk of the CSU malfunctioning or even not working at all. While the prop won’t stop, it almost certainly won’t be producing full thrust, and that’s a big problem if you need it.

After lining up, I went through the lineup checks and we waited a while due to wake turbulence from a departing Dash 8. I silently thanked the owner for installing an air switch and after receiving clearance to take off, I opened the throttle.

The litany of checks ran through my head, “throttle slowly forward, check manifold pressure increasing, check prop rpm increasing, check fuel flow increasing, check that we are tracking straight,” which we were not. “Damn crosswind takeoff.”

“Airborne finally. Keep the nose low, we need to climb at a speed higher than the best glide of 91 knots. Heck that’s quite a low nose attitude. OK we are out of sufficient runway, so gear up.” I had thought weeks earlier that raising the gear during my first left seat flight in DQV would be a proud moment, but with a handful of aircraft and a head full of endless checklists it came and went without my giving it much more thought than “ok that’s done, what’s the next thing for me to do?”

Ash was a calm spot in the maelstrom, casually telling me to set the manifold pressure to 25 inches of mercury, the prop rpm to 2500rpm and lean it to 13 gallons per hour fuel burn, aka climb power settings.

We had just turned crosswind when there was an almighty thump and I banged my head against the roof. Strangely enough I was not particularly worried. Maybe having Ash sitting next to me showing that detached air of calm all instructors have was infectious?

He made a comment about us finally hitting that sheer zone and asked me to continue to climb to 2000 feet. Once we got above 1700 feet the ride smoothed out and I started to relax a little. Ash was right, this aircraft did indeed handle like an Archer with a heavy nose, despite the Arrow having the older Cherokee slab wing (commonly called the Hershey Bar wing due to its resemblance to a bar of chocolate) which was also a shorter overall span. I was feeling the effects of the short wingspan as DQV had smoothed out most of the bumps quite nicely.

Once we had reported clear of the Hamilton control zone Ash said I could go through a couple of turns just to get a feel for DQV. He said the main difference was to not touch the throttle but my right hand kept snaking out and affixing itself to the throttle quadrant. A good habit to stay in if I’m going to be flying fixed pitch aircraft again, which is almost certain.

So I was told by lots of people including Ash that the Arrow has a heavy nose, and I found out when I entered a medium turn from a trimmed straight and level and the nose started dropping inside the turn to the point it took a great deal of strength to bring the nose up. When I tried a steep turn it was worse. I did think about trimming in the turn but when I tried doing that during my primary training I received a smack on the hand so I chose to sit there and hold it.

I rolled wings level and we did a basic stall followed by a power and flap stall. Just like an Archer they said. I can now confirm it is similar, except I enjoyed the clear warnings from the aircraft. There was a nice nibble from buffet followed by a touch of wallow then the nose broke straight down with a slight hint of a wing drop but nothing as violent as Cessna’s can be.

The stall recovery technique is just like any aircraft, stick and rudder to get the plane flying again, then pile on the power and regain lost height. I was guilty of not bringing power all the way forward on recovery. Too much reading about prop overspeeds and not enough confidence in constant speed units (a totally misguided notion, this technology has been proven in aerial combat and is over 60 years old).

Next we climbed to 2500 so I could have a forced landing demonstrated. As we were pretty much overhead Te Kowhai airstrip, Ash decided that would be a good spot to do a forced landing and after I made a radio call stating I would be operating at the strip he pulled back the manifold pressure and we were gliding.

Well if you could call it gliding. The VSI (vertical speed indicator) quivered down to show a 900 feet per minute descent as I struggled to find and maintain the 91 knot nose attitude. All those forced landing checks went out the window as I concentrated on the first rule of aviation, fly the plane. Ash wanted to demonstrate the gliding differences between gear up and down so he had me lower the gear. The VSI plummeted to read a 1400 feet per minute descent, I could see we needed to get to the field asap so I aimed at the landing point and hoped we had enough height to make it. The main thing to remember with forced landings in a retractable is that one of the decisions a pilot must make is should he or she lower the gear at all, and if so, when is a good time to do it. Short finals means the gear will not be down in time so you need to pick your paddock quickly and have your approach sorted fast if you are going to lower the gear.

I remember we were fairly high on the base leg and I had resisted lowering flaps because I still did not have a feel for the glide characteristics yet and was erring on the side of caution. Ash told me to drop full flaps, mechanically I obeyed and at that precise moment we hit a patch of sink.

All that height I had stored disappeared in a few seconds and we came in over the fence pretty much like we would have had I made a powered approach. I rounded out, flared and touched down.

I went to full power, Ash reminded me to set flaps to 10 degrees, my eyes flicked to the ASI and when it showed 65 knots I rotated and we were airborne again.

We then went around the circuit a few times to get me used to the circuit procedures. Because DQV doesn’t climb like an Archer but you have a lot of checks to get through and you must climb at a speed faster than the Archer, Ash recommended a continuous climbing turn onto downwind from the climb out. I can see now why Air Forces fly those race course style circuits instead of the box types us GA pilots fly.

I recall one time I was bringing back the manifold pressure but was looking at the rpm gauge as I would in a fixed pitch plane so was wondering why it wasn’t changing at all. By the time I realized what I had done the manifold pressure was back at about 20 inches. A newbie mistake, but fortunately one which is not harmful to the aircraft so I quickly set the power and rpm and continued flying. Ash said nothing but I know he knew what I was doing.

After a few circuits Ash declared the next touch and go would be the last and we’d climb out and head back to Hamilton.

I set climb power and prop and was heading back to Temple View listening to the ATIS. The wind on the ground had intensified and the visibility had dropped even further. From the 5 nautical mile boundary at Temple View I could just and only just make out the Airport in the murk.

I requested joining instructions and we were cleared direct to the airfield to join left base for runway 36. I acknowledged and a moment later they asked us to keep the speed up as there was a Dash 8 incoming.

Ash grinned and admitted he was going to scold me for not setting cruise power but this time he would make an exception. I lowered the nose and set a 400 foot per minute descent that would get us to circuit height just as we entered base leg.

The ASI (air speed indicator) slowly crept up to 140 knots. Ash keyed his mike and said to ATC that we were doing our best but were fighting a headwind, the DME was indicating a groundspeed of only 77 knots. There would be some error in that reading as we were not flying directly at the DME transmitter but it was definitely eye opening to realize just how windy it was up there.

During the descent Ash and I were joking with each other as to when we would hit the shear layer. I reckoned about 1300 feet and Ash thought it would be lower. He won.

I remember turning final when ATC announced we had a 10 knot crosswind and cleared me to land. I thought my approach was pretty good. I had everything organized and we were coming down with a stable airspeed and more or less on centerline.

I think I tried to do a Cessna landing which the Arrow being quite a different beast decided it would have nothing to do with it. Abruptly it decided to stop flying on me and down we came. This time I was comfortable flying it and was far enough ahead of the plane to apply power to cushion the landing but we came down right mains left mains and nosewheel. I was rather disgusted with myself but Ash didn’t seem too phased so we taxied clear and set course for the hangar.

We were gone ninety minutes, but due to air-switching the hobbs read 0.8. As the Arrow is more expensive than the Archer to fly it was a similar cost but at least that was the flying part that I was paying for, not the sitting around on the ground with the prop turning. Fantastic!

Overall, I must admit I like flying the Arrow. For a humble private pilot with a modest budget it will be the closest I may ever get to flying a Spitfire. They are both all metal low wing monoplanes with retractable gear and constant speed propellers. OK so one has 7 times the horse power of the other but we can all dream.

Whenuapai Open Day 2009

2009-03-22T10:58:00.013+13:00

An epic flying adventure! I have never flown through Auckland airspace before, nor landed at a RNZAF airbase, so there were a lot of challenges ahead of me when I planned this trip. I had planned to fly down to the Ohakea Open Day in 2008 but due to a couple of unforeseen problems we had to drive down instead, and that fact gnawed at me.

Originally Chris and I had booked two aircraft with the intention of flying in a couple of plane loads of Waikato Aero Club members, but yet again, unforeseeable circumstances meant that we could only take one plane. We had FWS booked for the day well in advance so I just crossed my fingers and hoped it would be serviceable.

As Whenuapai is an active military air base the Open Day gave civilian pilots the rare opportunity to fly in. We had to go through the process of approval, which meant emailling a representative of the Air Force Base Commander and asking for approval. Here's the arrival procedure I received, which is a mixture of an informal email and the part in caps is from the promulgated NOTAM:Air Force Open Day Update. Unclassified

Please expect all arrivals into the control Zone from Auckland Harbour bridge, those of you who are transiting north up the west coast please track from Manukau Heads to Auckland harbour bridge via Cornwallis. Time slots will be allocated from 0730 hrs until 0840 in blocks of 10 minutes with approximately 8 aircraft in each block, please arrive at Auckland harbour bridge earlier in the block. Follow ATC instructions there after. Aircraft from closer destinations' will be given earlier slots, as further distance will have later slots.

AFTER BEING CLEARED TO ENTER THE WHENUAPAI
CTR/D, ROUTE AS FOLLOWS UNLESS OTHERWISE CLEARED BY ATC:
RWY 21 IN USE
ROUTE HARBOUR BRIDGE TO TE ATATU, 1500FT OR BLW, THEN
TURN RIGHT TO JOIN DOWNWIND LEFT HAND RWY 21.
REPORT TURNING RIGHT AT TE ATATU.

The significance of this is that I could not simply fly direct from Hamilton because in between the two airfields sits Auckland International airport. The missed approach altitude for Auckland is 3000 feet, so asking for transit at 3500 would most likely get you an emphatic "remain clear" and having to do a descent from 5500 to an airport whose elevation is 100 feet and is approximately 15nm away from Auckland would be less than comfortable. So we had to scud run under controlled airspace around Auckland, which meant a maximum altitude of 1500.An 0830 arrival time as well as a crooked track meant our estimated flight time would be around 40 minutes, because the Aero Club office doesn't open until 0800, I had to get everything I need from them the night before. It was a good thing that I did this, because I was told that we were being bumped from FWS to UFS as a last minute slot became available for a Single Engine IFR checkride and they needed FWS to do it in. A quick email to Whenuapai sorted out the aircraft name change and we received our arrival slot:

ZK-UFS Cherokee Archer Hamilton 0830-0850

We had a full aircraft as one of the other club members and his son would take the back seat. We arrived at the club just after 0730 and after a few minutes sorting ourselves out in the aircraft I started up we headed out to the runup area. Fortunately at that time of the morning Hamilton was pretty quiet and I managed to get in front of the first CTC flight of the day. We were cleared onto runway 18 with a right turn and a city departure approved. After clearance for takeoff I have the cabin a quick glance to make sure all my passengers were ready to go, scanned the engine gauges and opened the throttle.

One airborne we were recleared through the Hamilton city sector 2500 or below with traffic a balloon (March/April is Balloon weather and some lucky person was up on a nice morning for flying) at our eleven o'clock. I replied that we had the balloon in sight and would pass east of him. I wonder now why I said that but now I realise that it was as much for the balloon pilots benefit as Hamilton Towers.

Once we were overhead the Te Rapa VRP (visual reporting point) I reported clear and after the tower queried as to my return time I replied "around 1800". I then set the nose towards our first waypoint, Port Waikato at the mouth of the Waikato River.

It was a lovely morning to be flying, mill pond smooth with good visibility of 30km. I levelled off at 2500 and switched to the Class G airspace frequency to start my listening watch. There was not a great deal of activity north of Hamilton, most of the traffic was training traffic to the south west and some around the Coromandel area. I continued to keep an ear out.

Because we were heading into what normally is quite busy airspace I had delegated Chris control of the radios. I was using a combination of our nav chart and Chris's Garmin 96C to navigate. Once I picked up Port Waikato visually I knew we had about 15nm to run before we hit the lower limit of Auckland airspace at 1500 so I began a cruise descent. The ASI quivered up to 125 knots indicated and the GPS responded with a ground speed of around 130. The ETA revised itself down to 0832. We were looking good.

Once I levelled off at 1500 feet we reached the boundary of airspace so I did a SADIE check, switched tanks and re trimmed. Cross checking my watch with the GPS it seemed we were running a little bit late so I chose to cut the corner of our planned track (not airspace!) and set course for Cornwallis which I could now see. At the same time Chris tuned into the Whenuapai ATIS and we noted they were using runway 21 which I had figured they would be. The clear skies of Hamilton had changed to a dull overcast with light showers here and there but nothing I couldn't handle.

We crossed Cornwallis and I pointed the nose at the Auckland Habour Bridge in the distance. Chris had my camera out and took a pic facing east.

Almost immediately afterwards he found the movie mode and made several movies which I have pieced together below. During the time between the two movie clips I managed an orbit overhead the Harbour Bridge and Auckland city while Chris announced our presence to Whenuapai Tower and they cleared us into their control zone.

A quick note: although the NOTAM stated we had to join via Pt Chevalier, in actuality it was more practical for ATC to have everyone join on a wide left base for runway 21, so the track I did above is pretty close to what we actually flew. Once on the ground we were directed with military efficiency to our parking spot. We were the last GA plane to arrive, and I distinctly remember looking at my watch after engine shutdown and it read 0852.

I'll post some of the pictures I took in another post, but the best photos will appear over at Chris's blog once he gets his film developed.

I wanted to see the now famous RNZAF Boeing 757 do its high speed pass followed by a 45 degree nose up and then wingover. Seeing it on YouTube is one thing, but seeing it for real is something completely different. It definitely was the highlight of the day for me.

After a day in the sun, we made our way back to UFS as people fled to the carpark in the mad rush to get out. The rush to leave for GA planes was no less frantic. We sat near the plane watching the warbirds leave, and Chris took some great photos with my camera while I preflighted.

As a side note, the floating wreck you see in the background of the last photo is a piece of Auckland Maritime history, the the former RNZN Fairmile ”B” Class, Q411, P3571, HMNZS Kahu. She is the last of twelve built in NZ during WWII. She was originally commissioned 20th December 1943, finally decommissioned 1965. I spent time aboard 3 Fairmiles who were converted as ferries when I took my school holidays on Waiheke Island with my parents during the 1970's. Its fitting company to the 3 Warbirds of yesteryear.

I guess it was also fitting that as the last GA plane to arrive we were also the last to depart. Once airborne we could clearly see the solid line of traffic on the main road out of the airbase that stretched quite a long way in both directions.

Since we were already within the Whenuapai control zone we flipped the course on the GPS, removed a couple of waypoints which we no longer needed (the Harbour Bridge, Pt Chevalier, Avondale Race Course) and headed directly for Cornwallis.

Chris asked if he could report clear to Whenuapai when we were about to clear their zone, I was still in the process of trimming UFS for the cruise and intercepting our track so I let him. He thanked the tower for having us, they wished us a safe trip to Hamilton.

I switched over to the Auckland City MBZ, made one position report and listened in for any conflicts. Most of the traffic was far to the east of us as we were effectively clipping the western corner of the zone. We picked up a few bumps as we passed east of the Waitakere Range and crossed the Manukau Harbour at Cornwallis.

From there it was pretty much a reverse course. Once I was out from under Auckland Airspace I climbed to 2300 feet and the ride smoothed out so I stayed there. Once I reached Port Waikato I turned the nose towards Hamilton and climbed to 2500. We heard another aircraft report that he was transiting across our intended track to Ardmore at 2500 feet so we went eyes out looking for him. I never saw him until he reported 3 miles southwest of Huntly and I looked right at him. He was a good distance away to our 10 o'clock so I relaxed a little. I made several calls to Te Kowhai air strip to make sure they knew I was coming then dialled up Hamilton ATIS, noted it down and finally called Hamilton for clearance.

We were cleared for a North Arrival but they later amended us to join wide right base for Grass 18. I asked for the runway considering we were 4 up and we were cleared number 2 following a CTC 172 landing ahead. The wind was swinging around a little but the breeze was not more than a few knots. I chose to err on the side of caution and perform a crosswind landing so I lowered the right mains first and we landed. A combination of dirty cabin windows and the sun being low on the horizon meant I had a hard time finding the taxiway but I found it by the time I was cleared across the grass runway to the tie down area outside the club.

After refuelling UFS and tying her down I wrote 2.0 hours of PIC time in my logbook and went home to look at my photos and movies and to organise my thoughts for this blog. I rate this as my best flying trip to date. I hope there are many more to come.

Aerial photos

2009-02-23T20:15:00.010+13:00

Sorry about the lateness, been busy with other things. All photos belong to Chris Nielsen and are used here with his kind permission. Thanks Chris!

1. Takeoff Grass 36, 1735hrs.

2. Scott Sector 2500 ft heading northeast

3. Over Thames Valley looking east.

4. West coast of Coromandel Peninsula heading north.

5. "Marry me Bee!"

PS. I hope they come out looking right.

Favour for a friend

2009-02-11T09:25:00.005+13:00

It's funny how you can use aircraft for wild and whacky ideas. My workmate had hatched a plan to secretly propose to his girlfriend of several years. Other people at work have a holiday house up on the Coromandel Penninsula and had invited both of them up there over the recent long weekend in NZ. The groom to be's plan was to have his girlfriend distracted while he and his best man to be slipped out to the next bay over from their house to write his marriage proposal on the beach.

For some reason I cannot remember he chose to tell me of his plans, and I came up with the idea of taking an aerial photo of his efforts to commemorate the big occasion. One of my pilot mates Chris is a budding amateur photographer and has some limited aerial photography experience. There were several problems facing us. One, I had only a rough idea of where it was he was going to be doing this, and two, I had never flown any sort of air to ground photography mission before.

We solved the first problem by using the wonders of the interweb. GPS coordinates from Google Earth are very very accurate, and it was a testament to my workmates attention to detail that it worked out. I got him to pinpoint on Google Earth where his sign would be and we put those numbers into Chris's Garmin 96C. The 172 we booked also has a GPS but I'm not well versed in its use.

I had also looked at my chart of the area and although the contours gave me a rough idea of the surrounding terrain, I was fairly confident that I'd be able to formulate a plan of attack once I arrived.

View Larger Map

The two things I was worried about turned out to be non events, namely the weather and the aircraft's serviceability. Weatherwise the 2000' wind was forecast as 060@20 knots with few CUSC around 3500 with the possibility of embedded TCUs. While the cloud was not a problem, the fact that the wind would be coming from the north east meant that below the level of the ranges close to the western coast we could expect turbulence. Since Chris and I are both pilots I wasn't worried about our ability to cope with it though.

The sky overhead Hamilton was cloudless as we lined up our 172R WAM on grass 36, surface wind was 020@8 knots and my crosswind takeoff went ahead without drama. As we climbed out we could see the cloud building up to the northeast as we headed north. I leveled off at 2200 feet as I wanted to be well under any TCUs we might encounter. Once we crossed into the Firth of Thames I tried to climb up above it but we got to 4000 feet and still needed to climb further and 4500 was the lower limit of controlled airspace so I chose to descend once more. I put WAM into a cruise descent and we hit 130KIAS on the way down.

With about 6 miles to run I could see the area I would be operating in, and I decided we would slow to the bad weather configuration and make a reconnoiter pass at 1500 feet to get the lay of the land. Although there was a bit of cloud around the setting sun (it was around 1815 local) bathed the area in golden sunlight. I did our first pass at 80 knots and Chris scanned the beach for our target. Nothing. We then descended to 1000 feet and tried again. Nothing. We checked the bays on either side of the "target" bay at 800 feet. Nothing. I realised that doing passes offshore would mean that if we did get a photo it would be upside down. I then made a decision to do a pass over the beach itself at 500 AGL for one last go at it before we gave up and went home empty handed. I took us north and performed a very nice coastal reversal turn. As I turned towards the coast we got below the level of the surrounding hills we really got bounced around. At that precise moment I uttered a silent prayer that we were in the bad weather configuration already. I did one run over all 3 beaches at around 500 feet (I was doing my best impression of terrain following), during which Chris aimed his camera at the beach in continuous mode and shot a few 5 frame bursts.

Chris said he was not sure if he had shot anything worthy, and since he works in film and not digital there was no way we could climb up to a safe height and orbit while Chris checked his work so I headed out off the coast, cleaned WAM up and climbed back to 2200 feet for the return trip home.

My memory of the trip back was that we didn't talk much for the first 10 minutes or so, but after a while we just commiserated each other by saying that the adventure aspect of the flight was worth the expense, and we had both learned a lot about the practicalities of Aviation photography.

When I was cleared into Hamilton airspace I was the only plane active, so I got a plain English clearance. We entered the circuit downwind as instructed and when I stood on the toe brakes during the downwind checks the right had side seemed a bit mushy, so I asked for the 2200m runway so I wouldn't have to use the brakes. The wind had intensified to 12 knots since we had been away so fortunately our ground speed was such not only did I not need the brakes I actually had to apply power to taxi to the taxiway.

So after a 1.8 trip we still were in the dark (excuse the pun) as far as whether or not we had succeeded. A day later Chris rang my mobile to say that by some stroke of luck he had managed to snap the proposal centre frame and the right way up. The fact that they had used driftwood instead of sand or seaweed meant the camouflaged nature of the wood made it really hard to see from the air.

The groom to be was stoked at the result, and so were we.

PS. Photos to follow
PPS. Her reply was yes.

Test driving the new Archer 3

2009-02-04T10:38:00.003+13:00

My instructor Rocky called the Aero Clubs new Archer III ZK-WIT "the Mercedes Benz of our fleet". To be honest, I must agree. Everything inside is new (it has around 340 hours total time on the airframe), it even has a new car smell from the plush leather seats. The seat adjusts in 6 different directions, has lumbar support, pre-tensioned seatbelts, the aircraft even has air-conditioning!

The major difference between WIT and the two Archer II's I fly FWS and UFS is the start up procedure. Unlike the Archer II, WIT does not have a key turn starter. Instead it has a push button starter (very English I thought). You must also start the engine on one magneto and turn the second one on once the engine starts.

The pilots control column has a lot of hands on functions. Two axis electric trim, push to talk (PTT), autopilot disconnect, and a button that I didn't use and didn't ask about either.

Doing a walk around I notice the improved wing with a few aerodynamic aids like small wing fences on the outboard tapered section of the wing and some stall strips. There is a totally new engine cowling with smaller engine cooling ducts and the absence of a nose mounted landing light (it was moved to the wing).

Everything else was pretty much the same as an Archer II.

I climbed into the pilots seat and adjusted my chair. One thing that separates our Archer III from our II's is that the instrument panel takes up a large amount of forward view, but after adjusting my seat height up (I wonder how vertically challenged people will cope) I could see out front to my satisfaction. Another thing that you can see from the outside is that the Archer III has smaller windows than the II. I thought this might be a problem but I didn't notice any difference once I was inside.

After starting up we taxied out to do the runup and checks. They are essentially the same as what I was used to with the singular exception of checking that the airconditioning unit is off prior to takeoff.

The first thing that struck me when I applied full power was how quiet the plane is. While it will never be whisper quiet the interior engine and prop noise was significantly lower that what I expected. Once airborne I found WIT to be stable and smooth through all the standard manouvers I put her through.

Once we were established at our cruise altitude, Rocky demonstrated the autopilot to me. WIT has dual Garmin 1000s slaved to a 3 axis autopilot. I didn't get to use the Garmins but the default moving map feature was very cool. We tried a few turns and climbs using the autopilot to fly the plane and I must admit it does a better job than I do.

I had a problem with the throttle friction being too heavy. Rocky fiddled with it and eased it somewhat but it was still a little too heavy. We came in on final for Grass 36 and caught a patch of lift crossing the boundary fence. I reduced power to idle and deployed full flap. At that precise moment the lift went away and down we came. I applied power but we had too much for too long and we drifted down the runway before touching down. My second landing was better but we still came down hard. After plenty of soul searching and thinking about it I must take the blame.

My final verdict is that it is one lovely plane to fly and be flown in. No expense has been spared in the comfort stakes and you feel like you are aboard a much larger passenger jet. The downsides are two fold. Firstly, as it is intended as the Clubs primary instrument trainer the opportunities I will get to fly it will be limited to an hour here and there. Secondly, as it is also a pretty new airplane the hourly rate will reflect the clubs financial investment.

I forgot to take my camera with me but Chris has some nice photos of WIT on his blog.

2009 Already!

2009-01-22T13:34:00.003+13:00

Firstly, I want to wish you all a very happy and safe 2009. Well after promising you lots of flying I have done the exact opposite. The only excuse I shall offer is that Christmas cost more than we were expecting and it has taken us some time to pay it off to the point that there is money in the bank to go flying with. Yeah it’s a pretty lame one, but that’s the honest truth.

Let me go back 12 months and see what I listed:

1) Fly more than 10.5 hours – I am at approximately 135 hours so CHECK!
2) Fly to White Island and back (in any aircraft) – Still haven’t done this. :(
3) Take Susan to Great Barrier Island - CHECK
4) Go on some longer cross countries than I've been doing – Sadly no.
5) Go airfield hopping as Aaron suggested – No again.
6) Get approval to land at Waiheke Island (I know there are some minimum hours before they'll let me take club planes in there for insurance reasons so I'll check out what they are and let you all know). – And no.

Two from six isn’t great. I did pass my BFR so thats all good.
Lets look at some goals for 2009.

1) Get checked out in the new Archer
2) Fly to White Island and back
3) Go on some longer cross countries
4) Get checked out for landing at Waiheke
5) Have an aerobatic lesson (or two)

And the drumroll again for the most important goal... pass my flight medical!

Getting in some Archery practice

2008-11-12T10:54:00.005+13:00

Just checking in to say I am now current once again in the Archer. My logbook said I hadn't logged any PIC time in an Archer since May, so after 4 circuits in FWS (including one go around after I failed to receive landing clearance) I landed and am now legally current. The ironic thing was, only the landings were actually any good. Not trimming properly at straight and level, airspeed all over the place on the approach, forgetting about the carb heat (only did it once though!); all elementary errors that I should not be making now that I have 135 hours total time.

Summer is just around the corner so I'm planning more flights so hopefully there will be more stories with photos and film coming soon. Watch this space!

Wellington video

2008-10-20T22:15:00.004+13:00

Added as promised.

The takeoff.

And the landing. I muted the recorded soundtrack because I had to do some time compression to stave off people getting bored and it doesn't sound quite as good at two times speed. I hope you get a decent impression of how awesome the day was. We really were spoiled. Thanks again Rodney for arranging it for us.

Flying with Rodney

2008-10-18T17:25:00.016+13:00

As part of a trip to Wellington, I hatched a plan to go up flying with another kiwi pilot and fellow blogger Rodney. The lovely Susan had managed to score us some very cheap tickets to fly to Wellington commercially (much cheaper than the price of gas for driving down), so around 10 weeks ago I had emailled Rodney and he thought it would be a brilliant idea to go up for a scenic flight around Wellington.

Rodney kindly collected us from our motel and we turned up at the Wellington Aero Club, where Rodney flies from. Eventually our plane, an Archer which Rodney had booked for 10.30am arrived back from the previous booking and he got to work pre-flighting while I snapped some photos of our mount.

Eventually we got strapped into our life jackets and taxied out onto runway 16 and with very little ceremony we were off! (Film to follow when edited)

I had listened into the Wellington ATIS and the wind was pretty light but I was amazed at how smooth the flying conditions were. Remember Wellington NZ has a reputation of being a bit of a plane bender but conditions were nothing if not docile.

If I recall correctly we were cleared for an Eastborne departure so we turned left and flew up the entrance to Wellington Harbour.

As you can see here, there was a bit of cloud cover overhead but the visibility was excellent. This photo looks northwest back towards Wellington City, although most of downtown is obscured by the pillar. In the foreground is the seaside suburb of Seatoun.

Here is the Department of Conservation controlled island of Matiu (formerly known as Somes Island). The largest island inside Wellington Harbour, we visited the island briefly a few days earlier by ferry, but it looks heaps better from the air.

Looking north up the Hutt Valley, showing the Hutt River and on the left hand side of the river, the main fault line running through New Zealand. The quarry you can see in the centre left of shot is where both the Helms Deep and Minas Tirith sets for the Lord of the Rings Films were located.

Looking west towards Mana Island off the coast. In the back ground you can see the South Island!

Pretty much taken straight after the previous photo, looking north at Kapiti Island.

Rodney then proceeded to descend and we orbited Mana Island from about 1500 feet. You can see Kapiti Island to the north in the distance and the North Island mainland to the right.

After the orbit we headed south and Rodney put us in a cruise climb to regain some altitude prior to rejoining Wellington airspace. This photo looks southwards. On the left is the North Island and in the background is the South Island. If you look closely you can see the Kaikoura Ranges with snow on them.

Here's my last airborne photo of Rodney commencing the Sinclair Arrival procedure. We need to remain on this side of that little witches hat looking island just off the coast in the middle of the photo.

It was an awesome flight, much better than I could have hoped for. When Susan and I flew out of Wellington commercially later in the day the wind had picked up to around 15-20 knots and the cloud was moving in preceding a cold front. I will post video of the takeoff and landing later when I edit them appropriately.

PS. As this blog site has been updated with a new template, I will now post in larger text to make it easier to read. Enjoy.

Pauanui Beach

2008-10-03T09:40:00.006+13:00

Pauanui Beach is an idyllic little settlement on the Eastern Coromandel peninsula exactly 57nm north northeast from Hamilton as the Cessna flies. Susan had always wanted to go there, and judging by the fact that the airstrip is bang smack in the middle of town, it’s an aviation friendly place.

The day was pretty nice by most standards, although it was quite hazy and the ATIS at Hamilton reported broken at 3500’ and vis of only 25km. I did a weight and balance for max fuel and we were way under the limits so after preflighting we got underway. I haven’t done much flying recently, and I was a little concerned about my currency, but the met was well within my personal minimums so it was more of a nagging doubt than a concern.

Once we were clear of airspace I climbed up to 3000’ and surveyed my options. It didn’t look like I could get across the Kaimais with any sort of safety margin so I decided to make for the Waihi Gap. As we got closer to the town of Paeroa which sits at the western entrance to the Gap, I heard traffic on the Coromandel frequency stating that they were happily VFR at 4500 so I knew the cloud conditions were better the further east I went. The cloudbase had started to break up, and by the time I was overhead Paeroa the cloud was few at 3500 so I picked a gap and climbed.

Once we were on top the ride smoothed out and the entire eastern side of the Coromandel was CAVOK. Once I started our descent (Pauanui’s elevation is 12’) we hit some clear air turbulence, but it was nothing major. I had been monitoring traffic around Pauanui and there was quite a bit, and they were using both runways so after dialling up the AWIB and being told that the wind was variable, I chose to perform an overhead join and see for myself.

After not spotting the windsock at one end, I eventually saw the other one and it was indicating an off shore easterly breeze of around 5-8 knots so I announced I was descending non traffic for 05. Pauanui is bordered by a range of hills to the south about 1nm from the airstrip which are higher than circuit height. I remember a pilot telling me that you need to fly at the hills till you think you are too close then turn away. I was descending to 1000’ at the same time so the hills seemed to rush up at you. But it worked because I ended up perfectly spaced at circuit height to join downwind.

The rest of the approach went well until very short final when I hit a patch of sheer and the plane lurched to the right. I overcorrected and we drifted left, I thought about going around but sorted everything out by the time we hit ground effect and we touched down surprisingly lightly, albeit half a wingspan off centreline.

The trip back was fairly uneventful other than our arrival being at the same time as a flock of CTC aircraft returning so I had to hold north of the airport while the controller got everyone sorted out. I did a passable crosswind landing and taxied clear. A 1.8hr flight and a whole day of fun.

Some decent weather at last

2008-08-12T08:41:00.004+12:00

New Zealand managed to get some blue sky and light winds. I figured that since we'd had total and utter crap for the past 6 weeks that there'd be no chance I'd get a plane. But I decided to chance my arm and headed out to the Aero Club on a whim. Even if I couldn't get a plane, there would be something happening that I could take photos of.

As I walked into the Club I saw JGP sitting out on the flightline. My first thought was, oh its unserviceable, but then I saw 3 Alpha's sitting there as well, and I dared to hope. As it happened there was only one instructor on duty and he was flat out booked, both the Archers and WAM were out, and so was the Arrow. JGP had one booking listed, and that was an hour in the morning, so it was all mine for as long as I wanted.

I chose to fly out to Matamata and do some circuits. I sent a text to Aaron and just as soon as I finished the preflight he turned up. Over winter the Airport company have closed some of the Grass runways to allow the grass to regrow, after the hot and dry summer combined with lots of landings roughed them up quite a bit. The upshot of this is long waiting times as aircraft queue at the holding points. This was no exception as we sat there for a good 5 minutes waiting for a free spot to open up.

In hindsight I realise I should have let the tower know I was willing to perform an intersection departure as we had a reasonably light plane, but I didn't so we had to wait.

After being cleared for take off I did a quick check of the instruments, checked to make sure that both Aaron and I were belted in and the doors were locked and opened the throttle. Shortly afterwards the airspeed came alive and we were airborne. The climb performance today was outstanding, and I brought the nose up higher than I normally would to achieve an 80 knot climb out.

I turned us downwind and then departed the circuit for the Scott sector. The day was very smooth and clear, an excellent day for flying, and Aaron made liberal use of my camera taking snaps of all and sundry.

Clear of Hamilton airspace and overhead Mount Ruru I radioed up Matamata traffic and announced my imminent arrival and was greeted by silence. We started our descent and Aaron saw a glider circling above us to the east of the field. I decided to make an overhead join (first time I have done that at Matamata) so I leveled off at 1700 feet and circled the field, finally selecting runway 28 and starting our descent into the circuit.

We lost sight of the glider several times and I decided that since we couldn't hear him and he might be trying to land that I'd make a full stop landing and wait for him to land before taking off again for circuits.

I noted a 5 knot crosswind so set up for a crosswind landing, and I thought I did a fairly good one. In the meantime the glider had set off northwards. We taxied clear as a Tecnam rolled out of its parking spot and trundled out down towards our end of the runway.

After a brief discussion with Aaron I decided to take off immediately and head back to Hamilton. I was having more fun in the air than on the ground and the day was starting to run out of daylight and the club rule of being on the ground 45 mins before ECT was ringing in my ears.

I lined up and performed a crosswind takeoff, which I thought went pretty good. We trundled northwest around the Hamilton control zone so I could approach from the north, as the Hamilton traffic was starting to get busy with the return of all the CTC VFR flights from the south and east. I called up Hamilton overhead Gordonton and was strangely cleared straight in with an instruction to report at a 5 mile final.

The Hamilton area was shaded by cirrus, Aaron and I argued over where the airport actually was. In the end we were both wrong. I really feel sorry for pilots who are not familiar with Hamilton, as at least I can fly in the general direction of the airfield and eventually I'll pick it up, which I did.

I reported a 5 mile final and was cleared number 2 following a plane on short final. I decided to do a flapless landing and kept the speed up around 85knots as we made our approach. Just before the threshold I cut the throttle and raised the nose to bleed airspeed as we crossed the numbers. We ended up slightly long and the tower instructed me to expedite ahead and vacate via the western taxiway. That meant a quick burst of power to keep the speed up and we rounded the corner and were off the runway in good time. The Dash 8 waiting on the apron seemed to appreciate our speedy departure.

I taxied back to the club and shut down, at precisely 5pm and 1 hour showing on the Hobbs. Another flight done, time to put JGP to bed and quit to the bar for a beer.

Photos to come soon.

HTML help needed!

2008-07-10T09:04:00.002+12:00

I had to update my blog template so I could add a bloglist. The bad news is that now it has this enormous sidebar that looks really ungainly in Firefox (haven't tried it on IE yet). As you all know, I am the worlds worst person when it comes to HTML coding so if you could help me work out how to reduce the frame size I'd very much appreciate it.