Fixed On The Ground This Week

Since the Whakatane flyaway last week, I have not had a single flight. I think this is due to us as a course being ahead of schedule, and my primary instructor being off this week. We were speaking to another course the other day and they had no flights for 2 weeks after their flyaway...hopefully this won't happen to me.

The bigger news this week is that I have moved accommodation. We were expecting to move to Clearways next weekend but we received an email yesterday saying that we needed to have moved by the end of this weekend. Clearways is the purpose-built CTC accommodation located next to the airport. There are over 100 cadets here between 5 blocks, with another under construction. Each block has 2 wings with 20-30 rooms and then there is a central common room, kitchen and laundry. 

I am in a brand new room from an extension that has just been completed on block 2. I am in a shared room where 2 cadets share a kitchenette and bathroom. At the moment I'm on my own, but my room-mate should be in next week as they are one of my CP106 coursemates who are in the UK.

My shared kitchenette

My new bedroom

My room currently looks over a very large brown patch which has just been planted with grass seeds. At the rate grass grows over here in NZ, I'm sure it won't be long until I've got a green lawn to look at. Unfortuneatly thats it for this week. Most of the time was filled watching movies, playing golf, packing and then unpacking - not blogworthy. 

I've just checked my schedule for tomorrow which says I'm not flying, and monday is my rostered day-off so it looks like there will be more days of not flying and being quite bored.

Whakatane Flyaway and First Solo!!!

Sorry for being a couple of days late with this weeks blog, but I've been away this weekend to do my first solo. This week started off with just a couple of lessons focused on stalling and how to recognise and recover from them, which meant that my next lesson would be circuits. On Wednesday we were told we would be going away for the weekend to a small airport called Whakatance (oddly pronounced f**katane) which is uncontrolled, so there is no air traffic control. Everyone here just reports their intentions and positions for other traffic to know. The airspace around this place is very quiet and means that it is a lot less busier than Hamilton.

There were 9 cadets (6 from our course) and 4 instructors at Whakatane. 3 cadets flew there with the 3 planes that we had over the weekend and the rest of us went in a minibus which was a lot slower than flying. When we got there around 9 o'clock Friday morning, we immediately started flying and I have my first circuits lesson. Circuits are basically rectangular patterns flown at an airport. After taking-off you climb ahead, turn onto the crosswind leg, then the downwind leg, then onto the base leg and then onto finals before you land. After you land, you apply full power again, take-off and then repeat it all again.

Standard circuit pattern

On Friday night we went out to a local Indian which was very tasty and great fun. A few had a couple of drinks but bed was called for quite early as we had a 06:30 wake up call for breakfast. On Saturday I had my next two circuits lessons and after this I had my solo-check. This meant I had to go up with a "B-Cat" instructor who is allowed to authorise first solos after a competency check-flight. Fortunately, everyone passed their check and I was allowed to go on my first solo (1 circuit) late Saturday afternoon. It was a great feeling being able to go solo again, as I've already done 6 hours solo back in the UK, and everything went to plan with the landing being the best of the day for me.

The odd little airport Air NZ operate a couple of flights out of

Between the flights which were often a few hours, we spent most of the time outside watching everyone else, listening out on the radio, and most of us got a bit sunburnt. Well I say a bit...... lets just say on Sunday I had about 5 layers of suncream on as well as my coat and a hat even with the burning sun. On Saturday night we intended to go out for another meal, but the local town turned out to be a ghost-town with just one place open for food so a stomach-filling Dominos it was. Interesting pizzas are very cheap out here, a large pizza here at 'Pizza Hut' costs just £2.50

Sunday was another early start and at 8 o'clock in the morning I had my second solo-flight which was 1.2 hours worth of circuits. The aerodrome was extremely quiet and there was just two of us flying around. I then had a long wait for the rest of the day, until around 4 in the afternoon when I had my last flight of the weekend which was circuits-variants, practising landings with no flaps and with a failed engine. I had an hours worth of dual-instruction for this, then I had just over another hour on my own - there was a couple of bumpy landing.

Early Morning Checks

Luckily, as I was the last one flying on Sunday, I got to have a seat in one of the aircraft when we returned back to our Hamilton base. It was a very quick mode of transport; it took us around 1/2 hour, while everyone in the minibus took over 2 1/4 hours to get back. I was hoping for lots of pictures but due to haze we couldn't see anything.

It was a brilliant weekend, with lots of fun and now with over 16 hours worth of flying already, I can't wait to get into the circuits back at the very busy Hamilton Airport and do some more solos. For now, I bid you farewell for another week but check the photos page because I've added plenty of pics from the weekend.

3 More Flights...

This week I started off being rather busy having a further 3 flights: 'Climbing & Descending', 'Medium Turns' and 'Climbing & Descending 2. It added just over 3 more hours to my flight log, and it means I've only got a couple or more lessons (both about stalling), before being released into the reputably busy Hamilton circuits.

"Climbing & Descending" focused around entering and exiting a climb or descent, and the speeds and attitudes required to maintain them. The 'Medium Turns' lesson looked at how to enter, maintain and exit a 30 degree turn, of which we use for most turns in flight. 'Climbing & Descending 2', which we did over where they filmed The Hobbit (lots of bright-green rolling hills), centred on setting up for the final descent when we arrive at an airport from circuit height (typically 1200') down to the runway.

The daily flights were short lived as the weather took hold, and over the last few days we've experienced rather stormy weathe,r meaning nearly all flights today and yesterday were cancelled. Today there were crosswinds of 35kts (our maximum is around 10-15kts depending on experience).

As we all had Friday off, our course went into Hamilton on Thursday night and spent a lot of time (of what we can remember) in 'Bar 101', a place where I'm sure every CTC student has visited during their time here in Hamilton. We have also purchased cars this week, after we had to hand back our hire cars provided by CTC for the first 3 weeks. The car I jointly bought was this beauty:

Our trusty Honda CR-V

Hopefully the weather will improve quickly so we can get some more flights flown. Sunday (tomorrow) is looking brighter, but after that the pouring rain seems to be back. I'm not scheduled for a flight tomorrow, so golf is on the cards. Talking of scheduling, we get the next days schedule through at around 4:30PM, with the final copy at around 8:30PM and it has lots of coloured boxes with names in. Lets just hope I'll have more flights to report on next week, maybe I will have even done a circuit or two...

First flight !!!!!!

Last weekend was finished by revising for my air law exam on Monday. I am pleased to say that I passed it with a 94% score. After Monday, we had two more days of groundschool focusing on our first flight such as the mass & balance form and the performance forms to make sure that we can safely complete the flight. We also had to sit through a few safety briefings such as when on the apron and in the air around Hamilton. 

The last stage of groundschool was our first 2 mass briefs: 'effects of controls' and 'straight & level flight'. These involve the whole course/cp learning about another stage of flying so that when we are in the air, we can try and use these skills in the air. It was a good feeling on wednesday as we have finally finished groundschool - we were now free to fly!!!

DA20s & C172s parked up

Thursday was the first day of flying for CP106, but unfortunately it was my Rostered Day Off (RDO) so while I didn't go flying, some of my other coursemates did. Instead I just lazed around most of the day until around 4:30 in the afternoon when the next days roster is released. Luckily I was down as flying at 16:15 on the Friday for my first flight. I reported quite early on Friday and it enabled me to read through my notes and complete my M&B and Performance forms, as well as printing the local weather. The flight came around very quickly and just after 4, we were pushing the aircraft back and took off from runway 25 (the grass runway). Hamilton has 4 runways - 2 paved and 2 grass. We departed to the west and then just got to have a feel of the aircraft and put the aircraft in many different attitude to see the effects of the controls. The weather was not that great so visibility wasn' the best, but it was still great fun to be back in the air after nearly a year and half. 

Just as I was writing this post, I have just been called to bring a lesson forward a few hours, as I have another flight today. Hopefully I will have many more flights over the next week and I will report how they went this time next week. Cya