Hampered by the weather...

This week I have been very busy flying….mainly filling out cancellation forms. The last few days have been unfavourable in terms of the weather for flying, with gusting winds (today we have had 30kts of crosswind, the limit which for me is 8kts). There has also been heavy rain and low cloud, so all in all not that great. The forecast has given a few sunny days starting tomorrow, but it is only supposed to last 3 days before it returns to raining.

When the rain wasn’t around at the beginning of the week, I was able to complete 3 flights. Two of the flights were my first 2 solo-navigation flights which were the reverse tracks of the first 2 navigation flights with my instructor. These were really great fun and allowed me to get away from Hamilton and explore more of New Zealand. I managed to maintain my plan and with the sun shining, there was plenty of camera-action, some of the pictures I have attached below and to the 'photos' page. The 3^rd flight was an instrument flight, flying to and landing at 2 other controlled airports. My next flight will be doing this flight again, in the reverse.

My plane, fresh out the hangar

Kawhia Harbour

Waikato River - tracking back towards Hamilton

Away from flying, we have been joined by two more of our CP106 coursemates. Both arrived at Clearways on Friday afternoon after enduring the 28-hour flight and have both moved in next to me. It seems surreal that their arrival now means that we are just over a quarter of the way through our New Zealand stage.

I leave you with a quick question; can you spot whats wrong with this plane? The answer is below.

Whats wrong???

*If you didn’t get it, look for the missing wing. I have no idea why its wing was missing, but I hope to not be flying that aircraft soon*


   Update: My 2013 Christmas Advent Calendar Is Now Up Ready For Chocolate Feasting

The start of navigation......

Since speaking last week, I have completed a further 6 flights, a combination of duals and solos. On Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, I flew my first 3 'General Handling & Circuits' solo flights. For these flights I get around 1.5 hours to go within 25nm of the airport and practise anything that I have done so far (such as stalling, turns & PFLs), and then return to the airport for 30 minutes in the circuit. These all went really well and I have been able to highlight the areas that need working on such as the PFL pattern and Steep Turns; however the turns were improving.

On Wednesday, I also had my first Navigation flight and it meant with my instructor I got to go north on a 115nm trip. The weather wasn't too good so the whole flight was flown between 2000-2500ft, a little lower than I would like to have been. 

Navigation 1 Plan

The navigation flights mainly comprise of checks. When approaching a turning point we have to run through, what we call, 'Pre-Hat checks'. We have to check that instruments are aligned,  and that we are sure about our next heading, altitude, airspeed and timings. When we have identified our turning point, we then turn onto our next leg and then do the 'Post-Hat checks' ensuring that we are now on the correct heading, speed and altitude, while the timer is restarted. 

After the 'Post-Hat Checks' we then do a Gross Error Check to make sure that we are heading in the right direction, otherwise we could end up with no clue where we are. After this, it is then time for the general cruise checks using the acronym CLEAROF. We then keep tracking for that leg and keep on track using 'Event Cycle Features' which are features we can look out for along the way to make sure we are heading in the right direction. For these short flights, its then time to approach another turn and the process starts all over again....

I'm not sure how boring all of the above is, so here is some pictures from my second navigation flight which I did today (Saturday), south of Hamilton.

Navigation 2 Plan - the big black line is a diversion that we practised in flight.

Lake Taupo on a sunny but hazy day.

Lake Taupo - the white dot just above the centre is one my coursemates flying the same route in reverse.

Not much has happened this week, most of us have been rather busy flying nearly every day. Hopefully we will be keeping this pace up, as we seem to be racking up the hours and pushing quickly through the course.

I've added a few pictures from the last week or so on the photos page, and with the sun being around, hopefully there will be many more sunny pics to come.

Solos & IFR

This week started off well flying-wise with me managing 4 flights. I have had 2 solos and 2 duals. My solos were 1 ½ hours of circuits, and 2 hours out-of-circuit PFLs and Steep Turns. The 1 ½ hours of circuits was the same as before, however it was the first time that I have done it at Hamilton Airport, where it is rather more busy and controlled compared to Whakatane, where I had done the rest of my circuits so far.

The 2 hour solo (PFLs and Steep Turns) was the first time that I have left the airport’s control zone by myself. It meant I had to fly the departure away from the airport to a point called Scotsman’s Valley, hang around a place just north of Morrinsville for around an hour and a half, while practicing the exercises and then returning via the reverse track back for an arrival into Hamilton. All went very well and you can see my track below. You can see just how many turns & PFLs I did !!!!!

The above tracking system is what we call Spidertracks. It uses a little bit of kit inside the cockpit which reports our position every 2 minutes so that we can be easily tracked throughout our flight.

Other than flying solo, I have had my first 2 IFR flights. These basically consisted of me wearing a non-fetching hood, meaning that I couldn’t see anything outside the cockpit. This allowed me to practice flying entirely on the instruments, which could be very helpful if we ever inadvertently entered some cloud where we would have no outside cues. I have a further 4 IFR flights in the Katana practising much of the same sort of stuff.

IFR Hood

Away from flying, not much else has happened this week. We have just seen on our notice board here at Clearways that 3 of our CP106 coursemates are supposed to be joining us at the end of November. Bearing in mind that we’ve only been here just under two months now, it feels that we have been here for a lot longer than that; we have though been very lucky to have got so much flying done so far. Hopefully, the weather will stay true to the forecast as we have sunshine and 22/23 degrees for the next 5 days (none of the snow like back in the UK). It just better stay nice tomorrow as I have my second out-of-circuits solo with a Sunday alarm of 06:30AM. Nice.

Speak next week….

The beginning of early starts.....

This week I finished my fortnight of no flying and managed to get up in the air for just a couple of flights. My 2 lessons this week were steep turns and PFLs (Practise Forced Landings). The steep turns lesson mainly focused on making 45 degree turns, as well as collision avoidance turns and recovering from spiral dives. The PFLs lesson looked at the pattern we have to fly if we experienced an engine failure, and how to make a landing in a field below - with no power. A couple of my patterns left me a bit too high but should have got me down!!!

A very early morning check, for a flight that eventually didn't happen.

I was supposed to have gone up for a 2 hour solo for me to practise PFLs and steep turns on my own, but unfortunately the weather has been pretty bad for the last few days and it meant I had to cancel the same lesson 4 times. To make matters worse, 2 of the days I was scheduled to fly meant my alarm was set for 04:15AM - too early especially when I didn't get to fly, but I better get use to them.

Aside from flying, not much else has happened this week, except for 4 new additions to Clearways - kittens. As you will probably agree from the picture below they are quite cute. There are two tabbies and two black-striped ones, all from the same tabby mother.

2 New Additions

The weather has got better today and from the NZ forecast we are set to have 10 days of sunshine, so hopefully there will be lots of flights this week for me to tell you about in my next post.....

At least the grass has grown......

You may have read the title of this post and thought how boring can it be...well this week it has been very boring with another week passing without any flights. I was scheduled for one but just as I was walking out towards the plane, reports of strong crosswind forced me to cancel the flight.

The grass outside my room is growing phenomenally fast.

As you can see in the picture, we have cats here at Clearways. So far I have seen 5 with 2 only being official residents. One is supposed to have had 8 kittens recently but have yet to be seen as they are apparently hiding in the bushes.

The rest of this week has been occupied by golf. I have played nearly every day this week and has been much needed to pass the time in the afternoons. Below is a couple of shots from Lochiel Golf Club which we played today and is located very close to Clearways and the airport; nearly all the time we have aircraft flying above us making their final approach to land. I would like to say that I'm improving at golf after all the practise we are getting, however after the last 2 days I can't.

The Approach To The 4th Green

The 7th - Par 3

So apart from golfing, watching grass and cats outside my window, I can't really tell you anymore. I was hoping for a few flights this week but hopefully next week will bring some. I should be coming around to a lot of solos. Out of the next 20 flights, 12 are solos practising everything we have done so far (stalling, turning, circuits, forced landings and general handing) as well as navigation, which I have yet to do.

Sorry for another 'boring' post, but hopefully I'll have more to tell in a weeks time.