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.