Last Few VFR Flights............

When I ended my blog with “I just hope next week will be as eventful as the last.......” last week, I didn’t quite expect the amount of flying I have done this week; this week has been the busiest yet with me completing another 9 flights and it means I should have only 3 more day flights on the Katana Aircraft (+3 night flights) before moving onto the next stage of training.

Early start this week

With 17.6 hours of flying completed this week, I now only have two more solo-flights before my PT1. PT1 is the first progress test here at CTC. It is an in-house test which is run in a similar format to the final Commercial Pilot’s Licence skills test. I will be examined on my planning, departure, steep turns, stalling, navigation, instrument flying, emergencies, circuits, arrivals, cockpit management, aircraft knowledge and radio work; in essence everything I have been practising over the last 49 flights. Today I had a mock-PT1 which went well so hopefully the same will be said for the real thing.

This week has been my opportunity for many navigation flights. So here are just a few pictures from the last weeks worth of flying.

Geysers Close To Rotorua - shame they produce a eggy-sulphur smell when overhead

East Coast

East Coast Cliffs

The "White Cliffs Of New Zealand"

I hope that over the next week (excluding Christmas Day & Boxing Day), I will have completed and passed my PT1. This means that I will have finished the VFR (Visual Flight Rules) stage of my training and I will then be on the IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) stage. It means I will only be flying the Katana aircraft 3 more times at night and I will only have 1 more solo-flight for the rest of my training, before flying the Cessna 172 and then eventually the twin-engined 'Twinstar'. The VFR stage involves around 80-90% of your time looking out of the aircraft, while having quick glances at the instruments. The IFR stage is completely different where you spend nearly all of your time focusing on the glass-cockpit displays and instruments.The glass cockpits are very much airline-orientated and with these flights it means I will be able to finally enter cloud and use a lot of the navigational aids at the airports.

Anyway, I will finish this post by wishing you a Merry Christmas from a sunny & warm NZ