jacklawson1994 : PT1 Passed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for the slight delay in this post but I have my family visiting me at the moment, so I have finally started to explore more of New Zealand. The big news though for this week is that I have passed my PT1 - the first progress test with CTC.

After waking up to poor weather on Friday morning, I wasn't expecting the test to go ahead as the poor cloud base meant there wasn't much height for my navigation legs or stall recoveries. However, we went ahead and after 1.9 hours of me trying to hold my nerves as much as possible, I was informed of me passing as I taxied in after landing. I was quite happy with the actual hands-on flying of the aircraft during the flight, I now just need to work on expanding my checklists, ensure I always complete thorough lookouts and I make sure that I use my feet!!!! It means I now only have 3 more night flights on the Katana, but apart from that I should be ready to start my next stage of training on the 20th January - hopefully with a lot of time off in-between.

With my parents arriving during Friday afternoon, I have spent the weekend visiting 'Bridal Veil Falls', Raglan, 'HellsGate' and Rotorua. Saturday we visited the coastal resort of Raglan and Bridal Veil Falls, which is a 55m high waterfall around an hours drive from Hamilton - I didn't quite realise the drop until I was stood over it!!!

HellsGate is a geothermal park near Rotorua which features boiling mud spots, hot springs and a mini mud-volcano. The downside of visiting this place is the amount of sulphur released - producing a rotten-eggy type of smell, now lingering on me and my clothes.

Anyway, some of the pictures of my exploring are below. I hope to be visiting Auckland for New Years so hopefully there will be a few firework photos next week.