A MORNING BY OR, RATHER, A FEW FEET ABOVE THE BEACH.....

Well, the weather gods were kind this morning and I headed off to the club looking forward to getting a bit of low flying practice and instruction with Roger. It would be the first time for proper low flying (i.e. at a genuine low level rather than adopting the low flying configuration at altitude) since my flight test back in November 2007 and the first time in an Archer. Any debate in my mind as to whether we should go out to the Eastern or Western low flying area was cut short by Roger cheerfully telling me to head out to Raglan and we would do some real coastal low flying.
So we got a Pirongia departure and headed of to Raglan. Once there I was told to start tracking up the coast to the North and descend to 500'.


THE COAST JUST NORTH OF RAGLAN
PRETTY BENIGN AT 2500' - MORE TIGER COUNTRY LIKE AT 500'!!

We barrelled along at this height just off the coast without setting up the bed weather configuration quite then to get an idea how (apparently) things were happening at that lower height. It was also quite turbulent (good for me , so said Rog). After working out the wind was from the east (off the shore), I was then allowed to set up for 80 knots with a bit of flap and try some coastal reversal turns. On the first one I tracked out too far and was well away from the beach when I turned back - better than hitting the cliffs, though!! - but pretty much got it right on the second attempt. After a few more of those Roger showed me a steep turn towards the beach from just a wee way out (breaker line on the wingtip). With the wind's help a surprisingly tight turn was achievable - then it was my turn for a couple of those, one each way - slightly "further out" for the left hand because of the different perspective.
Then the "rising terrain" demo. Roger took control and turned towards the bluffs "trying" to get over them and showing how the airspeed dropped off with the nose up and then how to get out of the situation. Turn back towards the beach and lower the nose to gain airspeed - pretty simple really but maybe hard to remember in a genuine and stressful emergency situation.
After all this fun, time had flown past and it was time to head back to Hamilton. First attempt to approach was behind a 172 and Roger took the opportunity to set up for some slow flying. Partial power, full flap and down to 55 knots and he then handed the control back to me. I kept it nice and smooth until we were told to line up for the grass for an overshoot (a Dash-8 was going out after the landing Cessna) whereupon we went around. I did a fairly good landing on the next approach - a slight "float" (bit too much throttle) but nice and smooth in the end. After we shut down the comments from Roger were pretty positive which was encouraging and, all-in-all, a fun morning up in the air.