A NEW MONTH - AND OFF TO VIEW "THE GREAT LAKE"

After all the c**p weather for the last 10 days or so and two aborted bookings due to lousy conditions my heart leapt a beat when I woke up today to see a beautiful clear morning and not much wind. I had WIT booked for two hours to take up Ray, a friend from church. Ray has an engineering background and I knew would really enjoy a trip "up". I got out of bed straight away and onto the computer to check the weather around likely destinations for an hour and a half or so flight. Clear day - go and see the mountains, I thought, and sorted out a flight plan for Taupo. So, a quick call to Ray to make sure he was still "on" and off to the club. Ray arrived just as I did and I showed him around WIT. He was suitably impressed by the Archer III's "mod-cons". I also saw Roger and congratulated him on his recent A-Cat achievement. Very well done, Rog, if you're reading this. I checked the latest weather which was satisfactory and filed the appropriate flight plan. After taxi and a swamp departure clearance we joined the usual queue behind a CTC Twinstar and Katana. Roll on the end of the runway works is what I say!! Noticed that the new seal has 36L painted on its Southern end now so maybe not long before we have our nice new 18R/36L ready to roll. After a Dash-8 landed the twinstar was allowed to backtrack north of the eastern taxiway and the Katana and I given clearance to line up once the Dash-8 had cleared. Three on the runway became four as a C-172 was cleared to line up behind me as the Katana started to roll. Is this a record??? The Katana was turning right so I was cleared to take off without much delay which made up a bit for the queuing and we were on our way to Taupo. The sky was clear apart from the haze which you get used to in the Waikato and after clearing the zone we climbed up to 3500' and told Christchurch Information our intentions. It was pretty smooth apart from a few bumps around Mangakino and we were approaching Taupo just about on time (about 1 minute late) so that part of the flight plan was good.

VIEW FROM THE RIGHT HAND SEAT APPROACHING MANGAKINO

There was rather more drift to the West than I had originally planned for (the wind was becoming more easterly the further South we went) but that was pretty easily taken care of by map reading and local knowledge.
I had originally planned on a touch and go at Taupo but the delay in the queue at Hamilton and needing to be back in Hamilton by lunchtime prompted a decision to turn back over the boat harbour and head for home. The only traffic around appeared to be over Kinloch where someone looked to be practising some steep turns. No other aircraft about or on the radio and no parachutes visible to the South.

HAZY VIEW OF THE MOUNTAINS


THE SUN OUT OVER TAUPO

Ray had been manning the camera enthusiastically and had filled up my memory card by now (I found this out when I loaded the 84 frames onto my computer) There were some good shots there so thanks for that mate.
We made good time back to Hamiton thanks to a 15 or so knot wind almost on our tail and we tracked up Lake Arapuni, along Karapiro and over Cambridge for a South arrival. The wind had got up a bit - 12 knots gusting 18 - but 180° so straight up/down the runway. It was certainly a bit gusty on finals but the landing was pretty good and straight. After shutting down I checked the fuel. We started with 90 litres in each and ended with 70 in one and 50 in the other (Yes, I know, I was a bit asymmetric with the tank changes!!). 60 litres burnt for 1.5 hours total flight time. That 40 litres an hour for the Archer is about right then!
A very happy passenger and I parted company at the club and I headed home for a spot of lunch and a walk round the lake with the missus.