TRAFFIC CONGESTION - NOT JUST THE ROADS!

THURSDAY 25TH MARCH

I had the Arrow, DQV, booked for a couple of hours this morning for a bit of "keeping current" (you know, like remembering to retract and lower the undercarriage!!!).  The weather forecast was none too good last night but, after an overnight shower, the day dawned clear enough and there were numerous balloons up after dawn as this the "Balloons Over Waikato" week.  They were all gone by 1000, though when I drove over to the Club to drag DQV out of its hangar and go off for a flight.

The weather was behaving as predicted with a front on its way and nasty, dark grey clouds to the South-West.  I decided a local flight over the city would be a good plan followed by some circuits.  After preflighting and starting up I got the ATIS to find there was a 15 knot crosswind from the West on 18 which was no real problem for take-off but might be for landing if it got up any more and I couldn't use the cross runways (07/25, L&R - yes, we have four runways at Hamilton).

After running up and pre-take-off checks I was cleared to taxi to E2 holding point and while still on my way cleared to take off from 18L - with another aircraft on final.  So it was line up checks (transponder to mode C and landing light on) while taxying, onto the runway and full throttle, column into the wind, of course and rotating at 65 knots.  Wow, a fair bit of wind, too, as I started to drift to the left immediately after lift off in spite of my best efforts on the rudder.  I got it sorted pretty smartly, though, wheels up, fuel pump and landing light off, flaps up and climbing power and pitch set all at the appropriate times and turned right as cleared out to the North over the city.

After clearing the zone I climbed to 2000 feet and headed towards the North and had a good look around.  Oooh, those clouds are closing in pretty quickly and it looks like it is raining already just South of the airport so I decided to head for home, turning South for Temple View and checking the ATIS which hadn't changed (yet!).  I called in to the tower requesting a return for circuits if available, to which the tower replied to clear me for circuits "seeing as you are a nice, polite guy", or words to that effect.  Gosh, thanks folks, please spare my blushes.  After getting said clearance, I headed for the reporting point at Rukuhia and, once there, was instructed to join right hand downwind for 25R - hooray!, landing into the wind (which was 250º at 15 knots).  I was told to maintain 1700' and extend downwind as, with the weather deteriorating, everyone was coming back in.  I could hear at least 3 other light aircraft being instructed to join for the 25 runways.

By the time I was cleared to descend to circuit height, I had been going downwind for at least two minutes (which meant 3 miles at 90 knots - I had slowed down a bit and got the wheels down) and was further instructed not to turn base for another 30 seconds to allow another plane to pass behind.  I sorted that out and was soon on a fairly long (at least 4 mile) final.  I was given number one for 25R for touch and go and at that point a CTC Katana appeared on my 2 o'clock.  This was a touch unexpected as I had heard the tower call to a CTC plane to join BEHIND me.  Whooops!

The tower called in an rather terse voice to inform said Katana that he had just cut in front of me and called me to give me number two in a more apologetic voice.  I replied I had the conflicting traffic in sight as well as a Cessna who was doing as instructed and joining behind.  Now a Diamond DA20 Katana is a fairly low powered trainer and, compared to a Cherokee Arrow, a tad on the slow side and I was now behind him.  I slowed down as much as I could while still looking after the engine and dropped another notch of flap.  It wasn't enough, I was still closing at 70 knots and the tower asked me if I could change to 25L, that was affirmative and I changed course for the parallel runway.  

The Katana touched and went just before I crossed the threshold beside him.  I touched down nicely, pushed the throttle and pitch lever fully forward (yes, I missed that check on final because of the diversion, I think), and took off not too far behind the other plane.  He was told to carry on straight ahead and I was given an early left turn for a circuit.  I could hear there was another Katana joining for the circuit and another Cessna was above and to the right, I think joining right hand downwind.

The rain had now started so I called for a full stop, flew a nice tight circuit and got the speeds and checks all nicely done for (I thought) a very pretty landing just beyond the runway threshold and taxied off back to the fuel pumps.  I was pretty cross about being cut up like that but didn't think it worth any further action.  The circuit controller in the tower had sounded pretty pissed when talking to the CTC pilot so any further action is up to them, I reckon.

At least I didn't get too wet refuelling and by the time I set off home the weather had improved a bit so maybe I should have done another circuit or two.  Never mind, there is always another day!!  I got home to find I still had the aircraft keys in my pocket.  Oh dear, what a twit!  Only 10 minutes to drive back though so big major deal - at least they got back before anyone else needed them!!

THE $400 COFFEE SYNDROME

WOW!!  What a fantastic day for flying!!  The temperature at the airport may have been 0ºC at 0700 this morning but the sky was clear with a light variable wind at ground level.  By the time I arrived at the club at 0845 the sun was shining brightly (a bit low but you can't have everything!!!) and it was warming up.

I met up with my work colleague, Hament, who was coming up with me and I had planned a trip down to New Plymouth - never flown into there before and wanted to visit Jim Hickey's cafe there (He's a TVNZ weatherman for those that don't know, a flyer himself and the son of a WWII spitfire pilot).

Did the usual preflight on WIT, had 4 hours of usable gas on board so we got in and without any delay we were cleared on track to New Plymouth leaving via the Pirongia sector (South-West).

I set the "direct to" feature on the GPS to the Ohura VOR as I had decided to go inland over the King Country on the way down and come back via the West Coast.  I had to track a bit further West to avoid the instrument sector but once clear of the control zone I turned back to intercept my course, climbed to 4500' just South of Otorohanga, set the autopilot, leaned the mixture correctly (thinking fuel economy), called Christchurch Information with my intentions and settled back to keep a lookout and admire the view.

And what a view!!  A panorama of the West Coast to the right all the way from Karioi to the North (near Raglan) down to Mount Taranaki to the South and out of the left hand window the central mountains (Ruapehu, Ngarahoe and Tongariro) were laid out in their splendour with very little haze around.

We chugged along (the wind was pretty much dead ahead and ground speed down to 95 knots) for about 30 minutes to nearly the Ohura beacon and then turned West to the coast at the Tongaporutu river with our destination now in view (50km+ visibility is great!)  The weather at New Plymouth was benign, a 5 knot wind at 060 and runway 05 on duty.  I called the tower at 5 miles from the zone and was cleared in 2500' or below and to report at Motunui (large industrial complex and difficult to miss).  I reported as instructed and was cleared to join left hand downwind for 05.  
I descended to the circuit height (1100 feet) and lined up for the approach.  I ended up a bit close to the runway on downwind (new aerodrome to me) so it was a very short base leg and a bit (well, quite a lot, actually) high on early finals.  I closed the throttle, full flap, nose down to get back on the correct glidepath and then raised the nose to bleed off the airspeed.  Hmm!, looks like I am going to land a bit long, so I thought about going around, but a quick assessment of the amount of runway left looked more than ample so I committed myself to land, held off and closed the throttle, nose up and a very smooth landing resulted with only a gentle touch on the brakes needed to slow right down to taxi off and park by the tower.

We made our way to the terminal and the Airpresso Cafe where Hament bought me a coffee and a delicious slice of blueberry and lemon cake.  This is a good cafe for anyone interested in aviation or WWII history as there are photos and models of aircraft, biographies and some memorabilia of wartime pilots from the Taranaki area.

Anyway our "morning tea" was over quite soon and it was time to head for home.  I did a brief preflight and checking the fuel found we had used between 35 and 40 litres for a time of 1.2 hours.  Pretty good and showed my economy efforts had worked.  The wind had changed and we left off runway 23 with right turns to track back seaward of the coast to the North.  With the wind behind us now the ground speed was up to 125 knots even in the climb.  I levelled off at 1500 feet until clear of the control zone and then climbed to 2500' for the coastal cruise back to Hamilton.  The view was still great but noticeably hazy now and the mountain panorama not quite so fabulous.

We were significantly quicker back to base (1 hour for a total of 2.2 hours) and again it was a pretty good landing back home, much more precise than the one at New Plymouth.  After all, it is my home base.  The wind was light but a bit gusty and I landed right wheel first which was correct as there was a bit of right to left cross wind. (When I looked a few minutes later it was left to right at the other end of the runway, so I wasn't imagining the variability!)

So, safely home and another great flight.  Hament thoroughly enjoyed it so that was good.  Must go again sometime......

TWINS - TWICE THE FUN: FOUR TIMES THE HASSLE??!!

A big day for my flying experience today.  I had booked a session wth instructor Ash in the club's Twin Commanche ZK-DOK.  I turned up at the club just a couple of minutes past 1400 to find Ash waiting for me.  We went into his office for the briefing - all done via a powerpoint type presentation on a computer - no different to the printed stuff I had read over the past few weeks but good to have Ash go over it and emphasise the important points and what we would cover on a type introduction flight.

After that, it was over to the hangar to preflight and get DOK out ready to fly.  The fuel drain procedure was interesting and very different from what I am used to.  Basically there are six tanks; main, auxiliary and tip in each wing and each wing's tanks drain via a central tube.  So, select each tank in turn and pull the drain levers which are under a cover between the front seats remembering, of course, to put the bucket under the drain tubes first!!  The rest of the preflight was very much like the Arrow, but with two engines to check and six tanks to dip.  We had about six hours fuel on board so we were good to go.

Start up went fairly smoothly once I had, with Ash's help, located all the switches and gauges - a somewhat different layout to a Piper single.

Taxi was not much different to the twin's smaller brethren and the only difference for the engine run-up, apart from doing it for each engine, was the prop feathering check.  Once that was all out of the way we taxied over towards Echo 1 (having already been cleared for this and a Scott departure) and as I called ready we were instructed to line up on 18L and cleared for take-off as we lined up.  Line up checks done, feet on the brakes, 2000rpm on both, release brakes, full throttle once rolling, everything green, rotate at 70 knots and then hold the nose down to let the speed build to the blue line (minimum single engine speed), gear up, climbing power and pitch, attitude for 100 knots, landing light and fuel pump off.  By this time we were 500' above ground level (this baby CLIMBS!!) and turning crosswind.  At this point the tower cleared us to 2500' or below so we carried on climbing in the circuit and left from downwind on our Easterly departure.

Once over Lake Karapiro Ash got me to do some turns.  No pussyfooting here, straight into a steep turn to the left.  Nailed that OK only losing a few feet on the roll-out at the end.  The right turn wasn't so good.  About halfway round the nose dropped slightly and I started to pull back on the column, WHOA, still losing height - I lost 150 feet before getting it under control and had regained the height by roll-out but this was a good lesson on how quickly things can start to go wrong on this larger, faster bird.  Then it was a basic stall and approach stall, recovering both at the onset with no more than about 150' loss on the latter so that was really good, I thought.

It was now time to head for home having progressed along the full length of the lake very quickly.  On the way back we did a simulated engine failure.  Ash covered up the mixture levers and closed one of them.  The plane lurched to the left and I fairly quickly, with a bit of guidance from Ash, got the plane flying straight with some right rudder and appropriate aileron and going to full throttle.  This was easier than I thought it would be.  So, my right leg is on the rudder, so the left is "dead" - dead leg, dead engine, left identified, close throttle on left, no change, left engine failure verified, feather the propeller.  Once the left propeller was no longer windmilling and producing drag, control was significantly easier, as expected.

The next step was an air start of the left engine.  This is where I got a bit flustered as this is not easy for a first timer.  Mixture lean, pitch about two-thirds toward fine, throttle open a crack and crank the engine.  Once windmilling, mixture rich and..... the engine dies as I was late on the mixture movement.  Tried again, not quite right - dammit!!  Third time lucky and I have got a functioning left engine again.

Then it was back to Hamilton and into the circuit.  Once downwind, number two for approach, we slowed down, lowered the gear, downwind checks and I made a reasonable approach, only geting a bit high on long final.  Checked green light and mirror for gear down on final, mixture rich, prop pitches fine and at 300 feet (500 indicated) we were committed to land (i.e. if an engine fails we still land - no going around at or below that height) so slow down to cross the threshold at about 80 knots, flare and land.  There was a bit of a crosswind so we had to crab a bit, straighten and land upwind wing down which I just about did but it didn't feel too pretty.  Oh well, not bad for a first go.

Postscript:  Well, that was fun but I don't think I will be doing a twin rating in the foreseeable future.  Apart from the cost (twice as much as a single to hire) there is also the problem of maintaining currency which, as a still working recreational PPL would be a real challenge.  If I were fully retired, able to fly several times a week with the same income as when working, it could be a different story.

Thanks again, Ash, great lesson.  The amount of sweat down my back by the end (commented upon by one of the other instructors) is testament to how much hard work that was!!!

"WEATHER TO FLY" - A TALE OF THREE FLIGHTS...

Over the past few weeks I have had some "interesting" times with the weather as, despite all the press reports of record dries and high temperatures, the weather for flying has been challenging at times, not just last Thursday as you read in the last post.

So, no more dodging around, I shall begin at the beginning......

THURSDAY 18TH FEBRUARY

I had arranged to take one of the pastors from our church, Sheridyn, up for a flight.  He had said a while ago he had wanted to be a pilot when at school and was still interested in aviation,  So, we met up at the club where I was waiting and casting rather concerned eyes around at the weather.  There was virtually no wind but the ATIS had given the cloud base at 2500 feet, it was much lower than that to the South and West, and the temperature and dew point were only one degree apart.  So, if it wasn't already raining, it would be soon!!

Any plans for a cross country flight had been ditched a while before and I decided a short local flight over Morrinsville way would be OK as the weather looked the clearest in that direction.  Sheridyn immediately recognised WIT as a Piper Cherokee and I showed him around it while preflighting.  We hopped in and were on our way.  the climb out was very laboured, which I was expecting, high(ish) temperature, low pressure (around the 1000 mark) and that humidity certainly had a deleterious effect on performance.

I set course for Scotsman Valley once out of the circuit and to Morrinsville.  All good so far but looking back towards Hamilton it was pretty obvious the weather was going to close in so going much further afield did not seem a good idea and we headed back to the west to Huntly and then through the Taupiri gap following the Waikato River back to Hamilton.  It was getting a bit murkier with a few drops ofrain but visibility stayed good all the way backinto the circuit.

We were directed over the tower to join left hand downwind for 18 and after an uneventful approach for  the smaller runway (18R) I landed with a bit of a float and a bump having flared a tad early.  I quickly apologised to Sheridyn who didn't mind at all.  he said he thought the landing wasn't bad at all and he'd had much worse courtesy of Air New Zealand!!!  Anyway, another 1.0 hours in the logbook and a good practical demonstration of Mother Nature's effects on flying in general and aircraft performance in particular.

SUNDAY 28TH FEBRUARY

This was a really good day.  We had an old friend, Maeve, staying with us.  I did my postgrad training with her in the UK and hadn't seen her for about 21 years.  She now works in Scotland and was on a bit of a sabbatical down-under together with some holiday.  She used to do skydiving and was really keen to go up with me.

The day dawned with overcast skies but the base was 6000 feet and forecast was for a sunny, warm day.  Sure enough, by 0830 gaps were appearing in the cloud and by the time we rotated off the runway the skies were almost clear.

I had done a flight plan to take us to Tauranga, touch and go there and then tracking up Matakana Island to Waihi and then home via the Waihi gap - about and hour in the air.

Winds were light, the barometer was high, low (for Hamilton) humidity and as it was fairly early in the morning the temperature wasn't that high so performance was noticeably better than 10 days before!

I didn't need to tie Maeve in too tightly to stop her jumping out!!  It would have been difficult in a low wing plane anyway.  She loved the flight.  We had great views of the Kaimai ranges and along the Bay of Plenty coast.  Maeve was amazed to see an open cast gold mine from the air (Martha Mine at Waihi).  The touch and go at Tauranga was good - smooth roll of the wheels onto the grass runway and straight off again keeping an eye on the 172 who was orbiting the Mount and followed us up the Matakana coast.

As soon as we turned south at Paeroa you could tell we were in the Waikato - that haze!!!  Other than that, it was an uneventful flight back.  We were cleared to enter the control zone via the Scott sector (pretty much straight in) and joined left base for 18R - the smaller one.  You could tell the temperature had risen as there were obvious thermals on finals; I caught one just before landing and floated a bit before touching down - plenty of room to stop, though.

Great day - Great flight - my passenger said that, too!!

THURSDAY 4TH MARCH

Well, the weather forecast for today was for fine weather and light winds.  Oh yeah!!  Read on.

I had booked to go up in the Arrow and thought I would reprise last Sunday's flight to see how quicker the Arrow was compared to the Archer (if at all).

Unfortunately the best laid plans were thwarted by the weather.

It was good at Hamilton, clear with light Southerly winds of 8 to 10 knots.  However, it looked very cloudy over the Kaimais and, although the forecast wind at Tauranga was 260º at 8 knots with a gradual change to 020º at 10 knots from 1300, this was a false reassurance.  When I checked the Tauranga ATIS it was somewhat different, 220º at 15 gusting to 24 but still within my capabilities so I decided it was a go as long as I could traverse the Kaimais safely.

I walked over to DQV's hangar to find.... no plane.  I walked back to the club to discover it was at Aeromotive for maintainence but good to go.  Only there was not a lot of fuel on board and, when I had been at club reception, one of Super Air's workers was reporting they had just about drained our tanks fuelling up the avgas tank of one of their loaders.  So, I had to taxi over to CTC to fuel up and so was quite late away, about 30 - 40 minutes.

To cap it all I was only a few minutes out when the tower called me with a SPAR from Tauranga - wind now 190º at 20 gusting 30 with crosswind component maximum 24.  Out of my league, so I thanked ATC and continued my departure to have a little think about what to do.
My decision was fairly easy to come to, Tauranga was not on for landing in those conditions so I flew to the East of Matamata and turned around for Hamilton, calling Christchurch Information to give them my intentions.  I flew back over Karapiro and Cambridge for a South arrival and a couple of circuits, two good landings and one not so great, but acceptable.  Good practice for me in the retractable.  
I taxied back to Aeromotive to hand the plane back to them for its second altimeter to be reinstalled and completion of its ARA (still had 36 days to go so I was good to fly in it).  Oh well, Weather!! - you have to live with it and respect it.
Next week - I have booked a type introduction flight in the twin - a new adventure!!!

NICE LANDING - SHAME ABOUT THE WEATHER

THURSDAY 25th FEBRUARY

I had booked another dual flight in WAM for today but the weather looked a bit ominous with lowish cloud and a look at the weather around the central North Island showed it was raining everywhere except Hamilton.  Cloud base was 2500' here, though and circuits should be fine, I thought, so headed over to the club.

WAM was in the circuit and landed just after my book-in time of 1000 so I pre-flighted, looking around at the weather which appeared to be closing in from the West.  It was clear enough over the airfield and circuit area, though so instructor, Jason was happy to go.  After calling ready I was given an "immediate" take off clearance so did the line up checks while taxying and Jason said "OK, turn and burn" as we entered the runway.  It's not an F-16 Jase!!

We took off and turned crosswind early on tower instructions and once facing towards the weather it was obvious the front was closing in rapidly, the rain spitting on us on crosswind and the deluge started on early downwind.  Previous 20km visibility rapidly became less than 2km and it was difficult to see the runways from the down wind track.  We were cleared number 1 for 36R (the main drag), I did the downwind checks, and set up for the approach.  As I turned base, the visibility had become so poor that I couldn't see the runways at all so I used the DI to line up on base, second notch of flap, and turned final at about the right point (local knowledge is a wonderful thing!) and was pretty much bang on the centre line!  Jason wasn't saying or doing anything - just letting me carry on.

As we turned final the tower instructed us to do a full stop due weather and cleared us to land.  Full flap, height and speed correct, perfectly timed round out, throttle closure and flare and I rolled the wheels onto the runway just beyond the threshold for an excellent, quite precise landing, COOL!!  The weather wasn't so cool though, the rain was coming down hard and the runway getting very wet so I didn't brake (didn't really need to on the main drag) and taxied off to the club where I got quite wet just running from the plane to the clubrooms.

Well, that was that.  I stayed for a drink and a chat to see if the weather was going to clear, which it didn't, and then headed home.  A bit frustrating that I couldn't carry on but at least one very good landing is better than none and has got my 172 confidence back.  There's always another day, as they say.