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.
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