"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!!!