WEATHER, COMMUNICATION, DECISION MAKING, PERSONAL LIMITS:- ALL THAT AIRMANSHIP SORT OF STUFF

THURSDAY 1ST APRIL

Well, this turned out to be an interesting day, as they say.

I had arranged to take friend Ray up in WIT for a flight and planned to go over to Pauanui Beach for another "expensive" coffee.  On my way to the club, Ray contacted me to say he couldn't come.  Oh well, another time, perhaps, but that didn't change my intentions and I duly preflighted and filed a flight plan for Hamilton to Pauanui and back.

The weather was very benign at Hamilton - a light wind and cloud base 4700'.  Even the 4 knot wind on the ATIS report looked an overestimate as the windsocks were pretty much flat against their poles!  It looked a bit cloudier to the North but all the Kaimai peaks were clearly visible so all looked good to go.

Once through the Waihi gap and heading towards the coast it was clear that the weather on the eastern side of the Coromandel Peninsula was a bit different (and NOT forecast as such).  I was soon flying up the coast into lowering cloud and descended to 1800' at Whangamata when the rain hit, a short, sharp shower.  Visibility stayed acceptable, though, as I could see Tairua 10 miles to the North through the squall and it was clearer in all other directions.  About a minute later I was through the worst of it and descended to 1500' radioing my intentions to join overhead at Pauanui for landing.

I set up to orbit over the airfield and once I spotted the windsocks I could see that there was a fairly brisk crosswind, like windsock at 90º to the runway and near horizontal.  Hmm!, about a 15 knot crosswind, so too much for me on a small airstrip on what is supposed to be a fun flight so I descended into the circuit for 05 runway and did a missed approach and overshoot going around at about 300' and reversed my course back to Hamilton.

Once away from the coast through the Waihi gap the weather improved and was benign again.  I had been communicating my intentions to Christchurch Information and keeping a monitoring ear on their transmissions throughout the flight.  At the Eastern end of the gap I heard one of our club planes, WKF (a Robin) calling Christchurch giving his intentions to fly to Pauanui Beach.  Well, well, I thought, I had better give a weather report so he doesn't get an unpleasant surprise the other side of the ranges.  Looking back I could see the weather on the coast had not improved much, if at all, just moving to the SE.  So I called Info and gave them a report on the conditions at Pauanui, namely the crosswind for WKF's information.  They thanked me and passed it on to WKF who had been listening anyway (good airman!).

The rest of the flight passed uneventfully and at a quiet Hamilton (most of the club planes away at the Warbirds or the Northern Air race) I was cleared to join straight in for a long final and it was a nice smooth landing on 18Left.

So, lessons learned, or rather putting into practice what I have learned before: weather forecasts are FORECASTS and should not be relied on; when weather looks against you make sure you have an "escape" plan (e.g. turn around into the better weather); know your personal limits, like, I have landed Cherokees at Hamilton in a 15 knot crosswind with an instructor in the right hand seat but would not want to do it alone at a (relatively) strange or short airfield unless I absolutely had to; and, communication (the last of the "Holy Trinity" of flying*) - it is common courtesy to pass on any adverse conditions to other pilots; you never know, you could be saving someone from bending an aircraft of worse!

*For non-aviators, the "Holy Trinity" of flying is: Aviate (fly the plane), Navigate (know where you are) and Communicate (tell someone what you are doing/intend to do) - in that order.