NOT ONE OF MY BEST DAYS!!

I guess we all have our "off" days and I think today was one for me and flying!

Due to a combination of work and weather I had not been up for 4 weeks and was keen to get going again.  I had booked one of the club's older Archers, UFS, for two hours in the morning.  It was pretty chilly at -2 overnight but after a touch of morning fog all was clear and sunny over the field by 1000.  After unwrapping the plane and preflighting, it was a bit of a mission to coax a cold UFS into life (I was a bit concerned about the battery for a wee while until the engine eventually fired at my fourth attempt!)

I promptly called the tower and asked for a city departure clearance and, what had I forgotten? Yep, the ATIS, der!! - not a great start.  The tower were very forgiving and gave me the clearance to taxi to holding point Golf for 18R (the smaller sealed runway), my city clearance and a brief on the ATIS - thanks guys and sorry, I guess I was way too eager to get into the air.

Things progressed pretty smoothly after that.  While I was running up they changed the duty runway to 36 and from Golf the tower asked me to take off from 25R, no problem in a 3 knot variable wind and merely a 180º turn from that holding point and a very short taxi to line up on 25R.  I departed over the city, climbing to 2000 feet once clear of the CTR and to the North, Ngaruawahia, Taupiri, the Hakarimata range and Huntly were all shrouded in low cloud/fog up to about 1200', the tops of the hills almost completely covered.  It didn't look too inviting.

It was much clearer over Raglan harbour to the west so my plans changed and after a traffic call on 119.1, "Te Kowhai traffic, UFS is Horotiu, 2000', turning left on track Raglan".  I got to Raglan uneventfully, turning over the airfield there to track back to Hamilton.  As I was crossing the foothills North of Pirongia listening to the tower after getting the new ATIS, it sounded as if there was a bit of a holding queue for the North arrival so I elected to turn South and track around the control zone, eventually calling the Tower at Kihikihi (SE corner of the zone) where, after only a short delay, was cleared South arrival.

When approaching Mystery Creek (reporting and holding point on South arrival) I was instructed to track overhead the tower maintaining 1700' and join left downwind for 36L.  No problem with that, I reported turning downwind and once the tower heard that a North arriving aircraft had me in sight, I was cleared to approach "descent unrestricted" and cleared for circuits.

This approach went pretty well.  I had the speeds just about right but was just a tad late on the flare so the nosewheel touched down a little quicker after the mains than ideal, throttle forward, flaps to 10º and back into the circuit.

The next one wasn't so good.  Approach was OK but this time the flare was somewhat early and a bumpy landing on the mainwheels resulted.  Back into the circuit for the last one (time just about up) as I turned downwind an ATR was being cleared to backtrack to start its takeoff roll on 36R and it was no surprise that I was asked to make a short approach to 36L for a full stop.  All looked good until short final where I was high. I closed the throttle almost fully and got back about right but my rate of sink was too high.  I bounced on the seal, settled, bounced again, blipped the throttle to stop the sink and bounced very slightly the third time!!  

I taxied off the runway cursing myself.  No excuses - light wind and good visibility, etc.  That was the messiest landing since a fairly big "Cessna bounce" at Great Barrier over 18 months ago and I was annoyed with and a bit ashamed of myself.  A bit of lack of currency, I guess, but, never mind, Spring is not far away and more time to fly, hopefully.

To cap it all, when I parked at the pumps to refuel the earthing wire was completely tangled around the spool and the fuel line and it took a good 10 minutes to sort it out!!!

Oh well, there's always next week - two flights booked in C172 "WAM", one dual at night to Auckland.  Should be fun if the weather holds - fingers crossed.