FLYING OVER THE FOG

TUESDAY 26TH OCTOBER

Position:  Over Rotowaro - five miles South-west of Huntly

Altitude:  2000'

Aircraft:  C-172, ZK-JGP

Weather:  See the photo!!! 

 

I had taken today off work to make it a 4-day weekend so had booked JGP first thing this morning.  My original intention was to fly North following the river up to Port Waikato and then back via the West coast and Raglan.  Didn't quite turn out like that due to our old friend, the weather!!

The ATIS had shown fog patches in the vicinity of Hamilton, few cloud at 100' and 500' and variable 3kt wind.  I could see the haze and cloud but there was very little fog to see.  That was until I was on my way North and about three miles South of Huntly.  Beyond the Hakarimata range was a sea of low cloud for a couple of miles either side of the river with the Huntly power station chimneys poking through like a two pronged fork.  Hmm!!  An ATIS for an (imaginary) Huntly airfield would have read: overcast at 100 feet!!  I made a radio call to report this (had a call from someone at Whakatane for a weather report for Hamilton a little earlier) and another station responded with, "It's all the way to the Bombay Hills, mate"!  Change of plan, then.

A look to the South-west showed the weather around Raglan was BEAUTIFUL!! - see photo below.  So, it was off to Raglan, overhead there, and back home to Hamilton for a few circuits.  These went really well but were interesting as the clouds were hanging about circuit height just to West of the airport necessitating a bit of cloud dodging in a left hand circuit off 18.  I did about five circuits including a flapless and a glide all pretty well and left for home for a well earned cup of coffee!!