31 January 2011

OF A GREEK HERO AND A TOUCH AND GO

Tuesday 25th January

Final for 23 at Raglan

After an abortive booking the day before (weather!!!), I managed to get JGP (WAC's older 172) for an hour and a half this afternoon.  Sweet, thought I.
So, off to the aero club and there was JGP still in its overnight cover ready to unwrap and preflight.  That was all OK apart from the fuel situation, only 25 litres in one tank and 55 in the other.  About 65 usable and not enough for even a quick hop over to Raglan and back.  So, off to refuel.  (A bit of background here - just after Christmas I managed to injure my right Achilles tendon - just a tiny tear but jolly painful at the time and just about coming right).  I pulled myself onto the left wing, fuel hose in hand and was a bit off balance so opted to drop back onto the ground landing on my right leg, flexing the ankle and putting too much stretch on my recovering Achilles - OUCH!!!!! - a wave of momentarily agonising pain shot up the middle of my calf and I knew straight away what I had done - torn the top end where the muscle joins the tendon ( a scan the next day confirmed this).  Once I got my breath back, worked out I could still move my right foot normally, albeit with a fair bit of pain (so not a complete rupture), I hobbled back to the club to get help refueling.  Roger came out and did it for me, muttering something not too charitable about the previous user leaving so little in the tanks!
Right, was I still fit to fly?  If it had been a complete tear, no way - your foot can't move - but my lower leg was still fully functional apart from walking at any speed other than slow, and a wee test on the rudder pedals on a quick taxi showed I could use full rudder without too much pain and could brake safely.  Good to go, then.
The rest of the flight went really well.  I flew across to Raglan, where the cloudy Hamilton weather gave way to bright sun and clear skies at the coast.  As time was now short (and walking around painful) I opted for a touch and go which was fine apart from being a tad high on short final and touching down a little further than ideal, but still plenty of room to take off again in JGP.  At least the landing wasn't hard and I didn't bounce!!  A 12-15 knot wind straight down the runway probably helped, too.  Back to Hamilton and a similar landing on 36L, the wind here being a northerly at 8-10 knots.  (Note to self: JGP with only one on board wants to keep flying and will glide for ever compared to an Alpha or a Cherokee!!)
Some photos:

JGP ready to go

A couple of visitors - didn't get the reg of the warrior but the aircraft to the left is ZK-CMF, an Airtourer registered to Southern Air Services, Pukekohe

A bit of flooding after the weekend rain - grass runways and taxiways were surprisingly dry and firm, though

Footnote:  The leg is much better now, thanks after only six days - the later tear was mainly in muscle and, with a much better blood supply than a tendon, heals a lot quicker.  Still having to walk somewhat slowly (very frustrating) but almost pain free and I can't run.  I was told off at work for being dumb and not getting help to refuel in the first place - male pride and all that stuff!!!

10 January 2011

MAGNIFICENT TARANAKI (OR EGMONT, IF YOU PREFER!)

Sunday 9th January 2011

The first cross-country of the year and what a good one!  After my abortive booking back in December, I was relieved to see good weather for the day.  I had three passengers with me, a work colleague, his wife and 5 year old son.  They were keen to go to New Plymouth and, although there was a significant cross wind for the main runway, New Plymouth, like Hamilton is blessed with a grass cross runway of a decent length.

It was a superb flight, both technically and aestheticly.  The two adult pax took some video (for them) and photos (on one of my cameras) and the stills mainly came out very well.  I have added some of them below.

We departed Hamilton and tracked South-west to the coast at Taharoa and then followed the coast all the way to New Plymouth - nice, easy navigation.  The New Plymouth ATIS gave a surface wind of 120ยบ at 17 knots (almost unchanged from when I copied the weather before setting out) so a pretty fierce cross wind for the main 05.  I called the tower and requested joining for runway 14 and was duly cleared to Motunui, inland from the coast, 2000' or below.  Reporting at Motunui, was instructed to orbit right hand, and before I had completed that got the call to join base leg for 14.  Good approach, only second stage of flap in that wind and a good smooth landing (nice for the passengers, that's the bit they always comment on!!).  Interesting approach, too, over the sea and the threshold is only a hundred metres or so from the shore with a little berm in front of the marker boards - you do not want to be landing short!!!
Only slight downside was being nearly 10 minutes late on my ETA but that can be blamed mainly on the winds being more southerly than forecast and the orbit rather than any overoptimism by me.

We had a coffee in Jim Hickey's lovely cafe at the terminal and then it was time to head back to base.  We had a great view of the mountain from the runway at line up and take-off and after tracking seaward of the coast as per the published departure set course direct for Hamilton to pass the coast and then over the rugged King Country.  My passengers were pleased at this routing as we passed almost directly over a property some friends of theirs farm and was fairly easy to pinpoint from the air with the help of the map, GPS and ground landmarks.  We could see Kakepuku from about 40 miles away which made navigation back to Hamilton a piece of cake - barely needed the map or GPS from then on.

We were cleared into the Pirongia and instrument sector for a right hand downwind for 18 but on reporting at Lake Ngaroto was asked if I would accept 07 - wind 070 at 6 knots so, of course, I said "Yes" to that.  I was asked to keep my speed up and join a close right base as there was a Dash 8 inbound for 36.  No problem as I was still at 1700' and descended fairly rapidly to circuit height with the AS needle at 145 Kt - in the yellow zone but in still air.  We joined nice and tight with a short final onto 07 right and a pretty good touchdown - not as smooth as at NP but very acceptable.  As we taxied off the tower thanked me and we could see the Dash 8 on a short final as we turned off the runway.  Nice to have my efforts appreciated by ATC - I appreciate theirs, too.  We were five minutes early - those winds again!

Great flight, fabulous views, happy pilot and passengers - BLISS!! 

Pictures below:
Taharoa - Ironsand mine centre right, iron-grey patch with smaller central sandy bit - the heliport is between this and the coast, very small (from 4500') white building. Taharoa airstrip can just be seen extreme left between the forest and the sea - 868m, compacted gravel!

Tongaporutu River mouth - just got down to 2500' to stay in "G" airspace and time to get the NP ATIS

Motunui methanol plant - if only all published reporting points were as barn-door obvious!

The view from line-up on RWY 14 - Mt. Taranaki looking magnificent

Waiiti Beach - between Urenui and White Cliffs - more black sand

LAZY LEGS CAN BITE YOU IN THE A***!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

SCENE: A courtroom;
Judge, in a commanding tone; Bring the prisoner forward.

Hangdog looking man in a flying suit shuffles into the dock

Judge; Usher, read the charges.

Usher, in a "courtroom" monotone; You are charged that on the first day of January, two thousand and eleven you were a student pilot in a Boeing Type 75, otherwise known as a Stearman, and, upon landing said aircraft, did cause it to slew across the runway striking a runway light, causing it to break.  How do you plead?

Prisoner; Guilty, m'lud.

Judge; Prisoner at the bar, you have pleaded guilty to the charge and it is now my duty to pass sentence upon you.  You will suffer.........

And then I woke up!  The "charges" are quite true though.  I went up in the Stearman on New Year's Day and was doing quite well, at least a bit better than before, for the first couple of circuits but on the third, with a bit of left-to-right crosswind, I pushed on the right rudder but was far too "lazy" with the left and was pretty rapidly heading for the edge of the runway - PANIC!!  By the time things were on a bit of an even keel the right hand wheel had struck a runway edge light and broken it.  I had no idea about the breakage until the tower called us and advised a landing next circuit.  In the end we were able to do a low approach and overshoot while a controller had a look at the undercarriage to check for damage.  None apparent, but I had a grandstand view of the fire personnel on the runway sweeping up the mess!!

Very humbling indeed.  Instructor Pete was very good about it and said it was fairly typical for a Cessna/Cherokee pilot to get into a bit of a mess with "Lazy Legs".  On the plus side, the Stearman was undamaged and I have had a salutary lesson on the instability of taildraggers - can only get better!!

View from the driver's seat

05 January 2011

DECEMBER UPDATE

December - the month when the geese are getting fat and also a trifle nervous!  (Seriously does anyone reading this either have or know a family who has the traditional goose for Christmas lunch! - We have turkey; after all, we are poms).
Haven't posted for a while for two reasons - not much interesting flying done and busy with Christmas, etc.  So, an update:

2nd December:  Up in the 180 again with Roger - much of the same as before, lots of circuits at Matamata and (sort of) beginning to get it with rudder control on the ground but somewhat inconsistent with my directional control.

13th December: circuits in Archer, WIT.  A quick 4 circuits for currency and all went well - a bit off the centreline on the first landing but I wasn't too concerned as the others were all good.  The reason for this bit of practice was a planned cross country on the 19th with a work colleague.  However, the warm-sector depression weather was already starting today with lowish cloud and very high humidity and continued for the whole week.  Sunday 16th was particularly bad with low cloud and rain so it was a "no-go" for flying and Christmas shopping became a "go" instead.  We will try again in the New Year.

27th December: Birthday flight.  The missus said I could go, birthday present, as long as I was back in time to go out for lunch.  I took WAM for a short cross-country over to Rotorua (NZRO) and back.  Technically a very good flight with pretty accurate navigation and timings by me, a touch and go on seal 36 at RO and back to Hamilton. Mind you, the navigation from HN to RO is pretty easy - East over Karapiro to its dog leg, then straight on to Tirau, picking up Highway 5 there and following that to Ngongotaha which is just inside the control zone on the West side of the lake and the airport is directly across the lake from there - piece of cake even on a very hazy day.  I heard a couple of Ag pilots chatting to each other on the way back - they seemed to be discussing the next load drop.  Oh well, whatever turns you on; as a townie I don't find fertiliser all that exciting!!

A still of Mokoia Island on Lake Rotorua from a bit of (pretty awful) video I shot

29th December: We escaped Hamilton to the beach at Papamoa for New Year and a chance to go up in the Stearman.  The weather was lovely, clear skies and just a light wind, left to right on runway 07.  Classic Flyers Chief Pilot, Pete, let me preflight and took me through the start up sequence with me in the rear (pilot's) seat for the first time.  I seemed to taxi reasonably well but was lazy on the rudder for take off and wasn't very straight.  Pete took over on downwind and we left the circuit to track South towards Omanawa to overfly a property where Pete had been helping out planting daffodils the previous day.  I took over to fly up the valley and, once over the paddocks in question, Pete took over to do a couple of steep turns overhead and then we were away to the airport for a few circuits.  Not too bad, but I am not nailing the climb out (65Kt) or approach (70Kt) speeds consistently and was somewhat "lazy" with the rudders on landing (for more on this, see the next post).  All in all, though good fun and I am beginning to enjoy the Stearman (I think!!)