Confessions of an NZ PropellerHead: 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 120º 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!