PLAN "B"

Tuesday 9th August

If Plan "A" doesn't work out then it is wise to have a plan "B" if you wish to achieve your goal.  Well, my goal for today was to get over to Tauranga in Piper Archer, WIT to go flying in the Stearman again. A short cross country over to Matamata for some circuits at an uncontrolled airfield was the intention.  The weather forecast was good but this morning the scene outside the Aero Club is show in the photo below.

Sun filters through the fog giving a monochrome effect as WAM waits optimisticly by the fuel pumps

Yes, the good old Waikato fog came with the dawn this morning.  It looked pretty clear from our house just before dawn but as the sun came up the light mist over the open areas thickened (I won't bore you with the meteorological reasons why that happens) and by the time I arrived at the club the visibility was around 100 metres as you can see.  The sun was making a gallant effort to break through as the fog layer was only a hundred feet or so thick.  However, the ground level stuff thickened noticeably while I had a cup of tea and Plan "B" was executed (prompted by CFI, Roger, but I already had it in the back of my mind).

Plan "B" involved jumping back in the car and driving over to Tauranga (about 90 minutes drive) having phoned Classic Flyers instructor, Pete to warn him I would be a little late.  He wasn't concerned about that and I arrived there at around 1050, 20 minutes later than my (conservative) estimate of 1030 if I had flown over.  There was fog or low cloud throughout the Waikato and clearer weather was only reached once well over the Kaimais and about a third or the way down the seaward dip slope.

It  was certainly flyable over there with a 3000' cloud base and hardly any wind but going back over the range to Matamata was out of the question as the whole ridge was shrouded in cloud.  The Stearman's oil tank had been warmed up and after preflighting and getting suited up we were on our way.  The wind was light but variable and there were a few gentle bumps at 1000' but nothing to be concerned about.  We tracked over to Katikati for some turns - all pretty good - and then back for circuits.  There was a fair bit of circuit traffic about but we got through six circuits, the first three at 1000' and the next set at low level (500').  It was rather strange to see the runway so close, almost as if we had barely left the ground.  I managed quite well but, because of traffic, we needed to do a couple of short approaches and Pete had to do a bit more "talking through" with me.  Most of the touch downs were three-pointers with only a minor bounce on two.  I am tending to "round-out" a little high, Pete reckoned (as if I am flying a tricycle gear plane and worried about the nosewheel, I think) but overall, not too bad and he reckons I am "getting it" now.  I felt I was not quite as good as two weeks ago but today's conditions weren't as perfect so I guess I should be content with my efforts today.

A quick summary: I now have a grand total of 14.7 hours tailwheel time; 7.2 in the Stearman, 4.4 in a Cessna 180 and 3.1 in the Super Cub (out of 330.2 total hours so still <5% of my total experience).