RED CHECKERS AT HAMILTON

Tuesday 25th October

I took Archer III, WIT for a local flight today (was supposed to be C-172, WAM but that is still in maintanence).  No problem though, as I am current on the Archer and it was a chance to "play" with the GPS, EFIS and fancy autopilot in WIT.  After putting in an hour's worth over to Raglan, up the coast a wee way and home via Huntly a couple of RNZAF CT4s at Hamilton turned up just after I landed, one going over to Aeromotive and the other parking by the fuel pumps.  I got a few photos before I had to disappear to meet a builder at home (new garage).

Red Checker CT4, "89" at the pumps

It was cloudy and hazy at Raglan but much nicer a little way North

Huntly Power Station and the mighty Waikato River behind

TRYING THE NEW "LID"

Sunday 23rd October

This was my chance to try out the new helmet in the Stearman.  I am very pleased to report that it worked extremely well.  Previously in the rear cockpit it was near impossible to hear anything in the soft helmet that comes with the plane (it's just about OK in the front) but now I am hearing everything and all Pete's instruction from the front is crystal clear.

We did about 45 minutes in the Tauranga circuit today which was fun.  To make it a bit more "interesting" there was the NZ Warbirds' Strikemaster doing its own circuits off the sealed runway and zipping around a lot quicker than we were (and burning about three times as many imperial gallons per hour than we were litres - i.e. about 800 litres/h.!!).  No wonder he was at the fuel pumps for a while after a few circuits.

Thanks to the traffic, our circuits were a trifle irregular - early left turns and short approaches seemed to be the norm.  Pete demonstrated a short sideslipping approach on the first short one and let me have a go on the next two.  The Stearman was very steady and, because of the biplane drag, loses height (and speed) pretty rapidly sideslipping with half throttle or less.  I got it pretty much sorted on my second go and was 500' over the golf course which is just right for the Grass 25 circuit.  I was a bit fast but closing the throttle fixes that on the Stearman thanks to that drag.

It was all good and Pete seemed happy and reckoned the helmet made a big difference.  Not having to strain to hear what is being said to me and confident that I can be heard means I can concentrate fully on the flying.  Cool!

I took a few photos......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best of the several I took of the Strikemaster - anyone for a ride??

Stearman 03 showing the patched side from the bit of damage inflicted by me a few weeks ago - just needs a paint job now

BFR - SORTED!!

As a bit of an insurance policy I had made two bookings to try to get my BFR, one today and one a week hence.  From the recent weather forecasts it looked 50:50 to get up today but, surprise, surprise it wasn't too bad this morning with cloud base of 2500', good visibility away from showers, so good to go.

I fronted up to the club to find Roger on the phone and obviously busy so I "unwrapped" WAM and preflighted, etc.  Full fuel tanks, no problems with the plane so back into the clubhouse for a "nervous leak". Roger was ready to go by then and mentioned we would do some terrain awareness stuff as well as the BFR syllabus.

The wind was 250º at 12 knots (duty runway 18L) so we should get the x-wind take off and landing part done if nothing else.  We were cleared for an East departure and headed over to Karapiro, which wasn't the original intention but there looked to be a heavy shower with poor vis to the S of Maungatautari where we had hoped to do the low flying part.  Once out of the zone we climbed up to 2000' and over the lake it was a steep turn each way - aced those - big smile inside (all the Stearman/Cub experience?).

Then it was basic, power & flap and wing-drop stalls.  The first two were fine.  Roger got me to keep going with the basic stall until I felt the plane start to stall and the recover - did that, judging the stall from the buffet on the column leading to the very start of a nose drop and Rog said that was very good (more smiling).  I had a bit of trouble with the wing drop first time but got it right after a demo from Rog.  I was far too fast with the triad of full reverse rudder, full power and wings level.  Roger got me to apply enough rudder to stop the yaw first and then do the rest of the recovery sequence and, hey, it worked - thanks Rog :)

Then we went into a valley between Maungatautari village and the mountain, descending to 1200' (about 6-700' agl) for a bit of low flying/terrain awareness stuff.  Very interesting and great fun.  We did a bit of low flying, some valley turns - a 172 turns so tight!!, and a saddle cross to finish off.  Roger picked me up on not leading with power for the valley turn on my first go and I drifted up a bit travelling up the valley.  Definitely not Southern Alps stuff but a good introduction.

Back over to Lake Karapiro and time for a forced landing.  We tracked towards the North-South arm of the lake, crossed to the Eastern shore where, having sorted out the wind direction, recrossed to the West, chose a paddock and Roger pulled the throttle.  We were only at 2000' so having traded height for airspeed and trimmed for 65Kt I decided to skip the 1500' area and head around to the left for my 1000' point - a building on the lake shore my side of the paddock - doing my engine failure checks on the way.  It was a right hand circuit to land, passing over the lake and turning right to approach the field.  A bit high and fast on turning final so, down came full flap and I got the speed and glide about right to make my nominated paddock and Roger said, "Go around".

Back to base for some circuits. On the first downwind the tower instructed me for a short approach which I made a bit of a hash of and ended up going around.  Right hand circuit for a reasonable cross wind landing next, except that I lost a bit too much speed in the flare and stalled it the last few centimetres onto the runway.  Lastly, we did a flapless approach and landing which was all very good and, after remembering to do all the after landing and shutdown checks, it was into the clubhouse to sort the paperwork out.  Great!- BFR nailed and, as always with Roger, I learned some stuff, too!

IT HAS ARRIVED!!!!

Whoo hoo - a courier man arrived at the doorstep yesterday morning with a 30cm cardboard cube and inside was......

Yep, that's right the helmet I have had on order from Campbell Aero Classics for the past wee while.  OK, OK, that's enough of the "Biggles" jokes and comments, I don't think the shell of his flying hat was Kevlar and there wouldn't have been any fancy electrics inside!!

This is going to make it sooooo much easier flying the Stearman.  I couldn't wait to try it out so I brought it along to the club today to see if and how well it worked.  I had booked JGP for a couple of hours to have a practice before my BFR which is due soon.  So, once seated and ready to start, I put the helmet on, feeling a little ridiculous, and started up.  Noise reduction excellent, I could barely hear the engine.  Avionics on, and I wondered what the odd noises were.  I soon realised that this baby is really sensitive and I was picking up much more radio "clutter" than I normally would in my normal, very good Dave Clark headset.  Still, the ATIS came through loud and clear as did the tower and they had no problems hearing me.
The lid was a good, firm, not too tight fit but did get a little warm.  That shouldn't be a problem in the Stearman's open cockpit, though.  Wearing the mask there was a bit of condensation on my glasses initially but once I had it adjusted properly all was well.
So, into the circuit.  The tower warned me of IFR traffic (an Orion and a Beech 1900 doing IFR approach and circuits) that might interrupt proceedings and that turned out to be true.  I ended up doing two full stops and backtracks on 36L because of wake turbulence (and went around on another because I was too "hot and high" on a glide approach - that's a Cessna for you).  I also ended up orbiting over Rukuhia to allow the IFR folks some space on one circuit.  I didn't mind because the "stop and goes" were a chance to practice maximum performance take-offs.  My precision landing wasn't too bad either.  I did a classic Cessna bounce on one T&G - long time since I have done that and was a bit annoyed with myself.
After about 45 minutes of this I packed it in.  I had really wanted to practice the rest of the BFR stuff but it was rather cloudy all around and didn't think I would get clear and high enough to do stalls and steep turns.  Still, I had fun, anyway.  Have a booking with Roger in two weeks to have a go at the BFR assessment.