Testing Times

It's been a bit quiet on the flying front - Feb's big earthquake in town has had a pretty major impact on our lives just in terms of routine and work. Things tend to get put on hold, and flying has been one of them.


Every two years one has to sit what's termed the 'Biannual Flight Review'. I completed mine Friday last.


To all intents and purposes, this involves a flight check-out that mirrors your initial Private Pilot flight test. I'm fine with this, even though in my early years of flying it used to make me a little anxious. I've learned to see the BFR as a bit of structured revision, and the opportunity to fine-tune any faults that have crept into my flying. You don't so much 'fail' your BFR; if you're not up to scratch you just do some more work on the relevant area and once you're proficient, you're signed off and have your flying WOF for another two years.


Fortunately, I've never had a problem getting through my BFR. I generally work pretty well under pressure, and I've found that flying aerobatics keeps my coordination pretty sweet. For the last few BFRs, I've combined the flight with what we call a 'type-rating'. This is what you do when you learn to fly a new 'type' of aircraft (yes, they are all quite different to fly). 


To me, this is getting double the value for money, because when you do a type-rating, you cover of most of the things you do for a BFR. It does make it a little harder in that you're flying a new type of aircraft, but it's certainly not impossible. 


So, back to the story. I'm happy to have nailed the BFR, and enjoyed this one more than I ever have. I huge part of that is flying with an instructor who is calm, relaxed and has an attitude of helping, rather than hindering. I'm very fortunate to be able to fly with Matt White. Some instructors make you feel you're under the spotlight (well, you are really) but Matt has a manner that quickly dissipates any thoughts along those lines.


This was my first chance to fly a Tomahawk, other than a trip a few years ago when I was technically a passenger. The Tomahawk is made to be a training aircraft - it only has two seats, it's pretty small, and it doesn't have an excess of power.


I rather liked it. It moves around a bit, being so light, but I like it's responsiveness to control input. It has some vices that you need to be aware of, but that's fine with me. You just fly the aircraft according to it's characteristics.


Anyway, long story short, I'm now rated on the Piper PA-38-112 Tomahawk, and I'm planning on taking one up every 4-5 weeks to keep my hand in, simply because it's a nice simple aircraft, has great visibility and makes flying fun.

Back in Time

This is a photo that stirs some powerful memories for me. The story goes something like this.

In January 2010 I'd gone to Blenheim to assist as a staff member with the NZ Cadet Force's National Aviation Course, which consists of a Powered Flying Flight (35 teenagers learning how to fly) and a Navigation Flight (18 teenagers get taught the Private Pilot navigation syllabus, and also complete a number of practical air navigation flights). My job was to be one of four instructors teaching the navigation syllabus, and one of three pilots flying the students for the practical component.

Anyway, the aircraft I was to fly was parked up at Palmerston North airport, and we waited out a number of days of bad weather before we could fly there from Blenheim, and make the return trip. We left RNZAF Base Woodbourne at 5.30 am in what I would describe as very marginal conditions - a cloud base under 1000 feet, scattered showers and limited forward visibility. Under 'normal' conditions you can easily see from one side of the strait to the other, but not today - not a hope. If I'd not been flying with a very experienced pilot  who'd made the Cook Strait crossing many times, I'd have turned back.

So, I was apprehensive, quite a bit outside my comfort zone, and was thinking way too much about what our chances of survival would be if we had to ditch mid-strait. The chances of finding us floating in such poor visibility would be low. Not pleasant thoughts.

Well, make it we did, and the sight of Mana and then Kapati Islands appearing through the murk was quite some relief. 30 minutes later we were on the ground and I was pre-flighting Warrior ZK-EBH, which I would fly back. And so I did, in the same conditions, but in the comfort that I was in the company of another aircraft should anything happen.

The photo is taken somewhere around Foxton, heading South, showing EBH nicely sandwiched between a couple of layers of cloud. This is pretty much about where the weather deteriorated again leading into Cook Strait, and we soon had to descend under the lower layer of cloud which became an unbroken layer.

I like the photo because it's just me in the aircraft, on my first solo crossing of the Strait, and because the return flight closed off a very memorable learning experience.