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.

7 week itch

16 July was my last flight, until today. Boy, what a month it has been.

I spent most of August away from home; the usual once a week Wellington trips, but I also had a week running a new course up in Linton, and followed that up immediately after with a week in PNG.

PNG was an amazing time. I headed up a team of three running a leadership seminar for the Chief of the PNG Defence Force, his top 28 or so officers, and the heads of PNG's fire service and correction service.

It was an amazing experience because these very astute and wordly wise senior leaders gave us their complete engagement, and consequently we achieved some outcomes that no one had dreamed possible. A humbling, draining but so rewarding time.

Then of course there has been the earthquake, or rather, all 200+ of the magnitude 3 plus ones that have been documented/recorded. Its quite stunning to think that our house is but a few km away from the fault line.  Along with everyone else in Canterbury, waking at 4.35 am to a heaving house is unlikely to be something we ever forget. I honestly don't think life will ever quite return to where we left off. I think our "natural disaster" innocence has long gone. I also don't believe that anyone who has not been through a similar experience can really appreciate that feeling of suppressed anxiety that we keep under control, as we wait for the next big aftershock.

So its been a great weekend chilling, recreating and doing family stuff. We farewelled Teresa who's off to the US and UK for the next five weeks - although as Jordan and Corrie say we will hardly know she is gone as Teresa has long retired from cooking, cleaning etc.

I cleaned out our tunnel house with Jordie yesterday, planted the summer crop of food, and dug over the outside gardens ready for some outside planting in another few weeks.

Today was the boys' day. Corrie and I got up for an hour in one of the Warriors, and I put him through some max-rate turns, stalls in the turn, and steep gliding turns. It was fun after seven weeks away from flying to throw the aircraft around the sky. Matt's away in Fiji for a few weeks, so the Commercial syllabus is on hold until he gets back.

Finally, Corrie and I put in a solid three hour mountain bike this afternoon. Up Rapaki, then along the tracks to Sumner, and home via the flat. It was a great ride - I'm really impressed with Corrie's strength and endurance, not to mention his technical skills in the rough stuff. Its great being able to train with him, and three hours of riding is a decent ride in anyone's book.

Why is the weekend weather always crappy?

Its Friday night, and that means checking the weather for tomorrow to see if Matt and I can do a dual cross-country through to the West Coast.  It doesn't look promising.


But then, NZ weather is fickle and we may get enough of a clearance to get through one of the passes. After all, I don't actually want a clear blue sky and the ability to climb to 10,000 feet, and cruise on over the Alps. I've done that and there's no real challenge, provided the wind is not extreme.


I want weather that makes me work to get there, and forces me to make a lot of decisions. I want to approach one of the passes with a low cloud base and have to make a call. That's the criteria for the Commercial Pilot cross country endorsement, and that's the environment where you learn to make the go / no go decisions.


Anyway, we've exchanged texts, and we'll wait to 7 am to make a decision about taking to the air around 9am, or perhaps delay until the afternoon. If I go, i must remember to get some photos...

CAVOK - say what?

OK, so the view is a bit different to what you get when you're in the aero position on your tri bike. There's still a bit of that going on, but it's time to write about other stuff. I enjoyed the reflective nature of my last blog http://kiwiinkona.blogspot.com, so I've simply re-invented myself, so to speak.

I'm back into my flying with a vengeance, and an aim. It's time to knock off my commercial pilot licence, and the first step is completing the cross-country phase. More on that later.

So, what on earth is CAVOK you ask? Actually, it fits. In the flying world, this is just a weather term for "Cloud and Visibility OK", or in other words, great flying weather. It just seems to be a good fit, and besides, I wasn't imaginative to think of anything else.

But this is only a short entry, just so i could link the old site to something....so that's it for now.