2009

The last day of work for me is almost over. For some stupid reason I decided to work the last couple of days for the year instead of taking them off as annual leave. Tomorrow I head off to Christchurch via Wellington. I'll have to be up at a sparrows fart to catch a Super Shuttle that should pick me up at 0615. My flight leaves at 0745 so I'll have plenty of time. A couple of hours on the ground at Wellington will probably be spent at Mojo drinking their fine coffee, then onto an AirNZ 733 to Christchurch.

It's been a quiet year. Only 240 hours logged flying, 140 hours instructing in the simulators (the curse of being an IFR instructor!). About 3.5 weeks off on annual leave (still have 3 weeks in the bank to use), 3-ish weeks off sick (unlimited supply of them) and a whopping 250 hours being Duty Instructor! My medical was suspended for around a month due to catching pneumonia ( 3 days in hospital) over Labour Weekend in Christchurch.

Here's hoping for my Multi Instructor rating in the new year in the new DA42-L360's. Goos times I hope!

Ohakea visit 13th November

We had an invitation to tour RNZAF Ohakea on the 13th of November, so I decided I wasn't doing anything that day and joined in. There was the promise of finishing up at the Officers Mess that also made it an attractive proposition.

Getting a briefing from one of the PTS instructors on how the airforce trains its guys.

Mooching around PTS

Recently restored Spitfire ZK-SPI. It has free room and board at Ohakea. Good deal!

A gaggle of CT4E's, the RNZAF's primary trainer. Made in NZ!

The Spitfire from another angle. Awesome!

A Kingair 200 from 42 Squadron undergoing some maintenance.

Some of the Aermacchi 339's in storage. They're all still airworthy and about to be sold. A sad sight seeing them all in the hangar.

More Macchi's.

View from Ohakea tower. It was a very quiet day!

A bunch of switches. ILS, runway lighting, various coms etc.

No 42 Squadron's hangar.

The tower and Operations complex. Ohakea Control used to be housed there but was moved to Christchurch in 2000 and something.

In the 3 Squadron hangar. Surrounded by Iroquios and Sioux.

Yes, the Sioux is still the primary trainer for 3 Squadron but due to be replaced by a fleet of Augusta A109's from next year. A HUGE jump in performance and technology!

More UH-1's

Five Sioux.

..and a bunch more Iroquois.

Overall a great day, and as promised we finished off at the Officer's Mess. Bloody cheap drinks, like a bag of chips and a handle of Monteiths for $3.00! Fantastic!

Round the Block

The standard training route for Instrument Rating training is PM-RUGVI-WU-FOXTN-PM, or Round The Block. A student of mine was due for a go at it, known as IN01 as part of the single engine IFR phase which is mostly in the sim and culminating in a sim check which is the equivalent of a single Engine Instrument Rating flight test. It's good for the instructor (me!) to be able to fly it for real too. It all helps for IFR currency. So, myself and student X piled into a trusty PA28 Warrior and climbed into the murk on a 25 ALFA 6 departure.We popped out of the stratus at around 4800ft. We spent the next 30 minutes skimming the tops at 5000ft en-route to a reporting point, RUGVI. It's a cliche but there's nothing more awesome than skimming the tops of clouds. You get a real sensation of speed, even if it is only 100kts! Left turn to track 226 to WU (Wanganui) NDB. Usually a couple of laps of the NDB hold but due to inbound Eagle B1900D traffic we were instructed to commence the WU NDB/DME 11 approach from the overhead. By this time we were down to 4000ft and back in the cloud. No worries, 'actual' is all good for the currency. Student X performed a pretty good approach. Then off to FOXTN for a couple of VOR holds at 6000ft.

Palmerston was reporting cloud at around 1500ft so again, lots of 'actual'. Awesome! After the second hold Ohakea cleared us for the VOR/DME 07 Circling 25 and gave us a radar vector for finals. Usually we'd get the 12DME arc but this wasn't available due outbound traffic. No problem, it's good experience for the student. We popped out fo the cloud around 1200ft at around 3 DME and then circled left for runway 25.

The flight was 2.0 hours long, 1.7 of which was actual. All good stuff for the logbook.

Mock CPL

1. Max Performance Take-off
2. Medium Turns
3. Steep Turns
4. Max Rate Turns
5. Basic Stall
6. Approach Stall
7. Wingdrop Stall
8. Stall in a Turn
9. Unusal Attitudes
   
10. Forced Landing Without Power
11. Low Flying
12. Line Feature Reversal Turn
13. Coastal Reversal Turn
14. Precautionary Landing
15. Steep Gliding Turns
16. Shortfield Landing
17. Coffee........

To New Plymouth

Finally a good day for a visual nav to New Plymouth. The weather's been against us over the past couple of weeks, kinda frustrating! Airborne around 0830 to NZNP via Wanganui (NZWU) and Hawera (NZHA). A bit of cloud kept us below 3000ft until Waverley but the skies cleared enough for us to climb.

We needed to get to 6000ft or above as the students need experience navigating high level. A touch'n'go at Hawera then to New Plymouth via Stratford. I always like to grab a coffee at Airspresso at the New Plymouth terminal. Always good coffee. I let the kiddies re-fuel while I re-fueled.
We routed back to Palmerston North via Patea Dam and Jersualem which can be hard to find even on a good day. A bit of low cloud and light turbulence made the job a little harder for my student but he managed to find it (must be due to my superb flight instruction!). Total flight time there and back was 3.1 hours.

iPhone app

Nothing much. Trying a new blog app for iPhone.

-- Post From My iPhone

Shiny!

Last Thursday was the public enveiling of our new fleet of Diamond trainers. Guests from the RNZAF, Airways, the media and University big-wigs were in attendance. The weather for the big day turned out to be excellent, a light easterly and SKC.

We all assembled in the hangar for the addresses from the school's GM and the Vice-Chancellor of the University. The event was well catered, the meatballs were outstanding! Trying to avoid the media was the call as I was somewhat inconspicuos in my uniform. Eventually I was cornered by a reporter/DJ from the local ZM station. Typical stupid questions followed but I managed to bumble my way through it.

Did I mention how good the meatballs were?

The various media were taken for flights in 3 of the DA40's in the afternoon. Here are a couple of links to their stories.

TVNZ

NZ Herald

I'm due to convert to the DA40's in the second week of August. It will be a full-on week. The aircraft itself will not be difficult to fly, it's the G1000 avionics that make the biggest difference. After a VFR type rating we'll be straight into a TEA (Technically Enhanced Aircraft) Instrument Rating. Then I can say goodbye to the ADF! This IR is VOR, GPS and ILS only. Fantastic!