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.