News hath presented itself...

Well, after a slightly agonising wait we finally got our exam results through this evening....

Mass & Balance: 100%
Instruments/Electronics: 96%
Flight Planning & Monitoring: 96%
General Navigation: 91%
Meteorology: 98%
Human Performance & Limitations: 96%
VFR Comms: 96%
IFR Comms: 91%

Which gives an average of 95.5% - needless to say I'm somewhat ecstatic about the results, I just hope I can keep that average after the second round of exams in January!

In other news, I just totted up the flying hours from the last 5 days and assuming my flight goes ahead tomorrow I will have done as many hours flying in the last 6 days as in the entirity of January and February combined earlier this year... nice to finally be making some incredible progress at last, even if it is knackering! I just hope It holds up, although on that note we found out today that we are likely to be at least a week late home in november, but if that's the worst that happens then I'll consider myself lucky given the delays we've had!

Anyway, that's my news for now - best go plan for my 6:30am takeoff tomorrow morning (saturday's and pre 5am starts should be illegal).

Back in the Tron...

I really should find out why we call Hamilton "The Tron"...

Anyway, It's been a while since I wrote anything, and that is because for the last month and a bit I have been at home taking a tiny bit of time off and doing a rather large amount of exams. Apparently we are supposed to get the results in about a week, so I'm currently living in blissful ignorance as to just how badly I did and can continue to do so for a little while at least.

We arrived back to a rather unsuprisingly windy and wet late thursday night, and the rain has pretty much continued through to this (sat) evening. Hopefully it'll bugger off soon (some hope!)...

Anyway, now that I'm back I'll post more news as and when it creates itself!

Upset training

Today I had my first introduction to aerobatics! Loved every second of it, and will definately be looking into it as an (expensive) hobby in future... for now i'll have to make do with the other two upset flights i still have to look forward to.

Today I was taught how to induce a spin, and how to recover from it... and here's a video of me spinning towards the ground at 1,500 feet per minute!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BmNIK1xmj0s

and loops and stall turns:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTBF-F_k1pc

The guy teaching me was great (first time I've flown with him) and said I had a natural "flare" for it - commence smug grinning. Really enjoyed myself, and was good to fly a different kind of plane too... cessnas are a bit too vanilla for my tastes!

Here's a couple of slightly higher quality captures from the videos:

Qualifier at last

Lee and myself finally got our qualifiers in today which involved flying from hamilton to a place called taharoa on the west coast, just south of raglan, then to rotorua for a quick snack. From rotorua we headed out to the east coast to a place called opotiki and from there to tauranga further up the east coast... at that point we stopped for some lunch and then headed on up the coast to waihi beach then through a gap in the Kaimai mountain range and aaaaaall the way across to the west coast again, then down south to raglan and back into hamilton from the coast. As you no doubt gathered, that makes it quite a long flight!

Here are a couple of pics of the journey:

Big day...

Wednesday the 6th June 2007... the day someone was foolish enough to give me a Pilot's license!

It all happened very rapidly in the end, got called up to come in and do my last solo consolidation yesterday afternoon after having already canned it in the morning, then took the PPL this morning. Despite some showers and a fairly strong wind, the weather held out well enough and I managed to get the flight done... the lovely man saw fit to pass me, which was nice because there were a couple of points at which I thought I might be done for! Lee is up doing his test as I type this, so hopefully he'll also pass!

So, here I am... 6 months later... and I'm finally on the wings course! It's timed to perfection, because there is a farewell 'do' this evening for cp39 who are leaving NZ for the sunny shores of Britain for the last time, and it is at these events that they hand out the all important epaulettes to go on your shirt for the newly qualified pilots (me!) - the true reason why everyone wants to be on the wings course!

In other news CP43 have started to go home, with a few left behind until tomorrow - so best of luck on the exams to them! We're now the next course to come home, so much to do between now and then that I imagine the 4/5 weeks left will rocket past.

a turn up for the books...

On friday I finally got my Nav pre-test done (4th time lucky, fog canned all the previous attempts to get airborne) and somehow made it a great flight so passed without any problem. Today (sunday) I managed to get my general handling pre-test done (which was not such a great flight but I still passed so that's what counts!!!) and tomorrow I am booked in for that elusive qualifier although the weather may or may not play ball for that one. Either way I've done all the dual flights that need to be done before my test so it's only one solo for a bit of practice and then the test follows - scary!

It's currently looking like I should have the test on wednesday or maybe thursday but we will have to wait and see... the end of this foundation course and entry onto the wings course is finally in sight though!

Hopefully my qualifier will go tomorrow too and I'll be able to tick that box off, plus put up some pics of the journey, but thankfully it shouldn't delay my test date if it does end up getting canned.

Here's hoping...

Bain of my existance, everybody... everybody, the bain of my existance.

Well, I thought it was about time you got introduced....

This is the weather phenomenon that is responsible for binning flight after flight after flight of mine...

In other news, they have decided to let us carry on without the CPL qualifier I mentioned before and just do it on an opportunity basis. In theory this means that I can move on and finish the foundation course without having to wait weeks for that flight. In theory.

Well, that was predictable...

I was clearly in danger of making too much progress this week, so the weather decided to be rubbish and get my flight canned... so no qualifier for me today!

The forecast for the next week isn't great in general, and there are 6 of us now waiting on these qualifiers which more or less take up a whole plane for a day... so I don't hold much hope of getting it in any time soon.

So....

Managed to get my land-away done on thursday to rotorua, which was my last dual navigation flight before the PPL - good stuff! I also managed to get the solo nav to rotorua done on friday which I had been waiting to do for a while, and took the opportunity to take a pic or two:

Lake Taupo early in the morning:

Enroute Rotorua from Lake Taupo:

Heading back to Hamilton from Rotorua (look at the difference in the weather!!! Bloody Hamilton!)

Currently I'm scheduled for my long (~300-350 nautical mile) CPL qualifier tomorrow (sunday) and on one of the new cessna's too. This bit of luck combined with the forecast for good weather has me somewhat suspicious however, we can but hope! Expect a few nice pics should I a) go in the first place, b) not end up in Australia, and c) make it back at all.

thumb's-a-twiddlin...

Well, what to say - it's been like swimming through treacle the last couple of weeks!

Since the katana fleet got grounded around 2-3 weeks back, just before which I had done my first "intro to nav" navigation flight, We got type rated on cessnas instead... this involved the completion of an Essential Knowledge Quiz (basically an exam type dealio with questions relating to the aircraft type) and two conversion flights. I got these done in just over a week, which I thought was slow progress for what were supposedly high priority flights... just to prove to me what slow progress meant however, New Zealand decided to become exceedingly unco-operative in the weather department just as I had finished the conversion flights and tried to pick up where I left off with the next Nav Flight which also happens to be the check flight which you need to pass in order to be unleashed on your first solo Nav.... Booked in each day monday to thursday and each day the weather laughed at my best laid plans. The weather finally picked up today but, of course, it was my instructors only day off this week! The weather looks good for the next few days, at least in so far as you can trust the forecasts here, and i'm booked in for tomorrow afternoon so fingers crossed!

In other news, most of CP42 have buggered off home for their ATPL exams so comet block will never be the same again! CP49 should be arriving in the next week and will be taking their rooms I imagine. I can't believe 49 are arriving already - when we got here in december CP39 seemed so very far ahead for us poor CP44 newbies!

The funeral march...

Well, It's finally happened again. The katanas have been grounded - I knew their continued existance and the good weather that was forecast over the next few days was too good to be true.

This time it is not due to any one particular incident, but from what I gather CTC had satisfied themselves that the problems had been fixed and there was no longer an issue, but have now changed their minds. It turns out however through recent correspondance with the manufacturers that despite more testing they still can't find a total solution to the problems, which clearly means whatever solution we have implemented on their instruction has not, in fact, fixed it. So, in the interests of not having students and valuable instructors fall out of the sky they have decided to ground the katana fleet long-term and perhaps indefinately.

So what does that mean for me and my fellow Craptana students? We are apparently going to be converted to cessnas, yet more of which are being brought in to replace the katana short-fall. How long this will delay things for me is unclear, as those from cp43 that remain on katanas from the last time will be a higher priority than us and we will all require 2 or 3 "y-flights" in addition to our normal syllabus plan to learn the cessna type. In theory we are getting two cessnas from NZ in the next couple of days, while 3 more are being sourced from australia, but will obviously take a little longer to get here. In the mean time we have the cessnas that are already here of course, so hopefully we are not looking at too long a delay. Shame I hate cessnas!

So, the katana is no more... at least not as far as we are concerned. Perhaps some distant CP in the future will have the joy of flying what is, in all honesty, not a bad aircraft providing you are willing to overlook it's deep-burning desire to end your life....

Busy few weeks...

The last couple of weeks has seen the girlfriend come out to visit with her brother, and due to the recent "cull" of students on the katanas there have been lots of slots to take on the aircraft which has resulted in two flights a day most days weather permitting. I'm now more or less (bar low flying which needs a decent wind to demonstrate some visual illusions) at the cross country navigation flights stage where flying gets a whole lot more difficult.... hopefully I'll be okay at it!

On the less intimidating side of things, I've been doing lots of solo flights lately and here are a few choice pics:

Anyway, on the non flying side of things I've done lots of things the last couple of weeks with charlotte including going to Raglan, Tauranga, Hamilton Zoo (who knew hamilton had such a good zoo!?), Hamilton gardens, Rotorua and even horse riding.... a few random pics from the activities follow to brighten up your day:

Waimangu Volcanic Valley:

Hossey Riding:

A nice dog from hoss riding:

Hamilton Zoo's pensive chimp:

Loads more pics, but so little space.... Anyway I hope all is well on the other side of the planet and hopefully by the time I post again I'll be well into my Nav Flights!

updaterino

Where to start.....

Firstly, there have been some cracking crosswinds lately leading to some pretty interesting final approaches and landings... no matter how many times you see it a plane heading sideways to the runway doesn't look quite right. Here's a pic of menno just coming in to land, the white marker boards denote the start of the grass runway which pretty much runs straight off the right of the pic....

and here's a video of mark coming in practising crosswind circuits, notice the direction he's pointing versus the direction he's actually going in... then he straightens up just before touch down. if I remember correctly there was about 15 knots of crosswind that day with gusts up to 25 knots:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Xlt0hSxRo


However, due to YET ANOTHER engine problem in a katana they have taken the decision to ground the fleet for safety reasons. We don't yet have a huge amount of info on it but it's hopefully only a short term grounding. In recognition of the shittyness of the planes they have taken half the cadets on them off and put them on cessnas (so that there is less strain on the limited number of katanas that actually work on any given day).

And finally (best for last and all that), one of my friends here was in a helicopter crash today! He is an ex navy helo pilot and has been doing his helicopter PPL on the side of normal training out here. Today it went a little bit wrong and resulted in a very mangled (and totally written off) helicopter.... he's okay though other than having sliced his ear in half so it was a lucky escape! This is a pic of the wreckage, must have been an absolutely pant filling experience as the rotor blades smashed but he's a tough lad so he'll be reet!

So anyway, that's my news for now!

It's been a while...

But that is because I've really not had much to talk about! I recently went through a bit of a lull where not a lot was happening especially on the flying front but things seem to have sorted themselves out a little bit (for now at least, although the weather is becoming more ominous as the months march on). Today I had my Critical Point 2 flight which I passed, which means I am now cleared to fly away from Hamilton Airport into the local area on my own... The local area is a large 50 odd nautical mile box around Hamilton so it's quite a big area I have to play in - some 8,500 or so square kilometres! Now that I have got that flight out the way there are lots of solos so the flying should hopefully progress a bit more quickly now, weather permitting.

I got my solo certificate for the First Solo I did a few weeks back, and here's a quick pic to prove it exists!

In other news, the family came to visit and have now set off on their whistle stop tour of NZ so hopefully they are enjoying that! Before they left we visited Raglan and a nearby waterfall, for both of which there are some pics below:

Showing Dad around a katana:

Me and the family at Raglan



On the walk to the Falls


And the Falls themselves


So that ends this update, hopefully these local area solos should give me an opportunity to take some more pics so when I have amassed a couple of worthwhile ones I'll make another note.

The CP44 website

The new CP44 website is finally up and running for the most part, but bear with any dead ends or errors as the rest of the site goes live. The website is courtesy of Lee who has done a great job on it so click on over and have a snoop around... and bookmark it naturally!

http://www.spacecowboys.co.uk


In other news, I finally recieved the last of my initial round of exams back and I'm happy to say I passed them all with a 91.2% average, and indeed the entirity of CP44 managed to pass all exams first time - best try and keep that up for the future! The last of CP44 long course went solo recently too, so we're all through that first "critical point" at last. I myself had the last of my circuit lessons today which was a 1.3 hour solo circuit consolidation. It's the first lesson in which I have just walked out to the plane and then buggered off on my own straight away, all the others have been dual to solo (first half taught, then instructor pops out and you fly second half on your own), which was actually quite a strange feeling! Now it's just a steep turns lesson and a PFL (practised forced landing) lesson left then I'm on to my out-of-circuit solo check at which point, if i pass it, I can finally go pootle out on my own into the surrounding country side for some general aviation! Good times!

What are you doing still reading this? I told you to check out that website!

The Beach Party

Clearways (well, comet block at least) was transformed on saturday into a beach paradise for the much vaunted cadet beach party. Kudos for the organisation of the event goes mainly to Dave Bell and Danny Minns, and what a job they did! We had a swimming pool, a punch fountain, slippery pole boxing, a full size real sand beach volley ball court (36 odd tonnes of sand!) and even a bouncy castle.... I was going to get a shot of it all from the air as I had a lesson earlier in the day but the turbulence on the final approach meant flying the plane was tricky enough without trying to take a picture!









As you can see it was a pretty impressive arrangement... we also had some instructors turn up and my instructor (Jason) even gave Jez a kicking on the slippery pole boxing - in fact here's a vid:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Znb0jnUAG0



Later we got a bit of an instructor Vs Cadet volley ball game going and we sent them packing comfortably... doing our bit for English sporting prowess! Anyway that's it for now, so adieu!

Solo Pics

Pics of that first solo as promised, just to prove I am actually doing something out here.... Incidently I had another lesson today which was engine failure in the downwind (and subsequently doing a glide approach to the runway) followed by a few solo consolidation circucits of the same sort of stuff, so have already done yet more solo-age. That also makes approximately 6 flights this week including the two solo's seperately... it took all of January to get the first 6 flights in!

Anyway, here are those pics - if you click on them theymight possibly blow up to a slightly higher res!


Sequence of shots on short final approach to touch down:










Leaving the Runway:





Shutting down:

First Solo!

Well, the flight on thursday got canned due to excessive crosswinds but today I flew my solo check and consequently got the go ahead to do my first ever solo!

Everything went beautifully and I flew possibly the best I have ever flown, all finished off with a landing that would have made Douglas Bader proud! After a quick congratulation from the Control Tower I taxied off to CTC and that was the end of my first experience of flying on my own!

My instructor was kind enough to think of taking photo's (lots of them infact) and although no one turned up to video it I'll try and get some video of my next solo which should be soon. When I get those photo's off of Jason I'll put a few up here so watch this space if you want pictoral evidence!

In other news, both Lee and Jez went solo today so 4 of us have managed to hit that check point now. All three of the other guys have gone solo before (during previous flying back home) but it's still something of a rite of passage and cause for celebration! Also, we are having a rather large and impressive Beach themed party tomorrow at Clearways for which a tremendous amount of effort has been expended - We have everything from little palm trees through to a punch fountain and a sand volleyball court! I got a good view of the volleyball court taking shape from the air today and will try to snap a picture next time i'm up solo.

So anyway, that's my news for now - check back soon for those solo photo's.

New car, and the first CP44 solo...

Not my solo unfortunately, but menno had his solo check today and got a green light for his solo circuit... so off he went! I regret to inform you that he made it all the way round without crashing, much to my disappointment -here's a picture of the happy dutchman having finished the solo:



All being well (both weather-wise and aircraft teching-wise) I should have my solo check tomorrow, and if I manage to pull some decent flying out of somewhere my solo circuit should follow.... fingers crossed! A few of the other guys on my course also have their solo checks booked for tomorrow so there's going to be a lot of praying going on.

In other news, myself and Mr Mahoney are now the proud owners of a 1992 Mitsubishi Galant pictured below - we decided that one minibus and one car between the 12 of us on the course wasn't really cutting the mustard, and at NZ$1300 (~£500) who could say no!?




So that about wraps things up for now - hopefully I'll be able to post about having gone solo very soon! The aim is to get everyone's 1st solo on video so hopefully I'll be able to put that up too when the time comes (assuming the landing isn't appallingly embarrassing).

Silly o'clock

Had an early start today, beginning with smacking the alarm clock across the room at 0500 and trundling up to the airport for preflighting and met checks by 0600. By 0700 it was all ready to go and I had time to sneak in this nice little pic with the sunrise... as you can tell it was rather wet overnight!

Today's flight was with a different instructor which I wasn't too happy about - some non-sensical changes to the instructor allocation had ended up with me being booted off my normal instructor, but this is (hopefully) in the process of being changed back - I much prefer my original instructor!


I have finally got onto circuits, which means that there are now only 2 flights left (assuming all goes well) until my first Solo flight - frighteningly soon! The good part about circuits is that they can go ahead in fairly rubbish weather, so we'll hopefully get them out the way fairly quickly.
Last week saw us taking our Navigation exam, which we are still waiting on the results from, and we are due to take both Air Law and Human Factors exams this friday. The good news being that after this friday all the PPL exams will be done with (assuming a pass of course!), the bad news being that Air law is having to be studied in a very short amount of time (2 groundschool days!). At some point inbetween my last post and this post, we also all took the Katana type rating exam (knowledge of particular aircraft limitations, speeds, statistics etc) which went fine...


So enough drivel, that's where I am at the moment so hopefully next time i'll be posting that I've gone solo!

Couple of airside pics

Ric remembered to take his camera with him today and as such managed to get a few snaps... I shall have to remember to do some myself at some point! Anyway, for now here are a few choice pics to give you a flavour for what it's like:

Danny looking too cool for school in one of our lovely Katanas:

Ric looking not at all cool (but happy... awwww):

And last but not least, an actual shot from the office... The mountain you can see there is Pirongia, a few miles South-West of the aerodrome.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll try and get some more pics of my own at some point... The CP44 website is under construction by Mr Mahoney, and I'll be sure to post a link up once it hits t'internet.

Just a quicky...

Just a quick update, mainly on account of having received the results for the two exams I took on friday. In Meteorology I got 90% and in FRTO I managed 92%.... both okay results, although could have been better!

I noticed I haven't posted a picture for ages, so here's a couple of pictures of the type of plane i'm flying at the moment:


Here's the "office" view:



And here is the plane (type) itself, although ours are obviously done up in CTC livery... but I don't have a good photo of ours yet so you'll take what you're damn well given:

Not a bad Aircraft, although not quite as sexy as the Alpha 160's that will be replacing them... They lose marks for not having a steerable nose wheel which means all taxiing turns are done mostly by differential braking (think how a tank turns, similar idea). Nice to fly though, and they glide forever which is good news if you get an engine failure!

And the first results are in....

So, took the two exams I mentioned in the previous post - nothing too tragic but there were some really ambiguous questions which means I have no idea how well I really did... I'll find out in about 7 working days...

A nice suprise though was that the results for the first exam (Air Technology) were finally up today, after a long christmas break, and I managed to get 95%.... which is okay. Also checked my online lesson reports (they have finally sorted the online reporting system out for our new integrated syllabus) which are marked on a scale of 1(worst) through 4(best) for a number of criteria and then given an overall score again 1-4. I've only had the first two lessons, but for each I got the top overall mark of 4 which has been a massive confidence boost - 4's are few and far between in this neck of the woods so far! It'll be interesting to see how long I can keep that up for with the lessons becoming ever more complex and the opportunities for screwing up more frequent.... ladies and gentlemen place your bets...

So, it's all off to a pretty good start although we'll wait and see how the exams today came out - especially meteorology which was a really tough subject to learn in such a short time! We also got handed the workbook for Air Law today as well, and you could literally use it to beat a large and ravenous Polar Bear to death.... slightly disconcerting.

The weather is still a bit pants, although it lifted yesterday which allowed me to get a flight in. Hopefully it'll pass before too long and we can get on with regular flying.

Anyway, that's it for now - Have a good weekend!

Loooong day...

Kicked off today with a 0900 start to a 7 hour meterology learning extravaganza in a frenzied attempt to fit all the remaining syllabus in before we take the exam on Friday - It's going to be a tough one! To make things even more fun (if it were even possible) we are taking the RTFO (radio communications) exam as well. I also had a flight today, which again got pushed back, and I finally walked back in to home at 2030... Now I need to try to cram in as much info as possible before our two exams tomorrow, and then still have enough attention left over for a mass brief in the afternoon covering the concepts and content of the next few lessons.... crikey!

well, it certainly makes a change to the quiet life that we have been enjoying in the previous weeks!

Holy Cow!

Finally got my first flight here today - albeit much delayed for various reasons (was scheduled for 13:45 originally, and slowly slipped until I finally got brakes off at about 17:00) but all my annoyance at the delay melted away the moment we got up.

Today's lesson, obviously being the first one, was fairly basic and there wasn't much to it. Basically we headed out west towards Ragland and just start playing around outside the control zone - things like selecting and holding a datum attitude, correcting from an upset attitude, holding level flight at various speeds and power, setting a specific engine RPM by sound alone (with the rpm guage covered) and so on. It all went perfectly however and the debrief from Jason was a great confidence boost with only positive things to say!

I'm scheduled to fly tomorrow as well, but the weather is looking far from good so that may well get scrubbed - for now though I'm just happy to have finally got up in the air!

Happy New Year!

Here's hoping 2007 is a good'un.

All of CP44 (and two defectors off CP42) went up to Auckland for Gatecrasher's New Year's Eve. After having arrived in Auckland we rocked up to Queens Street Backpackers youth hostel, put our bags away and then went off to have a quck look around. We ended up at the sky tower fairly soon after, with a few of the guys bothering to hand over the requisite $22 to go up it - the rest of us went to the pub and put the $22 towards a more tangible liquid cause. Here is the result of their efforts however:

Lovely... More interesting however is the fact that you can jump off the edge of the tower attached to a cable. Basically you jump off a platform, if the operator is feeling sadistic they dangle you briefly infront of the viewing area, and then plummet towards your rapidly approaching doom only to be saved by the grace of a steel wire that slows your descent before you become nothing more than a jam splat on the target. Alas none of the intrepid few who ventured up the tower had a go at it, and the next day no one was in any state to have a go. Maybe next time.....

Beers continued through dinner until we popped back to the hostel to get ready for the night out- A few bottles of beer in the hostel later and we were off to gate crasher. In short; crazy night, lots of fun, paid for in hangovers the next day. As an aside, New Zealand roads are bumpy as hell and do not bode well for a 2 hour trip when you are feeling a little delicate.

CTC life starts again tomorrow (wednesday) with FRTO (Flight Radio-Telephone Operator) groundschooling and all being well most of us should finally get our first lesson in the long course syllabus - who would have thought we were here to learn to fly eh.

Anyway happy new year, and good luck sticking with those resolutions!