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.