First flights... so far so good! [ENG]

Today I had my fourth flight on my new steed, the C172. 

I knew from my previous experience on a C150 at Quiberon air club, that cessnas weren't my favourite planes. I find them way too heavy and not very manoeuvrable compare to the low wing aircraft I was used to fly, and specially my little taildragger F-BPRT.

I also knew that the 172 would become my aircraft for the next 100hrs or so, so I had to forgot my a priori and try to become familiar as fast as I could.

When I first saw the flights sylabus I thought I'd get bored during the first few flights. I knew I was still be able to do medium turns, climb, descent, stall, and so on... 

But to be fair, the instrcutors are really picky. They point out all your mistakes wich forces you to be much more accurate on your altitude, speed, rpm for each phase of the flight, than during my PPL training in France.... I'm pretty sure it's to prepare us to the CPL exam in few months. Since recently I had never flown a whole fliht with 20-50ft accuracy on my altimeter, and to be honest after a such flight you're quiet proud of yourself...because it's not an easy task.

On top of that, they overwhelm you with a lot of mnemonics such as, ALAP, CLEAROF, LOI, HASELL, HELL, corresponding on various checks... Even if I have 80 hrs flying, I have to say that at the end of each flights I can hardly remember my name.

With now around 4hrs on the Cessna, I starting to get used to it. The next step is to be able to readback all the radio calls, because I currently readback 90% of the radio calls so let's get these 10% left!!

Following, a quick film of one of the flight. We'd requested an East departure towards Cambridge, which is not the most beautiful area near Hamilton unfortunetly. It's nice, yes, but not as nice as the west cost with Raglan harbour, the beaches... next time!

Rough start! [ENG]

Yesterday, the 20th, was supposed to be my first flight with CTC. I was scheduled to fly one of the DA20, ZK-SFG, off block time at 7pm.

We're not at the aeroclub anymore so for every flight, even for an hour flight with half fuel tank, we have to fill the load sheet. In another word, we have to make sure that the center of gravity (CG) will stay within its limits on the apron at zero fuel mass (ZFM), at take off (T/O) and for landing (LDG).

Then, from the performance graphs in the Aircraft Flight Manual, we have to get the T/O distance. When we got this T/O distance, we have to multiply it by various factors to figure out if the runway we are going to use fits with the performance of the day. 

Because Hamilton Airport has 4 runways, 2 grass runways and 2 sealed runways, you have to take the worse case scenario to make sure you will be able to T/O, which is wet grass runway.

Let's say that you found from the graphs 536m as T/O distance, you will have then to multiply this figure by the regulation factor, to get the take off distance requiered (TODR), then by 1.15 for the surface (grass) and finally by 1.15 for the surface condition (wet).

When it's done you have to do the same for the landing distance. 

The first time I did it, it took me like 45min, that's why your reporting time shouldn't be later than 1h30 before the flight to make sure the paperwork is done before your preflight brief.

Since the beginning of the flight planning I knew that I wouldn't be able to take off with an instructor on bord and full tank. The CG would have been outside its limits, and possibly lead to crash.

Everything was fine, I was waiting for my preflight brief. The instructor had been delayed by the previous cadet, so I rapidly explained to him my concerns about the load sheet figures. For this particular flight it was fine because we didn't have full tank.

We jumped in the aircraft, it was already 7.40pm. We got through the first checks, then we made a radio call to CTC Ops, because they have to be aware of any aircraft movements:

"Us: CTC base, SFG taxiing out

Ops: Roger"

So we taxied to the run up check area, where we basically check the engine condition. We did this last check, it was already 7.55pm, and the instructor told me that we wouldn't be able to fly. He explained to me that there was a CTC ruled saying that we can't land less than 45min before the End of Civil Twilight (ECT), which is when the sun is 6° below the horizon. The ECT on the 20th of November was at 8.44, so we had only 4 minutes to take off and land... impossible then!

We taxied back, and had a quick debrief concerning my load sheet calculations. My flight istructor was a bit concerned too, so he talked to the management departement and they decided to put me on Cessna 172 for the rest of my single engine phase.

This first flight is re-scheduled for tomorrow on the C-172R ZK-JZM.

A volcano entered in eruption today, in the middle of the Northern Island, I hope I'll climb high enough tomorrow to see the ash cloud! This is going to be fantastic!

Let's fly... [ENG]

A week after the begining of the groundschool it's already over. We won't complain about it as it was quiet hard to focus on an another phase of grounschool while you see all the other cadets preparing their flights, on the apron doing the preflight inspections....

Why we needed to do another week of groundschool? 

Just because the ATPL theoretical we passed few weeks ago, was under the JAR rules, or should we say EASA, and New Zealand is not ruled by EASA. So, to be able to fly VFR solo later on we had to sit a NZ Air Law PPL exam.

Fortunetly, there are not too many differencies with the rules we learnt during the ATPL. The most significant ones are the Met minima and their airspaces. The Met minima are easier to remember than the european ones and more permissive specially in class G. 

Concerning their airspaces, there are few differencies. In fact they don't have B,F and E class. Also, they created specific zones within a controlled airspace, like the VFR transit lanes. This VFR lanes are basically uncontrolled zones, with lower and upper limits, within a controlled airspace ( CTR, CTA). We've been told that the kiwis don't really like to speak on radio, so this way they can get through a CTR without contact.

T251 & T252, 2 transit lanes North and South of Hamilton CTR

To be fair, compared to the 1/500 000 French navigation chart that I'm used to, the navigation chart of New Zealand is quiet empty, only a few CTR/CTA.

All of this to say that today was my air law PPL exam. This was the hardest exam I've ever taken, much more difficult than the ATPL one. I managed to get 80%, I really don't know how I did it as I was convinced I'd failed.

We had also another exam about ATPL differencies, merging various topics such as Met, AGK, HP&L and Navigation. This one was pretty straight forward so I'm not really concerned about my result which should be send to me by email.

Groundschool is now over til the IFR phase in few months, which means that the flights can start. My first flight is scheduled tomorrow evening at 7pm, this is going to be awesome!!

Let's all of this begin!!!

Here we are ! [ENG]

 Finally we got there!

Freshly arrived in New Zealand, we've got few days to rest before the begining of the NZ's Air Law PPL groundschool on monday.

To be fair, the flight was better than expected. It's still a very long flight, but the A380 makes things easier and more "pleasant".

You've got a fair amount of leg room even in the eco class, and also, the entertainement programms are pretty well furnished.

I'd have prefered more time during our stop over in Dubaï and Melbourne between the different flights, because we had hardly enough time to disembark and get the next one, specially in Dubaï where we walked through the terminal almost running guided by an Emirates ground staff guy.

Concerning the accomodation provide by CTC, I'm lucky enough to get a studio flat/ room in Knox street, right in the center of Hamilton, just few hundred meters away from the amenities, bank, phone shop, bar/restarants, station, etc...

Now the journey is behind us, it's time to settling in and enjoy these 8 months!!

Off to New Zealand [ENG]

My last post from the Nothern Hemisphere for the next 8 months. I'm still in London but only for few hours. 

Unfortunetly I won't cross almost half of the world on this superb Air New Zeland's ATR, but on a bigger bird, one of the Emirates A380.

I'm really happy to fly on a A380, not because this aircraft represents a technological challenge or whatsoever (to be honest, in my opinion the A380 is one of the ugliest aeroplane), but juste because there are two decks, and this will simplify and make more efficient my walks during the flight to avoid that my feet become twice bigger.

The EK006 flight from London Heathrow to Auckland Int'l is supposed to take off tonight at 2200hr and supposed to land at 0045hr GMT friday... In another words a 27 hours journey. 

It'll be awful but I reckon that as soon as the landing gear will touch the runway at Auckland we will instantaneously forget this terrible journey.