First Flight

Hurrah! After seven months of being a trainee pilot, I have finally had a go in a real aircraft. It's been a very busy week, flying most days, including a trip to the nearest gliding club at Matamata.

Last weekend saw me take to the skies in one of CTC's Cessna 172's equipped with the rather nice and easy to use Garmin G1000 glass cockpit instrumentation system. The week before I completed the four simulator sessions. These were great fun with a chance for the instructors to put me to the test with some rather challenging scenarios. For example during my last session the instructor put me in a situation where I was completely lost and flying in cloud. This required a little bit of brain power to determine where I was using the instruments as well as keep control of the aircraft. All in a days work! There was a serious side to these sessions as well teaching us how to use the G1000, basic flying and general handling skills.

Since then I have flown three more times and had another simulator session to teach stall recovery techniques and some circuit practice. It has been great being back in the air. The scenery over New Zealand is fantastic with lots of rolling hills and mountains. During my first flight my instructor and I flew out to the North East of Hamilton via somewhere called Scotsman's valley, a very distinctive valley in the hills which you practically fly right through. In other flights we have been out to Raglan on the west coast providing views over Raglan harbour and Mt Karioi to the south.

Those of us with previous flying experience have found that it has helped a little with our learning but, predictably, it has been quite challenging so far. This style of accurate, airline type flying is very demanding. There are many different checks to be doing as every few minutes as well as navigating and contacting ATC (Air Traffic Control). The radio calls I find are what is making most difficult, especially as I haven't got used to the Maori place names yet. Some of them can be a real tongue twister.

Gliding in New Zealand is fantastic. It's autumn here and the weather is virtually better than summer back home. The gliding club at Matamata is located near a substantial ridge providing excellent ridge and wave soaring potential along with the thermals stronger than I have ever experienced before.

Here are a selection of photos from the past week of flying:

DA42 Simulator

Hamilton Airport

Kiwi countryside

Clearways. CTC accommodation

Climbing through a gap in the cloud

Flying in the gaps in the cloud

Sunny New Zealand from the air

Piako gliding club's PW6 with the ridge in the background

Kaimai-Mamaku Ridge

Wairere falls and the city of Tauranga behind on the east coast

Life in New Zealand

We have now been in New Zealand best part of two weeks, and its definitely easy to see the appeal of this place. Life seems so much more laid back and the people are really friendly. The scenery is pretty good too. Yesterday I wasn't rostered for any "events" (sim sessions, mass briefs, flying) so I went for a walk up one of the nearby mountains. This provided excellent views across North Island, as well as some much needed excercise.

The view from Mt Pirongia

It was nice to take the time to go and explore, as free time will be quite hard to come by over here due to quite a tight schedule. However my first lesson is coming up soon (this weekend hopefully) which I am really looking forward to. It has been best part of eight months since I last flew, so it will be great to get my hands on the controls again.

You may remember in my last post I mentioned doing some more exams. Well we all passed both the NZ PPL Air Law and NZ differences exams with ease. Having spent a week in the classroom learning these two subjects, guess what, more time in a classroom. We had two more days in the classroom for the first bunch of mass briefs. These are briefings preparing us for the next few flying lessons. The first ones were about general flying skills preparing us for what we are going to be learning during our first couple of lessons, which happen to be in the simulator this weekend. As the MPL (multi-crew pilot license) is taught differently to the traditional ATPL (airline transport pilot license), we spend four lessons in the simulator getting to grips with basic aircraft handling while learning how to use the Garmin 1000 glass cockpit instrument system, similar to what we will be using at an airline.

Living in the CTC accommodation over here is great. It has a really good communal feel about it, with spacious rooms, good facilities and barbeques at each block. So while the weather here has been very warm and sunny we have certainly made the most of cheap meat and barbeques.

Well that's it for the time being, I should go and read the training manual for tomorrow's lesson.

Arriving half way around the world

Arriving in New Zealand hasn't been the exciting journey that it was supposed to be. After thirty hours of traveling, via Dubai and Brisbane, I arrived in Auckland only to be told that my luggage had been left in Dubai. The journey itself with Emirates was very peaceful, very long and very tiring, but there were some fantastic views along the way. After much umming and ahhing about whether or not to have the fish (universally known as a bad choice when it comes to airline food) discovered that the salmon was in fact absolutely lovely.

Our carriage awaits

Sunrise somewhere over Iraq

Morning Rush Hour at Dubai Airport

The tallest building in the world

Somewhere over the Indian Ocean

Taking off from Brisbane for the final leg to Auckland

Remote Island in the Tasman Sea

Forty eight hours went by before my bags arrived in Hamilton (where the training with CTC is carried out) which put a downer on the whole first weekend really. I would have written this sooner, but my power cables were in my luggage! In a bid to try and forget my troubles and to start exploring this much acclaimed country, a few of us went to visit the renowned volcanic area of Rotorua. This small city, smelling terribly of sulphur from the bubbling mud pools and thermal springs is a rather quaint place, with a lake as clear as glass. The scenery on the drive there and back is simply stunning, and the whole place seems so friendly and laid back. Arriving here at the start of Autumn, we get very hot days with cool mornings and nights.

Living just up the road from Hamilton Airport in CTC's very nice accommodation, with sliding patio doors to each room and the sun shining so unlike back home in Britain, I can eat breakfast outside in the fresh morning air and look out onto the approach path for the airport.

A room with a view

Today we started the ten day long ground-school. As I passed all fourteen of my ATPL exams all I have to do is a New Zealand differences exam and a New Zealand Air law exam. This first week comprises sitting in a classroom studying for these two exams, though it is amazing to be here and able to see the aircraft that we will be flying in the coming months.

For now though, being thirteen hours ahead of the UK it is time for bed here, so I shall wish you all a good day.