Following the completion of stalling in both the simulator and the aircraft, I moved onto the next significant milestone: Circuits. Although I have eluded to the accelerated nature of the MPL, circuits are something that cannot be rushed and it is the cadets competence that dictates the pace of progression (obviously within reason!). The circuit is effectively a method of organising the traffic around an aerodrome, so that Air traffic can maintain some semblance of order, and the actions of other pilots are both predictable and safe.
Put simply, the circuit is split into five sections, or 'legs'. These are upwind, crosswind, downwind, base and final. The direction of landing will normally be into wind (as this helps with the generation of lift at low speeds), so dependent on strength and direction the pilot is responsible for arranging their profiles so that the aircraft tracks along the right path. For instance, if the wind was flowing up the page, this would be a crosswind, and the aircraft would gentle be pushed away from the airfield. To counter this the nose needs to be pointed slightly into wind, and hopefully with a visual reference in the distance the pilot can tell if they're tracking correctly.
As well as flying the aircraft, it is the pilots responsibility to correctly communicate with Air traffic control, as there may be a requirement to hold position or use a shortened approach path etc. This means flying, talking, and running checks, as well as looking for other aircraft also in the circuit or joining. Very quickly it becomes apparent how much the pilot workload ramps up, and this is why we are given 5 lessons with an instructor purely in the circuit, so that after our fifth flight we are confident and competent enough to fly off into the big blue yonder on our own!
I have performed two of these lessons and both were quite exciting. For the first I was in the circuit for 90 minutes at Hamilton, so had to be on form with the radio and planning as I was sharing the pattern with 3 others. Annoyingly the wind was variable in direction, causing tailwinds at times which caused enough windshear on final approach to decrease my speed by 5knots at 50 feet. However, this additional challenge was something to be embraced, and in my first lesson of circuits with CTC I was able to complete everything required asides from glide approach's.
Scott flying from the right on Final approach at Te Kuiti
In my second I sat in the back seat for Dan's flight (he had stalling), and after the wind had gently drifted us South, Scott flew us into a small uncontrolled airport called Te Kuiti where we could swap allowing me to fly some circuits. The challenge here is that the runway is relatively short, only 5m wide, and is surrounded by high terrain requiring quite a bit of planning, so although I now didn't need to worry about the radio as much, my flying needed to be accurate to maintain safety margins. As i'm sat here typing away, it's safe to say I didn't make a complete dogs dinner out of it!
After a few days hanging about Clearways, Chris, Matt and I decided to venture up to the Coromandel Peninsula to visit the Hot Water Beach. The beach exists as there is a fault line running close to the surface, so at low tide if you dig into the sand hot water fills the void giving a self built hot tub. And by hot I mean scalding; water temperatures commonly reach 65degrees celcius, so buckets of sea water are needed to cool things down (as Matt found out the hard way!). It was completely worth the effort of driving for two hours, even if we did need to leave at 0630 to get there before the tide came back in.
After that (and given we'd driven two hours to get there), we drove a bit further to a spot known as Cathedral Cove. It's one of those incredible spots that isn't particularly well publicised, but once you get down there you can see why the arch was seen as a beautiful enough spot to be the gateway to Narnia in one of the chronicles films. This was also a good opportunity to suss out whether the two spots were worth a visit again (which they definitely are), so rain or shine Alice and I will definitely be venturing up to the Coromandel during her trip!
And finally, as we drove through Paeroa we stopped at the visitor centre to pay homage to a rather large L&P shrine. L&P is a soft drink originally made in the small town of Paeroa that tastes immense, and the Coca Cola company seem to agree as they bought it! Clearly showing my love....
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