Hawkes Bay for the day..

At the AGM on Tuesday, Aaron asked me if I wanted to come with him on a trip to the Hawke's Bay on Thursday in DQV. I was dubious because it didn't give me much time to arrange time off work, but I asked my boss who very kindly gave me the day off. Thursday rolled round and the weather didn't look too bad, so off we went. I was a bit dismayed that Aaron wanted to go at 7:45am, not being an early riser and all that, but since there's not many hours of daylight this time of year I agreed..

We got the aircraft out and got going, and we realised that although the day was quite dismal, the high cloud was much higher than it looked, and as we climbed up we easily made it to 6000 feet, and trucked along nicely, all the way to Napier. To my delight the horizon was lit up with a fantastic sunrise. My only bummer was my GPS wouldn't acquire any satellites, so I made a note to drop it in to Ham Avionics when I got back.

Our trip to Hastings was so smooth it was almost scary - much smoother than any flight I can remember for a long long time. I've only been to Napier once and it was ugly weather, this time we were nice and high, and I got some nice pics on the way. We descended and arrived at Hastings, and Aaron did an excellent landing. We parked up and our ride arrived, and off we went into town. At this point Aaron had work to do, and I wanted to have a look around town, so I grabbed my camera and headed off.

Aaron suggested I might want to go for a fly, and after a couple of hours mucking round town I was ready to go flying, so I shot off back to the airport, and had a look at the chart and VFG to get myself familiar with the area. As per Aaron's suggestion, I took off out of Hastings and headed east. Using the DME to ensure I remained clear of Napier airspace, I flew round Te Mata, then out to Cape Kidnappers which I flew round at 2200 feet to stay above the 2000ft high restricted area. I then requested and was granted clearance into Napier airspace. I flew over Napier city and did a couple of orbits, then did a touch and go at Napier airport before heading back to Hastings, did an overhead join and landed. Wind was calm so I picked the runway that would allow me to roll out and not have to brake hard or backtrack to taxi off, and after the best damn landing I think I've ever done, which of course no bastard was watching, I taxied back and parked up. A wonderful little experience, and I now have much more of an idea about the geography of the area. I also am much more relaxed about flying around there now I have the lay of the land. Shortly afterwards, Aaron txted me and asked how much fuel was in the aircraft, and after checking, I thought 90 litres was cutting it a bit fine, so I went and filled it up, and as I was doing that Aaron arrived.

Shortly after 3pm we took off, and headed back to Hamilton. This was another wonderful smooth, fast flight, the aircraft went beautifully, but I wish the heater didn't just cook your feet - as copilot I was in charge of the heater and spent the flight adjusting it to and fro, as we'd go from cook to freeze and back again.. When we arrived at Hamilton we were told to hold at Mystery Creek as there were 5 in the circuit, and I counted six orbits by the time we got clearance to descend and join. Shortly afterwards we were all instructed to land and get clear as there was an ATR in trouble on approach. We parked the plane and ran back to the runway with probably everyone else on the airfield, only to watch the aircraft in question land normally. The paper today mentioned something about hydraulic problems, but it looked fine to me!!

I ran over to Ham Aero with my GPS, and managed to catch them before they went home. They had a look at it and pronounced it had probably lost it's almanac due to not being used for a few weeks, and I remembered the batteries had been flat after using it last time. I didn't realise they can lose their almanac but now I do, and if this happens, I know all I have to do is choose New Location->Automatic, and leave it by the window for half an hour and it will pick up the local satellites. Much relief was to be had when it started working again!!!

Thanks to Aaron and my manager at work who let me take time off at such short notice, I had an absolutely fantastic day. I was just thrilled how it worked out, and I managed to take lots of photos and videos, my favourites are all on a flickr set. A couple of the good ones are here, but by all means go and check out the set. Most of these photos and videos were shot using a Canon A570 IS


Sunrise over a sea of fog, somewhere near Taupo I think


Some snowy looking mountains - no idea what they're called, sorry


160kt IAS - yeah!!


Taupo Racetrack


Napier city


Taking off at Hamilton


Landing at Hastings


Landing at Hamilton


Flying round Te Mata peak - at least I think it was Te Mata, I kinda just headed east for the rockiest looking hill I could find :-)