On Saturday myself and a couple of the lads ventured over to Tauranga in DQV, our Arrow. I hadn't flown for a month so went and did some circuits first, to make sure I was sharp, then by the time I got back they were there waiting for me.
We checked the weather again at ten, and it hadn't changed from the 7am weather - Tauranga's METAR was showing broken at 2500, forecast to increase to 3000 ft, with wind 040 @ 15 kt, although Hamilton was showing showers in the vicinity, which we could see to the north east, steadily moving south, so we decided to go while we still could. Some dodging of showers was required near Mt Ruru, then it was clear straight to the Kaimais. The gap was more than enough to fit over the hill, and we could see the Mount, so over we went, and got clearance straight to the city, and a short time later we were landing and taxiing round to the museum. We wandered in to the museum and had a look round, and since nobody asked us for money, it was nice and cheap :)
After a look round the museum we jumped back in the plane and shot back to Hamilton. Not much to report except for an average ground speed close to 160 kt. The good news was the whole trip was only 0.8, so it was nice and quick, not to mention cheap, and this is why I like going to Tauranga as it's far enough away (43nm) to get a good bit of speed up, but still quite a quick trip...
Anyway, enough from me, I think the lads enjoyed themselves and we returned the plane undamaged, so it's got to be a success aye!
6 comments:
Still cant believe we got there in back in 0.8 hours. But with a groundspeed like that, I'm not suprised..
Yeah, 160kt is a nice speed.. But of course on the way over we had like 130kt, so you don't win them all..
Still damn quick though! Oh yeah, had an after thought, what the heck was that handbrake type thing you were using? Flaps or something?
Was going to ask but I forgot..
That's exactly right! As you will learn in Airtech, there's many types of flap. The Pipers have just plain flaps, which are substantially less effective than Cessna type Fowler flaps. The Arrow has 4 positions - 0, 10, 25 and 40 degrees
The Yak has two flap settings.
"Up" and "Oh My God, I've turned my plane into a falling brick..."
**cue rimshot**
Hahahaha.... I guess they have long runways in Russia aye.. No need for flaps :)
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