Well, supposedly we were off to Waiouru on Sunday to visit the museum along with a couple of other clubs. This sounded like a bloody good idea to me, how often do you get to land at a military base?
So, the morning of the trip rolls round and we hear the other clubs can't make it, so the lads (Aaron and Euan) decide to head off somewhere, and who am I to avoid a trip in the back of a plane??? The destination chosen was North Shore, and I was chosen to fly the first leg. As it turned out the 35kt @ 2000 ft from the east made the trip pretty uncomfortable, and as we approached Ardmore and needed to descend to enter the Victor lane (our request to transit Auckland airspace having been declined) the turbulence started to become a lot worse, to the point where one of my passengers requested to stop at Ardmore, which I quite happily agreed to. As we were just passing the extended centreline all it took was a quick left turn and we were on early downwind. I thought we should get on the ground ASAP before my passengers went from uncomfortable to sick, and I decided to do a short approach, which required a decent bank onto finals and full flap, throttle closed and nose right down @ 80kt for a hell of a rate of descent with a 20 plus knot headwind, then for a solid landing. After parking we stopped for a rest and a drink then slowly made our way back to the plane. Euan flew us home, and did bloody well in the conditions!!!
Thanks to all for a jolly good day, even if we didn't get to our first 2 destinations, and the weather was damn nasty, but we still got to go flying and we brought the plane home in one piece.
Cheers chaps
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