Lots Of Flying!

Since my last update I have been flying a lot! The main news being that I completed my first ever solo flight! The flight itself lasted only 15 minutes, completing one circuit of the airport, but it was a great feeling to get it done! A few lessons later and I completed my first out of circuit solo, heading over to the east to practice some steep turns, stalling and practice forced landings. Practice forced landings are to practice choosing a field to land in should your engine fail during flight, it takes some practice flying down from 2500ft to 500ft and making the field you are aiming for with the power at idle.

About to go on another solo flight.

I’m now on lesson 26 which is half way to our first major test in New Zealand, PT1, testing our abilities to fly the aircraft accurately, making sure we can navigate successfully and the management of unexpected situations and emergencies. It’s quite amazing how quickly we are getting through all of the flying; I’ve already accumulated 30.4 hours of flying in just over a month! After lesson 26 all of the Nav flying starts which require us to fly routes around the Hamilton and New Zealand north island area. At first they are dual flights with an instructor and they decide where we fly before being free to choose where we want to fly for the route. It will be good flying to new airfields and getting to know the area a bit better. I’m looking forward to the challenge of flying approaches to airfields that I’ve never been to before.

Some photos from my flight to Raglan:

Aside from the flying, we have decided on our plans for Christmas and New Year. We are going to the beach at Tauranga on Christmas Day, it will be quite a novelty having Christmas on the beach when it is normally freezing cold and snowing at home! For New Year we are heading up to Auckland, the first major city in the world to celebrate New Year! We’re staying overnight there and hopefully going further north to explore the area round about Auckland. 
I also have my final PPL exam, before my ATPL resit in February., so far I've managed to pass them all first time, hopefully tomorrow will be the same!

In other news we recently bought another car last week, a 2.5L Twin Turbo Mitsubishi Galant VR4. Its an absolute beast!

Overall I feel that I’m making good progress with the flying and I feel I’ve come a long way since I started with only 7 hours previous experience. It’s amazing how quickly things are picked up and then perfected with a bit of practice and although there is a lot to remember to do, I’m really enjoying the flying part of this course!

We're heading over to Tauranga for Christmas Day and then down to Rotorua and Taupo for Boxing Day, hopefully it will be a lot of fun, its a perfect chance to go exploring while we have the time off!

Merry Christmas!