So I recently completed my cross country qualifier, a big step in the VFR training. The flight needs to be at least 300 miles long and you must land at 2 airfields (at least 1 of them needs to be controlled) and have signatures from either the tower or somebody at the airfield to prove you have been there.The flight had been cancelled a fair few times due to weather, as of course you need to make sure that the conditions are going to be fine not only for a large area, but also for a long period of time (you are 'given' the aircraft for about 6 hours).
I planned a route up north to Dargaville, which is in the Northland, before heading across to Great Barrier Island, tracking south from there to Tauranga and then back to Hamilton. The two airports I chose were Dargaville, which is an uncontrolled airfield and Tauranga, a controlled one.
On the leg to Dargaville it was necessary to make a slight change of course in order to avoid a military no-fly zone (probably for the best!!!) and arrived at Daraville on time, although the weather had slightly deteriorated since I took off from Hamilton. I did an overhead join before landing on the limestone runway. It was very narrow and throws up a lot of dust! However, the bonus is that it is very difficult to miss, as it is brilliant white against the grass surroundings. I stayed at the airfield chatting to some members of the flying club before heading off on the rest of my journey.
I reached the coast where I was to begin the crossing to Great Barrier Island, although had to plan a re-route, as the cloud base was too low for me to reach a safe altitude - you need enough height to be able to glide to land in the event of an engine failure; on this occasion, the necessary altitude was 8500ft. Instead, I planned a route south, pretty much via Auckland and cautiously made my way through all of the airspace changes in the area. The views here were incredible and I was able to see Auckland up close from 900ft in the air!
I then tracked across to another small aerodrome at Thames and once there went north to Coramandel in order to pick up my original track from Great Barrier. On reaching Tauranga I landed and visited the tower which was great. They showed me all of their equipment and how they manage all of the traffic, before demonstrating to me how they can see the details of pretty much any aircraft flying in New Zealand. Incredible, especially when it turns out that the equipment is about 12 years old.
After refuelling and filling out the necessary paperwork, I began the home stretch back to Hamilton. The flight is only around 20/25 minutes, so it was much shorter than any of the other sectors.
All in all it was a great day and one of the most enjoyable flights I have had yet. It was very exciting to make full stops at airports and explore instead of doing touch and goes and was rewarding knowing all of the preparation for the flight paid off.
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CTC Aviation is currently re-branding, meaning that the logo and a few things are looking different. The yellow/gold has disappeared, giving way to silver and a different shade of blue. We are receiving new epaulettes and tie and the aircraft are being repainted. So far a Twinstar has left the hangar in the new colours and many other aircraft in the fleet have been painted white in preparation. A few new Cessnas are making their way into the fleet as well, as we say goodbye to the conventional C172s. How do you like the new livery?!
