Well, what a fantastic day!

We thought last night that rain would be set in until the afternoon but woke to find it better than expected. After a flurry of texts with Ross, our instructor, we drove over to Waipukurau hoping to get time in a Tiger Moth and/or go along on their club flyout to a local beach! We got to do both! 😆

Noel went up in the Tiger Moth with Ross first, did some circuits and then Ross hopped out while Noel did another 5 circuits solo.

Then I went up, did some circuits with Ross and then 5 solo circuits. 🙂 I found it interesting landing on runway 20 as its edges weren’t well-defined so, sitting in the back with little forward view, I was looking out to the left at the fence parallel to the runway to get a judgement on direction of landing. However, on the right, very early on there is a white wooden fence which sticks out at 90 degrees to the runway, which could impede one’s flying if a wing decided to have a close encounter(!) so I was very conscious of this white fence on the right while looking out to the left and the need to miss it, which rather put me off initially! You’ll see in later pictures what I mean.

It was a little windier than for our first solo flight, 12-15kts about 30 degrees off the runway and moving around a little, but nothing as bad as our second lesson. I did feel a bit thumped about at times on downwind and sometimes had to use lots of into-wind aileron on landing. There is a definite pothole on downwind!

Me after my 5 solo circuits. 🙂

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After a very quick turn-around 4 planes set off for the beach! 😎

Here’s a log of the flight from Waipukurau airfield to the beach and the flight from the beach to Waipukurau airfield. Coming back, we went north up the coast a short way and turned inland at Kairakau beach. Noel flew on the way out and I flew on the way back.

We went in a C172 with Ross. Downwind, Waipukurau airfield to the right.

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Right Base.

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Waipukurau and its airfield.

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There were some impressive sights of where the water had carved out the land.

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Ross pointing out where to go.

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Lots of pools of water to help with farming.

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Approaching the sea.

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Wendy had already landed in the club’s ZK-CHB.

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Turning base. First circuit Ross showed us how to approach a beach landing and talked through some things to judge.

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Final.

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Taxying to the start.

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The other plane doing a low pass.

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Turning onto Final.

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Picture taken during landing.

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The view after landing and turning around to taxy to the ‘threshold’.

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Taxying back.

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Wendy decided to move CHB to join the 2 other planes.

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Some people brought down a land-yacht.

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Ross watching the sand-yachting.

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I had to include this picture. 🙂 Ross is talking to Richard, a really nice, helpful man who had been going to come up with us instead of Ross. The socks and boots Richard is wearing are so typically Kiwi 🙂

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Wendy going for a walk. Almost turned into a swim… 😉

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Neat line-up. Three planes not four because one plane decided there wasn’t enough sand to land. 😯

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Richard and passenger, just taken off with Ross on the sand.

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Then it was my turn to have a go.

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Looking north.

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That’s where we were.

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Nice scenery on the way back.

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Following the Tukituki river back to Waipukurau.

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Final 20. Now look, you tell me where the runway is!

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No, seriously! You can just see the white wooden fence intruding onto the right hand side of the early part of the runway.

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I know the runway is there-ish. The white fence doesn’t look too bad but the runway is just slightly more to the right than I’m lined up and with a Tiger Moth’s long, low wings and with looking out to the left to land the Tiger, the fence on the right can be rather off-putting! Ok, excuses, excuses… 🙂

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We had a coffee with the guys and then drove home for a brief visit before going to Max’s. Pauline arrived and we had a delicious dinner.