Flying with Avskills!

After all the bad weather of the past few weeks, it was a real relief to have a reason to leave Wellington for the day :-)

The reason was an introductory strip flying course with Willie and Craig of Avskills. What a day! After travelling to Picton aerodrome [ICAO: NZPN] in a Sounds Air Cessna 208B Caravan [a great way to cross Cook Strait!], Willie [A-Cat instructor, Flight Examiner] and Craig [C-Cat instructor and engineer] turned up with their Cessna 172S, ZK-SAN.

Without going in to all the details, we started with takeoffs and landings into Picton to get me used to having a stabilised approach with a constant nose attitude and using power to control the approach path. A bit different, but a lot of fun!

After this, a trip up the Wairau Valley, a quick reminder of forced landings, then landings/ takeoffs on a one-way farm strip! It's the first time I have been into such a strip, and this one was on the side of a hill, and was definitely one-way. Nice! Half an hour of takeoffs and landings and I was starting to get comfortable.

After this we flew a little further west to a private strip, this one with trees at the end. As you'll see from the photos, the trees are tall, and the only way out was through the trees..! Add in a little wind and I was soon heading towards the trees [thankfully Craig was a little more on to it!!], but 30 minutes or so of circuits was interesting.

Last bit of flying was back to Nelson [ICAO: NZNS] via the hills and some elementary mountain flying techniques. Nice! Very last flight was Nelson back to Wellington, again on Sounds Air C208B.

All in all, 2.2 hours of flight time. 2.2 hours might not sound like much, but it was full on the entire time with around 20 takeoffs and landings at 4 different airfields. An AWESOME day out and well worth it!

If you're interested in getting some advanced flight training, particularly strip training, Avskills are the right people to contact! Both Willie and Craig have a safety-focussed but relaxed approach, and I really enjoyed the training - I'll definately be using the techniques they introduced in my flying from now on. Awesome!

For members of Wellington Aero Club - more details in the next Windsock magazine.

Enjoy the photos! Top to bottom are:

- Me standing next to ZK-SAN at the top of the farm strip
- ZK-SAN on Willie's strip
- Looking down the strip...
- ...then up towards the trees... that gap looked even smaller as I was flying through it!
- Two Air Nelson DHC-8 aircraft at Nelson
- Beech B200, ZK-MAN, registered to Tasman Helicopters Above and Beyond, Nelson