As I mentioned in my last post, I was doing a flight plan. I even used that flight plan and flew to Raglan and back. How exciting to say that I've now used my own pilot skills to fly myself somewhere for a little mini holiday!
Now, I didn't go all by myself of course. My husband is an instructor in the microlight class, so he took the title of Pilot in Command while I did all the work.
We packed up one of the "microlight" aircraft the flying school has on offer, a Tecnam P92 Echo Super. Now, some of you may be thinking I'm talking about a low performance, open cockpit, fabric construction plane when I say microlight but instead I mean one of these:
You may also remember my post on aviator chic
"Flying in Style" in which I kinda promised an outfit shot when I thought I was doing all right looking "casually glamorous" when heading off for a lesson and this is about as close as we're going to get. It was a warm day out so I went with black trouser style shorts, belted with a brown leather belt, topped with a light weight leopard print cardi worn as a blouse and little brown ballet flats. Not exactly an Amelia Earhart look but better than my usual!
And before I get side-tracked onto a style post, onward to an in flight photo (where, incidentally, you can see my rhinestone headset doing it's job...)
And here's my husband, moving the plane to a suitable spot to tie it down overnight. The wide expanse of grass to the left in the photo is where I landed the plane. It was my first grass landing, and a bit tricky as there is no "runway" to aim for - just a big ol' paddock.
That night in Raglan, we stayed at a nice little bach and had a night out to see the One Man Ska Band, Chris Murray (all the way from LA), and supporting act from Auckland Atsushi and the Moisties. A great night of ska and many impressed people around when they found out we flew down for the show :) Just one photo of Chris Murray jamming with this guy Nate who played the harmonica...it was awesome!
In the morning, we were happy to find the plane still tied down, exactly where we left it...
On the way home, my husband was so relaxed, he spent most of his time taking photos of the rugged west coast as we flew along.
I must say, there is something quite satisfying about having completed a successful cross-country flight...and not just any cross-country but one that took me somewhere I needed to go for a specific event. This little jaunt was quite possibly just what I needed to get back to my PPL lessons. Looking in my logbook, it's sad to note that my last PPL lesson was on 10 Oct - over a month ago.
