Learning to fly but I ain't got wings - a sim pilot's diary

Excellent. NZ has excellent ppl flying. I loved it out there. The type of flying you can’t get in the uk.

Before you jump in, also think what type of plane you want to fly, especially when you pass and you consider taking passengers. Does the club offer other planes for you to convert on, like a 4 seater etc.

I beleive robin is not a bad choice. Whilst the aircraft manufacturer went into receivership and the design had some flaws (carbon monoxide) issues many years ago, the factory for them was in the hamilton area and hopefully all good now.

I never flew the robin, let me know what you think about it.

Thanks for your comments. There are 172’s available as well as Piper PA-28 Warriors so I think there’s a reasonably good progression path available.

The NZNE location is superior to the alternatives and the pricing is more or less on par.

As noted earlier I’ll start seriously flying next year all going according to plan so unlikely to fly much in the next 8 or so months but I wanted to get up at least once to get a taste in the short term.

I don’t have much to compare the Robin to but it was very enjoyable, easy and responsive. The IP took us up to 1400 ft (~1200 above ground) and once we had gone through the effects of controls and I hadn’t tried very hard to kill us, he let me have control fo the rest of the 50-minute flight incl. pattern and final (he followed through with the controls on final and adjusted the round out and touchdown).

Overall the plane felt very responsive, I flew with thumb and two fingers on the stick. Trim is accurate and easy to get right. Visibility from the bubble canopy is really good both ahead/below and around/above, at full flaps on final the nose sits low and you can see the runway well. Trimmed at cruise you do need to apply right stick to maintain wings level or the plane rolls to the left - apparently that’s a feature (no aileron trim of course). Roll rate is faster than I expected from a trainer.

All in all I felt way, way more comfortable and at home than I expected/feared - I was well task saturated of course but still felt a lot more confident that ‘I can do this in real life’ after.

I am generally described as a pretty dead calm kind of guy but I was screaming with joy and air punching when I was out of the flight school building and safely back in my car where nobody could hear, haha. So much fun.

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Sounds like the end of my normal workday flying. Whew…success once again. Barely. :rofl:

Great insights on the Robin. It certainly looks like a good visibility plane. Reminds me a little of a Grumman AA-5 Tiger, which I always enjoyed flying when one of the based customers at the FBO I worked at wanted IFR training. I think most of my instruction time was in a PA-28, which I actually preferred to the C-172 even though I have thousands of hours in that as well.

Sounds like you got a great instructor who knows how to hook a student…that’s a good start!

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Thousands of hours in a 172 and more in a PA28? I’m impressed! I have a grand total of about 340 hours of piston time, with about 30 of that being multi-engine piston.

To be honest, I sometimes feel I missed out on that part of my career. Of course, I also missed out on having student pilots try to kill me on a regular basis, but I guess there are good things about that too when it comes to building experience.

Well, back in the country and about to go back to work in a fortnight’s time (sigh) so time to put some more X-Plane time down in preparation for some lessons.

I downloaded Lyndiman’s NZ scenery and also picked up VFlyteAir’s Piper PA-28-140 Cherokee ‘Classic’ back when the sales were on, so I’ll be trying out those a bit.

Here’s a couple of shots from the Cherokee’s maiden flight off NZNE (North Shore Airport).

Gulf Harbour on the Whangaparaoa peninsula. Doesn’t look too bad, although probably better viewed from higher up.

View back to the mainland:

NZNE upwind:

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That Cherokee is a fun little airplane. I love how you have to put the key in the ignition and it wobbles back and forth as you fly… They have some really nice looking panels…

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They sure do! I chuckled about that ignition key - that’s a great little feature.

It’s interesting - the visibility from the Cherokee is a bit different to a Cessna or a Robin, especially to the sides. Takes a bit of getting used to. Especially after mostly flying bubble canopy jets in DCS recently! :smiley:

It’s a pretty little module, for sure.

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Sounds about right…! I did some flying out in Prescott, Arizona (5,045’) and was amazed at how much I had to lean out the Cessna 172 to prevent plug fouling. Cool that REP replicates that kind of fouling…

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Well, being back at work full time (both parents) with a 1-year old makes for a busy schedule, so the last little while has gone in an absolute flash. I stole a bit of time today to familiarise myself with Auckland from the air a bit more.

The Whenuapai airport scenery I downloaded has some P-3’s parked there - just like in real life. Neat.

Taking off from Great Barrier Island:

West end of Waiheke Island. The ferry arrives at Matiatia Bay in the forefront, Oneroa (the main settlement) can be seen at the narrow point on the island further away.

Duder regional park on the mainland, across the water from Waiheke. We hired a little city council-owned beach bach here just this weekend for one night (you can actually see the house in the map overlay) and did the dayhike around the regional park. Cheap place to stay and lovely views from on top of the hills on the hike.

The Beachlands suburb and Pine Harbour marina, starting back towards CBD - quite recognisable from the air because of the straight grid layout - you can’t find straight streets almost anywhere in Auckland.

The Whitford inlet. If you’re coming along the Eastern general aviation transit corridor along the coast to Ardmore airport, this inlet is where you turn inland to get to Ardmore.

Bucklands golf course - another very recognisable landmark:

Cool. Don’t know if any of these apply to your flying area…but this dude has churned out a lot of NZ sceneries for X-Plane:

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Cool, I’ll definitely install those! Thank you.