Planning: NZKT (Kaitaia - the northernmost NZ airfield) - YSNF (Norfolk Island)
Encouraged by last night’s flight, I’m now looking at the next leg. This leg is considerably longer and there are a few things to figure out.
I’m a simple man so I’ve started by thinking about this logically. To get to Norfolk Island, I need to (1) know where Norfolk Island is, preferably in relation to me and (2) have enough fuel to get me to Norfolk Island.
With regards to (1), it appears that pilots before me have had similar dilemmas and have come up with some really cool solutions, many of which are actually already installed to my little slightly damaged bird at Kaitaia.
Hence I should to learn to use at least some of these magical devices before the propeller starts to spin…or failing that, at least ensure that I have the user manual with me ready for reading by the time Cape Reinga disappears over the horizon behind my tail.
NZKT has an NDB but I have no idea how close I need to get by dead reckoning until the ADF picks it up…and over the water I assume that my inability to account for wind etc. will result in a rather inefficient method. I think the better way to deal with the situation here is to learn one of the GPS’s.
Now, (2) – fuel is another dilemma. I haven’t done fuel calculations before and I have to say, holy unit conversions batman. Litres, gallons, lbs, kg’s… the trip fuel table in the x-plane Cessna manual is in lbs and lbs/hour, but the cockpit fuel gauge is in gallons. Add passenger weights, taxi allowance, climb to cruise altitude…my head is spinning.
This is making me miss my trusty Mirage 2000c where all you need to worry about is kg’s and there’s a handy digital display which shows exactly how many kgs/minute you are spending, right next to the display of how many kgs you have left. 1200 kg Bingo? Point the nose home right now or you’re going to have a bad time.
So – here’s how far I’ve got. 53 gallons / 318 lbs total fuel on board. 8 gallons / 48 lbs cruise consumption per hour. That equates to circa 6.5 hours flight time at cruise.
The NZKT-YSNF leg is 452 NM. At 100 kts that’s a 4.5 hour flight – depending on the conditions, I could potentially go faster – if I felt safe enough about the fuel margin, I could cruise at 120 kts and get there under 4 hours.
Allow 4 lbs for taxi. Allow circa 14 lbs / 2.4 gallons for climb to 6500 feet (~11 minutes at ~73 kts at ~550fpm, 15 NM distance).
Cruise distance 437 NM, cruise time 4 hrs 20 minutes at 100 kts, cruise fuel 210 lbs.
So. Taxi 4 lbs, climb 14 lbs, cruise 210 lbs, add 20% navigation error / bad mixture management etc. magin 46 lbs = 274 lbs / 46 gallons required.
53 gallons / 318 lbs total fuel → 7.3 gallons / 44 lbs extra remaining i.e. just under an hour of fuel.
I could be off here but judging by the above, I should be able to make the trip.
One thing I haven’t considered here is the extra drag of the floats: I’m not comfortable doing the crossing without the ability to set down in the drink safely in an emergency.
The guys here at Kaitaia have a pair of pontoons they’re happy to part with, so the plan is to install those at the same time while we are reattaching the left flap (we found it, it’s a bit dented but nothing a bit of number 8-wire and duct tape wouldn’t fix).
