South Island Flying Trip

A little over a month to go and the information pack has arrived from Flyinn for our 11 day trip in one of their C172s around S Island, NZ, starting late February.  Log book and license entries to be copied and sent back to NZ to obtain the local validation ahead of our arrival and lots of reading to do.  Maps of South Island, information on local rules and radio arrangements and booklets on mountain flying and procedures for getting in and out of Milford Sound will take some studying.

This is our second big trip outside the UK having flown around S Africa, Zambia and Botswana with Hanks' Self Fly Safaris back in 2007 (Pilot Magazine - April 2008).  The mountain flying will be different and something we have not done before.  The other difference will be the presence of a safety pilot, something I was less than keen on until I started reading the pre-trip information.  Africa may have had its challenges but South Island size mountains was not one of them.  Aside from the geography and safety pilot there will be an additional pilot with two of us doing the flying as my wife has since earned her PPL wings.  Prior to our Africa trip she took the UK's AOPA flying companion's course.  Ten hours of flying and ground-school ensured I had someone who could assist with the workload, navigation and radio and, if I became incapacitated, could land the plane.   Now I am going to have to share the flying!

Organised flying tours such as the Hanks' flying out of Lanseria in South Africa, New Zealand's Flyinn and others covering Australia, Africa and elsewhere remain a popular way of seeing other parts of the world from the air rather than the ground.


So the countdown begins.  A month to go, plenty of aviation reading, local guide books and planning.  Watch this space!