The first three days of flying in South Island had been a
gentle introduction to mountain flying with blue skies and light winds (with
perhaps the exception of flying around the back of Mt Cook). The principle is to fly along the right hand
side of a valley unless wind turbulence requires a different approach. In low cloud conditions when approaching
saddles, low lying ridges used to cross from one valley to another, the trick
is to approach at an angle to allow the option to turn back if the other side
is not clear and always have an escape plan.
As a result drawing a line on a map to determine and plan your route simply
does not feature in mountain flying, as you weave you way around and through
the mountains.
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| Overhead join for the beach! |
Day 4 was going to be some of the more challenging flying
getting across to the west coast for a beach landing on Big Bay, followed by a
flight round and into Milford Sound, a deep and steep sided fjord that has an
airstrip at one end, and then on to Fjordland in the South West corner of the
island, otherwise known as Peter Jackson’s film set for his Lord of the Rings
films.
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| Turning base - mountains to right. |
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| Parked to one side of runway |
New Zealand pilots are well used to the discipline of
self-reporting and Milton Sound additionally has an information (radio) service
but not full ATC, so approaching pilots have to keep an eye on other traffic, a
good listening watch as well as flying the plane.
You quickly get used to the idea that on many strips a long
finals approach, sometimes even a short approach is not always possible. So getting the plane set up early is vital to
a successful landing. Windsocks are not always visible or available so overflying
the strip is a must. On day 3 our
challenge was to land on the beach at Big Bay which is around 8km across and
8km wide and touch down on sandy beach across the back of the bay – so as
runways go – pretty long. Landing
aircraft usually land and park at the north end, so with the prevailing
southerly wind, we still ended up hugging the mountain at the north, to touch
down just over a small creek.
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| Entry to Milford Sound |
A short landing roll with yoke well back to stop the nose
wheel digging in, we slowly taxied back to avoid picking up stones from the
prop and parked facing out to sea. As we
went for a walk around the dunes to take a look at the whitebait fisherman’s
huts I mused over the number of beaches we could land on in the UK – with such
freedom. The “white-baiters” are only there for a few months a year and there
rest of the year the bay is only visited by trampers (hikers) and the odd
aircraft.
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| Runway in distance |
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| Short finals for 11 |
Next stop was Milford Sound and short track down the coast
to join from the seaward side. Strict
adherence to flying on the right and hugging the hill was reinforced when the
narrowness of the gorge became apparent.
Saint Anne Point was our first reporting point with a decision yet to be
made on whether to land on 11 or 29.
Whilst there is flexibility on landing there is little on departure
because of the steep mountains close to the end of the runway. Equally go-arounds on 11 are not encouraged
for the same reason. There was quite a
lot of traffic in the sound with a number of planes departing and the three
Cessna 172s in our fleet, about 5 minutes apart. This was going to be the least straight
approach I have ever flown with a short final for 11 to the left after rounding
the last cliff on the right.
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| One of fleet flying in behind us |
The wind at
the top of the sound was negligible and rather than fly a tight circuit round
the back for 29 we were told that 11 was available should we want it. Trying not to think about the prospects of
not getting in cleanly, it was down soon after the numbers. Rather satisfying! After lunch and a short exploration of
Milford we were off to Fjordland.
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| Apron looking towards threshold of 29 |
Assuming we would track back out the same way we were surprised
to find we would be leaving through the overhead to track up the Arthur River
to carry out a circuit of Lake Quill.
Most circuits are going around something in the middle – like a runway.
This circuit was going to be going around something on the outside as Lake
Quill is a high level mountain lake with an amazing waterfall down to the
Arthur River. The aim was to cross in
to the lake over the waterfall and then lose airspeed to 70kts and put out one
stage of flap. Hug the hill was again
the message as we flew round to the right for an anti-clockwise circuit. It was a weird feeling flying around the
inside of a circular mountain tarn with one entrance and exit, short of a very
slow, high climb out over the top. The
views were simply amazing and it was slightly off to fly out over a huge, huge
drop.
Flying out through the Arthur River we traversed a number of
saddles and across an number of the inlets in Fjordland until it was time to
head to Manapouri, an underused airport, with PAPIS, departure lounge, hard
runway and no planes or passengers. It
had been developed by the local authority to encourage traffic and tourism to
the area, though the ANZ flights had finished.
We had a break in the airport café, from the hot drinks and cakes we
brought ourselves. After refuelling ourselves
and our aircraft it was time to head back to GHS for dinner.
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| The underutilised Manapouri |
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