First Lesson

One week after starting at the Crew Training Centre in Hamilton, today was the big day. I would finally get the chance to get my hands on the Diamond DA-20 Katana that is to become my new office over the next 7 months. The first week had consisted of a number of groundschool lectures and general familiarisation with the Hamilton Airport and CTC operating procedures. The weather wasn't very kind either causing a number of flights to be cancelled. It's strange coming from a place where you would go flying in pretty poor weather a lot of the time to one where you need at least 16kms visibility. But this is a VFR (Visual Flight Rules) course at the moment, so it kind of makes sense to be able to see where you're going....

So, at 0914 NZST on the 19th September 2006, the flying training began with Katana SFB lauching into the skies for the first lesson in the syllabus - Effects of Controls. The weather was pretty reasonable with just a few showers dotted around and good visibility, perfect weather for learning the foundation skills essential to accurate powered flying. Learning to taxi was initially pretty amusing, trying to get used to the differential braking system used for steering. By the end of the lesson though, my instructor was grimacing less than at the start, so there must have been some sort of improvement in the driving...

Luckily much of the airborne lesson is similar to the instructing I've been doing at Kenley in gliders, and this gave the opportunity to relax a bit more and just enjoy being in the air again after what has been a bit of a break. If the weather holds out, tomorrow is lesson 2; Straight and Level 1. Oh, and more taxiing practice....