Today I went for a training flight, giving me 10 hours. I was in ZK-RJE, and my instructor and I decided to fly the short hop to Motueka for some circuits, instead of the usual Nelson. I rang the tower and told us what we're doing, that was fine by them. The motueka landing fee is $5 if you pay there and then, but if you don't have the cash and pay by mail, cheque etc later, it costs you $20. Unfortunately my instructor forgot this until we had started up and were about to begin taxiing. She got on the phone and got us a fiver poked through the planes window. Sweet.
We taxied to Hold point Bravo, where I forgot all my run-up checks. We ran through them with the checklists instead. Cleared for takeoff, we lifted off and turned Westwards at 500 ft towards Motueka and into the Motueka MBZ (mandatory broadcast zone). We cruised for a short time at 1500 ft before it was time to do an overhead join at Motueka. We joined non-traffic side of the circuit and went into the downwind leg. We made the downwind call for a touch and go and landed on the grass. We were very high but we made it in okay. Apparently I needed to lift the nose more in the flare, we were landing flat.
Second touch and go, we went for the grass runway again (NZMK has 2 parallel runways right next to eachother, one grass and one sealed). There is a hour just in front of the threshold (but also power lines aaah!!
) and I was thinking how cool it would be to live there (apart from the noise) 
. ANyway, we touched down, my instructor raised the flaps to 15 degrees, and I pushed the throttle forward. Because 02 Grass is particularly bumpy (rolling bumps, up & down, up & down), at 40 knots (20 below the usual liftoff speed) we hit a large one of these mounds, and lifted off very early. It was quite a scary feeling. We basically just had to bite the bullet and climb out anyway, so we were slower than usual climbing out.Next circuit. For some reason my instructor makes me use the grass again. We were very high, so my instructor showed me a wee trick with the flaps. She doesn't recommend this by the way, she just showed me what happens. The trick is to lower the flaps fully and trim, so you have a high rate of descent. If you need to get down just a few feet quicker, you can raise the flaps quickly. This decreases lift and lets you sink, but also gain airspeed. You can then put the flaps back down. It's a cool trick, but she DOES NOT endorse it, so neither do I really. Anyway, the same bounce thing happened on takeoff. We agreed to use the seal from now on.
Next circuit. BUMPH checks on downwind, and radio call. We'll do another touch and go and then a full stop to pay the landing fee. The approach was good (as always
) and I landed smoothly (I'm lifting the nose more now). Thankfully we don't get the mound effect on the bitumen.Time for the full stop. Everything went smoothly (but I braked a little late, no harm done), and we taxied to the club. We shut down and I paid the landing fee at the honesty box. I jumped back in and we started off again. We taxied to the end of 02 (seal thankfully
) and we took off. The tecnam can get off the ground pretty quickly. Anyway, we made the radio call as we were leaving and we cruised off home. In the training area west of Nelson, eastbound traffic use the inland route to NZNS and westbound traffic track the coast. We went inland, over the top of the instructors house, and called Nelson Towerfor joinin instructons. "RJE, remain clear of control zone" "Remain clear, RJE". WWWWWHHHHAAAT!!!?? We just sorta... turned round in the end and went back along the coast for a little bit. They called us about 5 minutes later and let us in, left base for 02. Sweet. I made a good landing and taxied back to the club.
Pretty cool flight really. When I got back inside, the CFI gave me a loaf of bread (!?!?!) and sent me home. The flight time was exactly one hour.
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