Pingpong in New Zealand

Todays Journey started with a dissapointment. I tried to activate vl for a roundtrip in New Zealand, but bot gave totally wrong and weird flight schedule times. Then I tried at least to start with a regular job and failed again. Bot could not find the destination. Ok - no problem. I still started from Wellington and headed a little backwards to Christchurch NZCH (for those who read my last blog I had to divert to Wellington because Christchurch was not available). I wanted to touch down at least once in Christchurch that's why I did a manual flight. This by the way is also not bad once in a while since you can define your own schedule and feel a little less under pressure. During this 160nm leg the sun started to rise over my left shoulder - just fantastic. Landing was regular ILS approach on Rwy 20 w/o any issues (slowly such procedures turn into automatism ;-).


So in Christchurch I turned around and activated VL. Oh wonderful - it works! and the times given by bot are also reasonable. As a conclusion I would say that Christchurch is the destination that confuses bot. All other FGL destinations on New Zealand seem to work.
According to vl I had to fly back to Wellington. Of course I knew the route and took the same way back. Meanwhile the sun was up and the day in NZ should start. Unfortunately again NZWN has no long enough runway to provide ATC services. But this did not bother me as I did the same approach w/o ATC last time. Everything went quite well.


Next leg was very short, only 78 nm (to NZOH, military airbase). So timing was critical. But I could quickly ascend to only FL10 and shortly after level off already start planning for landing. ATC activated 55nm out and vectored me on rwy 27 - worked very good.


The last and final leg for this day was also smooth (NZOH to Auckland NZAA). No major incidents.


Let me say and underline here again that flying during daylight is a lot more fun than during complete darkness. And to be honest, also a little more easy ;-)


Best regards and hula hopp, 
PT

Departure from Wellington (NZWN)

Made it to Christchurch

Wellington at day

Coastline in Auchland (close to NZAA)