Blog – Cross Country 23/12/2023 - © Walshe Photography

Blog – Cross Country 23/12/2023 (MS-CP-FT-MS)

Today we had beautiful weather for flying. As it is so close to Christmas, my FI asked if I wanted to do something a “little bit different” and fly a cross country route? You bet!

First things first: We need to plan our route.

Our planned route was Masterton, Castlepoint, Flat Point, and back to Masterton. A trip of about 1 hour.

We planned our track on the map with intermediate waypoints for each leg and the approximate time we would be over them. We also worked our fuel burn and wind. All good stuff that I trained on during ground school.

Once we had all this planned out I confirmed we had sufficient fuel and that the aircraft was ready to fly.

After take-off from Masterton, we climbed to 3000ft and headed out on our first leg towards Castlepoint. Castlepoint is a small township on the coast about 20mins flying time from Masterton. Flying over Castlepoint is awesome as the town is very picturesque with a prominent lighthouse on the point itself. More info on Castlepoint can be read here.

At this point we turned right and commenced flying down the coast towards Flat Point. Flat Point is a prominent landmark around 20mins flying time along the coast with some housing and a grass strip if needed. More info on Flat Point can be read here.

Half way to Flat Point is Riversdale Beach so I chose that as another waypoint to check our progress and fuel burn.

The weather remained outstanding along the coast and I was really enjoying the flight. This is what I will be doing with family an friends once qualified so it was a great motivator.

At Flat Point we again turned right and headed towards Masterton and the airfield.

Incoming to Masterton, I made a radio all over “The Ponds” and did a nice overhead join to land on runway 06.

What a awesome flight! Beautiful weather and smooth flying. Fantastic!

Until next time…..

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Blog – Cross Country 23/12/2023