Sunday Night Ops - 15th February 2009 - NZHN<-->NZWB&l

[Nick Johnston]

Sunday Night Ops for 15th February 2009 - Woodbourne (NZWB), Gisborne (NZGS), and Hamilton (NZHN)

 

The last of our series of February events exploring New Zealand's regional airports focuses our attention on Woodbourne (Blenheim) in sun-and-wine-soaked Marlborough. With mountainous terrain on three sides and the congested Cook Strait airspace on the other, flying and controlling Woodbourne is always a fun and challenging experience.

 

Meanwhile, hapless North Islanders are keen to check out cosmopolitan Blenheim for themselves and desperately need flights to-and-from Gisborne and Hamilton. These are two of the less-frequently-visited North Island towered airports on VATNZ which is reason enough for checking them out. The Gisborne routes follow the North Island's east coast, between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean surf. The Hamilton routes traverse the rugged wilderness of the King Country and Wanganui River area.

 

The weather forecast for Sunday night is currently quite unpleasant, especially over the North Island, so expect some welcome variation from the settled skies of the last few weeks.

 

Each leg should be around thirty-to-forty-five minutes depending on aircraft type, meaning you should able to fly the two return trips in less than three hours. People with less time available (or a slower aircraft) can simply fly from one of the northern centres to the other via Woodbourne or start earlier - ATC is typically on watch by around 6pm.

 

 

• Event Times: Sunday 15th February 2009 1900-2330 NZDT / 0600-1030 UTC / 1700-2130 AEDT
  
• Flight Time: approx. 2.5 - 3hrs to complete both return trips
  
• Flight Plan Route:
  NOTE: start the evening at ANY of the three airports
   
  Gisborne and Woodbourne
  NZGS/NZWB: GS H467 NR H297 OH H169 TR H472 WB
  NZWB/NZGS: WB H472 TR H388 PP H364 PM H467 GS
   
   
  Hamilton and Woodbourne
  NZHN/NZWB: HN H325 TM H247 WU H160 TR H472 WB
  NZWB/NZHN: WB H472 TR H412 OR H126 HN
   
   
  Click on the image below to view the preferred routings in the interactive airspace map:
   
  
   
   
  
• Airport Details: Woodbourne (Blenheim) Airport
  Likely arrival r/w 06: VOR/DME RWY 06
  Likely arrival r/w 24: VOR/DME RWY 24; or RNAV RWY 24
  Likely departure r/w 06: VALLEY ONE (VLY1)
  Likely departure r/w 24: SPRING ONE (SPG1); or VINES ONE (VINES1)
   
   
  
• Airport Details: Hamilton Airport
  Likely arrival r/w 18 - VOR/DME RWY 18; or RNAV RWY 18 (both via the BUDEN1 arrival)
  Likely arrival r/w 25 - VOR/DME RWY 36; or RNAV RWY 36 (both via the BUDEN1 arrival)
  Likely departure r/w 18: BUDEN ONE (BUDEN1)
  Likely departure r/w 36: TAYLA TWO (TAYLA2)
   
   
  
• Airport Details: Gisborne Airport
  Likely arrival r/w 14: VOR/DME RWY 14 or RNAV RWY 14 (via the RNAV ARRIVAL RWY 14)
  Likely arrival r/w 32: VOR/DME RWY 32 or RNAV RWY 32 (via the RNAV ARRIVAL RWY 32)
  Likely departures r/w 14: NICK ONE (NIC1)
  Likely departures r/w 32: CRAY ONE (CRA1)
   
   
  
• Charts/Airspace Info: Charts for all the procedures listed here are available by clicking on the airport links above.
  General Airspace information and details for all VATNZ airports available from the VATNZ Airspace Reference site.
   
   
   
  
• Priority ATC Positions:
  NZWB_TWR - Woodbourne Tower
  NZGS_TWR - Gisborne Tower
  NZHN_TWR - Hamilton Tower
  NZWN_APP - Wellington Control (provides APP Control at NZWB)
  NZOH_CTR/NZCH-A_CTR - Enroute Control
   
  Note: If you're providing ATC on the night, please give priority to these positions. They are not an exclusive list, but they are the ones that will see the most action this Sunday.
   
  To reserve a particular ATC position, please post a message to that effect (including the times you expect to be online) in this thread. If possible, also book your position using vroute - large numbers of bookings in vroute attract additional traffic.
   
   
  
• Late-comers/Shorter Alternative: Late-comers or people looking for a shorter flight should consider flying only one or two of the legs. Alternatively, flying a leg between Hamilton and Gisborne and converting the two return trips into one complete circuit will enable pilots to visit all the night's airports in approximately two hours. The goal is to concentrate as much traffic as possible - heading in multiple directions - above the Cook Strait/Marlborough region, and to keep the controllers at each tower busy.
   
   
  
• None of this week's airports has an ILS. For tips on how best to manage without one, be sure to check out this excellent Non Precision Approach tutorial from VATNZ member and real-world Air NZ flight crew, Steve Hall.

 

 

If you have any questions please feel free to email me, or reply to this thread.

 

 

Nick