The first big over-water leg - Kerikeri to Norfolk Island

As I've come to expect in Kerikeri it was raining when we were getting ready for our first overwater leg.  This made packing the aircraft a pain as you can't place anything on the wet ground or wing as you open the canopy, rearrange stuff inside and close the canopy again. Aside from the obvious equipment damage, water is to be minimised in the aircraft because as soon as the canopy is closed and the engine started everything steams up and you can't see where you're going.

Clearing customs was easy and only took a few minutes as we'd pre-prepared the necessary paperwork. The Customs Officer took photos of the aircraft (I guess so he knows we bring back the same ones) and chatted to us about our trip.

We had a delay in departing as I had to sort our a radio problem resulting from my headphone jacks getting wet. However, with that sorted we departed at 10:35am.

Enroute Air Traffic Control (ATC) only wanted to talk to one aircraft who would pass on position reports for all three. They gave us complex instructions on what we were to do after departure and a radio freq to report on which turned out not to be monitored.  After getting the aircraft setup in the cruise I, as "flight leader" spent about 30mins getting ETAs from Dave and Bill for the ELNOS and MUGEN reporting points and Norfolk Island and then passing them onto ATC.  By the time that was done Cape Reinga was sliding under the left wing.



Flying past the top of New Zealand - Cape Reinga Lighthouse just about to pass under the port wing

 

For a long time I had wondered how it would feel to fly north from New Zealand. Would there be second thoughts, fear or a calmness associated with "what will be will be"?  In reality it was none of those. Dave and Bill were ahead of me and approaching the ELNOS reporting point and I had to note down their times for that, the other reporting points and ETA for Norfolk Island.  To be honest the concern I felt for what I was about to tackle was when I rang Sharon and Mum from the motel before heading out to Kerikeri airfield.

Flying with others is great fun.  We chatted on the radio comparing heights and ground speeds, fuel consumption rates, cylinder head temperatures and a host of other inane things that would bore a non-pilot to tears. However, it passes the time and is interesting.  Dave's RV-8 has a True Airspeed (TAS) of 150kts, Bill's (RV-7) was slightly higher than that and my RV-6 has a 145kt TAS so they were slowly pulling away from me. However, we all landed at Norfolk Island within 10 mins of each other.

For the first half of the over-water leg there was cloud with a 2000' - 2500' base and lots of rain showers all around.  However, I didn't have to vary my track to dodge the showers and just watched them moving quite quickly all around me.  I would have preferred to fly higher but the strong quartering westerly wind would have too much impact on my ground speed.  Winds of 45kts dominated the flight and didn't abate until about 50nm from Norfolk.

Inbound to Norfolk Island were two commercial airliners and the three of us.  Norfolk doesn't have ATC and only has a UNICOM service who aren't allowed to do much more than advise you of local weather and runway conditions, other traffic and terminate flight plans.  All aircraft were arriving within about 20mins of each other so it was up to us to sequence our arrival with the big guys.

Prior to leaving New Zealand we had got some Top Of Descent spray. This is an insecticide that is inserted into an airliner's air conditioning system as you approach into an international airport to kill all the creepy crawlies before they get a free ride to another country.  About 10nm from Norfolk I dutifully gave my aircraft a liberal spray of the stuff. Bill told us later he discharged the whole can and nearly died of asphyxiation.



Approaching Norfolk Island

 

Norfolk Island airport is beautiful. Big wide smooth runways and manicured grass and a lovely small terminal. As our aircraft pulled up we had to show that we'd done our own Top Of Descent spraying and we were then allowed to open the canopy.

Again clearing Customs was too easy. While all the passengers from the inbound commercial flights queued for Customs, we were taken out the back and quickly cleared. I think that's what they do for royalty.



Safely on the ground at Norfolk Island