FLYING FOR AIR NEW ZEALAND - Part one by Arthur Gatland

We return to Arthur Gatland’s aviation story and as the title above suggests, Arthur has left his military career behind and now embraces a new career as an airline pilot. His first role is on the much loved F27.

Over to you, Arthur.

Fokker F-27 Flying:

Arriving at this point in my career, having left my military years behind me, I had very few NZ pilot qualifications. My Air NZ Fokker F-27 Friendship conversion course commenced on 10th July 1979, in Christchurch. There was a lot to learn – but take it one module at a time and before you know it you have finished. At the same time, I hired a Cherokee and arranged an Instrument Rating flight test as previously explained! This was upgraded to a multi-engine instrument rating later in the F-27 flight simulator.

FOKKER F27-100 FRIENDSHIP ZK-BXE

After completing the F-27 course, including flight simulator training, we returned to Auckland, and I started line training. During line training we had an overnight stop in Wellington. In the morning I vividly remember my instructor, Don, quietly saying, “Did you hear that we lost a DC-10 on the ice yesterday.” This, of course, was the tragic Erebus Crash which claimed 257 lives and had an impact on all New Zealanders for years to come and involved several formal enquiries. Without revisiting the complex contributing factors, it is fair to say that from all accidents, lessons are learnt, and these are always used to improve air safety.

I spent six years as an F/O (First Officer) on the F-27, and I learnt a massive amount about airline flying during that time.

One flight stands out as being great fun (and good for Air NZ and passengers as well!) It involved a blend of gliding experience and standard airline operations. The flight was from Napier to Wellington, usually about a 50-minute flight for the F-27. It was the captain’s turn to fly this sector. There was a strong westerly wind across the country, producing “wave” activity over the Ruahine and Tararua Ranges with the tell-tale lenticular shaped clouds in a long line.

Typical lenticular wave clouds between Napier and Wellington

Glider pilots become quite excited when these appear.

As we prepared for take-off towards the south, I said to my Captain “Look at that line of wave clouds straight ahead! If we ask ATC (air traffic control) if we can maintain this heading, I bet we will get a great rate of climb in front of the wave cloud.” He liked the plan, but with no gliding experience himself, he said “How about you fly this sector?” Sure!

With ATC approval of course, we climbed straight ahead along the leading edge of cloud, and sure enough our rate of climb improved from around 1,500 to 3,500 ft/min. These wave clouds were unusually low, and when we were just above these clouds at 10,000 feet, we turned right 90 degrees and flew directly into wind, until we reached the leading edge of the primary wave cloud, then turned left to head south again.

I flew along the front of this cloud, where the air once again was rising, and it was typically incredibly smooth. With the help of the rising air, we were soon sitting at the F-27’s maximum permitted speed, with engines not much above idle, and still climbing. Instead of our planned altitude of 18,000 feet we gradually climbed to 23,000 feet, then it was time to turn right slightly, out of the wave, and descend into Wellington Airport. The result? We arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule, and only used 300kg of fuel instead of our planned 450kg, and it was silky smooth the whole flight.

Napier-Wellington F27 flight using gliding techniques.

How to save fuel and enjoy a smooth ride.

Like all airlines, Air NZ pilots visited the flight simulator regularly for on-going training and competency assessment to retain their pilot’s licence. These four-hour simulator details are part training and part testing and are always great value. There is also the opportunity to practice unusual manoeuvres and - put simply - to have fun.

At the end of one F-27 simulator detail I asked the instructor if I could try some aerobatics. I carried out a barrel roll then pulled up steeply to do a wingover, when the instructor suddenly hit the Flight Freeze button. I asked “Why did you do that?” to which he replied “Oh, I thought you had lost control.”  He admitted he had never done aerobatics in his flying career and didn’t recognise what I was doing. I was somewhat surprised, and further discussion suggested that he would have little idea how to recover from an unusual flight attitude. This made an impact on me and later when I became Senior Manager in charge of training and flight standards in Air NZ, I was determined to make sure all our pilots had basic knowledge in recovering a large aircraft from unusual attitudes.

After 6 years as a First Officer on the F-27, I spent one year on the B737, then back to the F-27 for my first airline command, with a short refresher course and command training. After three months on the F-27 I was appointed as a Flight Instructor. The responsibilities included flight simulator and aircraft training and checking, and pilot line training during passenger operations. It was interesting and rewarding, and the extra study ensured that your own knowledge and procedures were kept at a high level.

My first airline Command was enjoyable and, overall, everything went smoothly with no surprises. I can only recall one flight that presented a minor challenge. We had flown from Wellington to Rotorua, arriving around 9pm. The weather forecast was a bit marginal, so we had enough fuel for a second instrument approach then to divert to our alternate airport, Hamilton, which had a good forecast. We flew the first instrument approach at Rotorua but at minimum altitude we couldn’t see anything, so we tried another approach which had a lower minimum altitude but a small tailwind. Still nothing seen. OK, Hamilton it is.

After the short diversion flight - during which Hamilton Control mentioned that there was some ground fog forming - we flew an ILS approach for Runway 36. Again, nothing seen! Now we have a small problem, with 30 minutes fuel reserves and the nearest airport, Auckland, around 25 minutes away. As we started climbing and raised the landing gear, we popped out of the fog and I could just see the first 300 metres of the runway at the other end. So, it was landing gear down, a quick dumbbell turn at 500 feet, and landed rather quickly on the south-facing Runway 18. We touched down just before the 1000ft landing markers and rolled into the fog, which luckily was quite thin so we could see enough to keep straight, and to taxi to the terminal, quite relieved.

ZK-NAR B737-219 circa 1989. Note the retractable air stairs.

Ideal before airbridges and for Island flights.

Boeing 737 flying:

My 12 months as a co-pilot on the Boeing 737 commenced in February 1985. The conversion course was straightforward, followed by line training sectors with a Training Captain. The B737-200 was a lot of fun to fly.

In 1986 I was First Officer on a B737 flight from Wellington to Hamilton. It was a windy Wellington evening with a strong northerly wind of around 40 knots. As we were lining up on Runway 34 at Wellington for take-off, I suddenly saw a momentary flash of light to the south. “Did you see that?” I asked. The captain said he didn’t see anything. I said “I might be wrong but that looked like a distress flare, but I only saw it for a millisecond!” Feeling that I might be making a fool of myself, I reported the possible sighting to Air Traffic Control. We then took off for Hamilton, where we stayed overnight.

Next morning, we flew back to Wellington, where I had time to phone ATC. “Did anything come of my report yesterday?” The answer was YES – The Coastguard had despatched a boat to the south of Wellington Harbour entrance. About 10 miles offshore they found a small fishing boat with two men on board. Their engine had failed and they were rapidly drifting further away from shore in the strong wind. They fired their single distress flare, and I had been the only person to see it and report it!

My only flying excitement in the B737 occurred on a late night flight from Christchurch to Wellington. I was the flying pilot. We were descending overhead Cape Campbell towards Wellington, in heavy rain under ATC radar control. Passing around 6,000ft, I noticed the Radio Altimeter needle flickered and started unwinding, suggested we were around 2500ft above sea or terrain and descending rapidly.

Suddenly, I heard the dreaded “Whoop! Whoop! Pull Up!….Pull Up!”. With the skin prickling on our backs, without hesitation I pulled back on the controls and rapidly pushed the thrust levers to maximum power, and pulled the nose up to around 30° climb, with the Captain’s hands about 2 milliseconds behind me!

We called ATC to confirm our position – which was exactly where we should be – so we can only assume it was a spurious warning! One of cabin crew was walking up the aisle at the time and found herself on her knees with the g force and steep attitude. (Melissa here. Can you imagine what the passengers thought!) When the hostie found out the reason for such a sudden and radical manoeuvre, she would not accept my apologies, saying “you reacted exactly how we expect you to react!” I was happy that both the Captain and I had no hesitation in getting out of there and analyse what had happened later!  

Part Two drops on Wednesday!