Mount Cook to Christchurch in a DeHavilland DHC-3 Super Otter on February 14, 2006

Mount Cook to Christchurch in a DeHavilland DHC-3 Super Otter

LivewireExpress flight 3847 is a one hour VFR flight that starts off at NZMC in Mount Cook, New Zealand and finishes at Christchurch International in Christchurch, New Zealand. There are 16 images in today's journal. It has been a long while since I last flew a VFR flight. I didn't realize how much I'd been missing.

Mount Cook is a stunningly beautiful place and I wish I could have taken a panorama shot. It'd be nice to go to work in a place like this, wouldn't it? Clouds were just floating by as I commenced start-up procedures. There was no one about at this uncontrolled airport besides our charter.

As there was no one around, I reported my intention to taxi down the runway so I could take-off heading east.

This is just moments after take-off from runway 13. Aside from the slight visibility issues taxiing in a tail-dragger, the Otter is so incredibly easy to fly. It lifted off the ground so gently and quickly that I wouldn't have even noticed without the sudden absence of the wheel noise.

Runway 13 aims straight for a mountain which I decided to skirt closely to it's right. VFR has some significant benefits: I quite enjoyed the freedom and the full complement of 11 passengers enjoyed the view.

The airport is now out of sight just around the mountain. Just east of the airport is a lake which extends around the south side of the mountain. I followed it's north bank for my initial climb.

I decided on a cruise altitude of 7,500 feet and I followed the recommended flight plan which heads pretty far east before turning towards the airport in the north. This added some nice flight time over the mountainous terrain, but made us 15 minutes late in the end.

Now at cruise altitude we continue east over the foothills. There was a significant crosswind during this part of the flight, our heading and flight route differed by a good 15-20 degrees.

Now turning north directly towards Christchurch, a few snow-capped mountains rise up out of the clouds below.

Heading north, the mountains again turn to foothills and the foothills turn to flatlands.

While descending from 7,500 feet, I contacted ATC for flight following and spotted this long bridge below.

As I neared Christchurch I contacted the tower and was given instructions to land on runway 20 right. So, I decided to swing around the east side of the airport to approach from the south. You can't do this in a 747! Again I enjoyed the freedom of VFR. That's a LivewireExpress 737 off my left wingtip, but we'll see him again later.

After heading north past the airport, we swung around to approach runway 20 from the north. Behind us, just to the northeast of the airport, are the urban areas of Christchurch.

While buffeted by winds throughout the flight, the landing had just a gentle nose wind and could not have been easier.

The calm of the easy landing was soon marred by what appears to have been a miscommunication with the ground controller. This Cessna would not even hold to the right so we had to do some off-roading. Fortunately, the bush plane Otter is more than comfortable off in the rough.

As we continued our taxi, we got to again see one of our bigger siblings in the LivewireExpress family, a Boeing 737-400, this time close-up.

Unsurprisingly, the airport was bustling with Air New Zealand activity. We parked at the gate, shutdown procedures were without incident, and the PAX were happy.

This flight generated $402.17 total revenue.
(PAX: 11 Economy Class)

I hope you all enjoyed!