A pilot's flying career is memorable because of its highlights. As the host of the recently completed Pilots' Tour of New Zealand, I was fortunate to add another to my list. A group of American pilots and I flew a gaggle of Cessna 172s from Queenstown on the South Island to the airport at Milford Sound, which is really a fjord. I had never made a flight that combined such spectacular beauty with such a challenging approach.
Flying in New Zealand requires some mental adjustment. This is where highs and lows swirl in the "wrong" direction, where sun and moon arc across the northern sky, where familiar constellations appear topsy-turvy, and where one looks south at the Southern Cross to find north. This is where a pilot does not enter or depart the traffic pattern; he joins or vacates the circuit. It is where switches are flipped up to turn lights off, and where doorknobs are turned in the opposite direction.
The only negative aspect of flying in New Zealand is user fees. There are plenty, and these should serve as fair warning about what could be headed our way. Airways Corporation is a privately operated, government-owned company that provides air traffic control services and is mandated to be self-sufficient, which means that pilots must pay for what they get.
Landing fees, for example, are charged everywhere and vary from $3 to $17 for an aircraft the size of a Cessna 172. (The fees apply only to full-stop landings, not touch-and-goes.) In addition, pilots must pay communications fees when they land at tower-controlled airports. These typically range from $5 to $6 per landing.
Ardmore Airport, near Auckland, is a general aviation facility and by far the busiest airport in New Zealand. The control tower there, however, is open only in the afternoon and evening. If the tower were to be open in the morning, landing fees would have to more than double to pay for the additional service. It is no wonder that local pilots refused the expanded service and suggested that the tower be closed altogether.
Airways Corporation also publishes and sells domestic aeronautical charts. You would think that they were works of art; a one-sided, sectional-style chart costs more than 10 Yankee dollars.
Fees also are charged for IFR services, but aircraft weighing less than 2,000 kg (4,400 pounds) are exempt. The good news is that New Zealand's air route traffic control center is reputedly the world's most modern.
While Airways Corporation picks a pilot's right pocket, the government picks his left with charges for an assortment of services. An application for a private pilot certificate, for example, must be accompanied by $33. Although none of the fees in New Zealand is individually outrageous, they add up and make flying there very expensive. Consider also that a Cessna 172 rents for $90 an hour.
New Zealand regulations are similar to ours with notable exceptions. For example, oxygen requirements begin above 10,000 feet. VFR weather minimums vary from one airport to the next and from day to night, depending on the hostility of local terrain. An air traffic control clearance is required to fly VFR above 10,000 feet.
One pleasant surprise is that the airspace in New Zealand is much like our own, largely because of the United States' adoption of the international, alphabetic airspace architecture. In New Zealand, however, charts continue to display their old airspace designations in order to make transitions to the new system easier for pilots. The United States could have accomplished the same convenience in the same manner by designating the charted boundaries of airspace with "B/TCA," "C/ARSA," and "D/ATA."
Because New Zealand is aligned north and south, cruise altitudes are 90 degrees out of phase with our hemispherical regulation. When an aircraft is on a northerly heading (270 to 089 degrees), an odd altitude (plus 500 feet) is used, and so forth. Kiwi pilots claim that this is as easy as following your NOSE (north, odd; south, even).
One new and logical regulation that might find its way to the United States was spearheaded by retired Air New Zealand Capt. Brian Souter, now a consultant to the Civil Aviation Authority. The new rule states that a pilot may not execute an IFR approach using GPS unless he is rated for the specific type of GPS being used. The regulation is deemed necessary because different GPS designs require such diverse and unrelated procedures.
A type-specific GPS rating requires completing a ground school program for the type of GPS to be used. The pilot also must pass a practical test during simulated instrument flight to demonstrate proficiency in using that type of GPS to construct and amend a flight plan, demonstrate ability to access data, set up and execute an instrument approach, execute a missed approach, and enter a holding pattern. These skills must be demonstrated without using other navaids.
Pilots not having the appropriate type-specific rating, however, may use their GPS for en route and terminal operations.
New Zealand offers a world of wonders over which a pilot can spread his wings. There I also saw what may be the world's most amusing notam: "Caution: Grass runway grazed by sheep. Runway surface greasy, even in dry weather. Braking action poor."
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